Premier won't give threshold for change in electoral reform plebiscite

While a referendum is binding on government, results of a plebiscite are not.

And it looks as though Islanders will vote in the upcoming plebiscite on electoral reform without knowing what government intends to do with the results or whether there's a threshold of support above which Premier Wade MacLauchlan will consider changes to P.E.I.'s electoral system.

CBC News has asked onseveral occasionsto speak with the premier on this issue, and received this written response from the premier's acting communications director: "There will be opportunity for the results of the plebiscite to be fully discussed in the upcoming sitting of the legislature."

The fall sitting of the legislature begins Nov. 15. The ten-day plebiscite on electoral reform will wrap up Nov. 7. with results beingannounced on the 8th.

In a further response from the premier's office, CBC News was told, "we'll wait to see what Islanders have to say in the plebiscite."

After this story was first published, the premier's communications director did provide a statement from MacLauchlan on the matter.

"In the 2005 plebiscite, Premier Binns prescribed minimum standards regarding the results prior to the vote. This was not well-received. I do not intend to pursue a similar path," he said.

"The main point in the plebiscite is for Prince Edward Islanders to participate and express their views on the five options presented on the ranked ballot. It will then be for the Legislative Assembly to give full and fair consideration to the results."

Set down terms, says Bevan-Baker

Green Party leader Peter Bevan-Baker said the premier should let Islanders know ahead of time what voter turnout will be required, and what level of support for one of the five options is neededfor government to enact changes "so that we can hold them to account for something."

Bevan-Baker was one of five MLAs appointed by the premier to a special committee to study electoral reform.

"It would be much easier for the government to take whatever they want from this and spin it anyway they like if they haven't said before the results come out what they will do with them," he said.

"We know it's a plebiscite, they're not going to be bound by this. But it would be nice to know beforehand what it would require for the government to feel compelled to go forward with the wishes of Islanders."

Bevan-Baker is suggesting majority support for any one of the options to change the electoral system, together with voter turnout of at least 50 per cent, should be enough to compel government to act.

2005 plebiscite had high threshold

In the weeks leading up to P.E.I.'s 2005 plebiscite on electoral reform, then-premier Pat Binns laid out the conditions under which his government would consider making changes to the province's electoral system.

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He said 60 per cent of Islanders would have to vote in favour of changing the system. He also said the option for change would have to receive majority support in 16 of the Island's 27 electoral districts. No threshold for voter turnout was set.

Proponents for electoral reform were dismayed, feeling the bar was set deliberately high. Even retired justice Norman Carruthers, who had led the province's Electoral Reform Commission, said the threshold was too high.

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