The BC Liberals are pledging to push back against a proportional representation referendum result if the province tries to rewrite the rules of democracy based on a small fraction of votes.

In an email to supporters the party says “If John Horgan and Andrew Weaver try to use the votes of a small number of British Columbians to rewrite the rules of our democracy for their own political gain – we won’t let them get away with it. We will push back with every tool available to us.”

Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson was asked what the party means by “push back” should proportional representation win the referendum.

But he wouldn’t provide any specifics.

“Well we have to see the regional distribution of the votes. We will have to see which of the systems gets chosen if PR does prevail in this referendum. We will have to see how many spoiled ballots there are. God forbid a quarter of the ballots are spoiled that is a real problem. We will see how all of that turns out. I do not want to jump the gun. We will see what the landscape will look like when the results come out.”

Wilkinson says if PR wins then it is possible as little as ten-percent of voters in the province will select the winning one of three Pro-Rep options, and that is an issue.

“Here we have got the NDP setting themselves up to have 10% of the population tell us how to live.”

However the leader of the BC Green Party finds it very troubling the BC Liberals would threaten to push back against the will of the people.

Andrew Weaver says Andrew Wilkinson is not being honest about why he would oppose Pro-Rep winning the day saying he is instead worried about his own party’s survival.

Weaver notes the BC Liberals are made up of a coalition of federal Liberals and Conservatives.

“What he is really worried about is his party splitting off into two. In British Columbia we don’t really have a vibrant BC Conservative Party. We have members but they don’t get 5% of the vote and they don’t have any MLAs. I frankly think it would be very healthy for our democracy if there was a BC Conservative Party. I think that we need to have that voice in the Legislature.”

Weaver says the Liberals need to respect the will of the people.

“Frankly I think he should respect the results of the referendum and move on rather than continue with his sour grapes approach.”

Elections BC will announce the result at 2:30 this afternoon and Radio NL will carry it live followed by reaction and analysis on NL Newsday with Brett Mineer.