I've given the matter some thought an my conclusion is that there are a lot of 'true believers' that simply aren't democrats anymore.  They've seen too many of the 'wrong type' of governments elected and have come to the conclusion that people are generally ignorant, unintelligent, immoral, apathetic or some combination of all four.  They believe they are saving the peopel from themselves.  The power brokers know best and a patina of democracy will suffice to keep people content.  I have a certain level of sympathy for their lack of faith in people because there are an awful lot of uninformed, apathetic people out there.  Fundamentally, though, I believe that democracy cannot be a spectator sport.  If it is, it will wither away. 

I should qualify all of this by saying I don't know Bill Tieleman so I'm not applying this characterization to him personally.  Rather, this is an impression I'm getting from reading stuff by and talking to a lot of different people.  His actions do seem to fit the profile, though.

I firmly believe that STV is right for BC.  We're an independent-minded lot and the ability to vote past and through parties meshes well with an independent view.

I really, believe, though, that if BC-STV goes down, it could jeopardize PR movements across Canada for some time to come.  And that would be tragic.  PR is very important to democracy in BC but I think that Canada needs PR to survive.  FPTP accentuates regionalism and favours region-centric parties.  The Bloc Quebecois gets way more seats than it would under PR.  How long will it be until another province-centred party appears, maybe in Alberta?  If that happened BC probably wouldn't be far behind.