To the Editor,
The much-vaunted and highly-anticipated televised Leaders Debate on Proportional Representation (PR) on Nov. 8 was touted as a way to bring the electorate up to speed on three options being offered by the BC NDP government in the PR referendum. Sadly, it turned out to be the exact opposite, as despite BC Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson asking over and over and over for NDP leader John Horgan to explain those options, none were forthcoming.
In fact, the NDP leader muddied the waters even more, by resorting to what is possibly millennial-speak when he said at one point : “If you were woke you would know that pro rep is lit.” There are many voters who wouldn’t understand this use of modern slang language, but later on when he admonished his opponent to embrace electoral reform and “be hip”, some older viewers probably realized he wasn’t talking about a hip replacement.
Anyone expecting some transparency was obviously left wanting, as history repeated itself with Horgan sounding like former US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld trying to avoid answering questions in 2003. When quizzed about the Iraq Attack, he infamously said: “There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things we know that we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. These are things we don’t know we don’t know”.
Rumsfeld’s ramblings perfectly summed up what the NDP leader had to say about PR, which is probably stands for ‘pathetic rhetoric.’
Bernie Smith,
Parksville