Liberals in British Columbia, Quebec and Ontario campaigned successfully in each of these provinces with commitments to electoral reform.

[2] In 2004, the Law Commission of Canada published an influential report on electoral reform, with a strong recommendation in favour of a mixed member proportional (MMP) system.

[1] The Liberal government of Premier Gordon Campbell had campaigned in favour of electoral reform in 2001, and was under pressure to deliver.

The following indicates some of the key events leading up to the referendum: The current electoral system in BC is first-past-the-post (FPTP).

The proposed electoral system is a customized version of single transferable vote (STV) called BC-STV.

The STV model proposed by the Assembly avoided the use of party lists, which they felt would be unpopular with British Columbians.

A multiple-step vote counting and transfer process is then used to determine the winners of the remaining seats in the district, based on voters' alternate preferences.

Some high-profile media and columnists eventually endorsed the STV proposal, based on the case put forward by the Citizen's Assembly but many others remained opposed.

In order to protect the neutrality of its role, Elections BC did not provide information on the Citizens' Assembly proposal in comparison to the FPTP system.

An unfortunate hiccup flagged by Dennis Pilon 2010: 78) is that the brochures distributed to each household by the Referendum Information Office resembled newspaper advertising inserts and were likely discarded unopened by most voters.

It included members of the former Citizen's Assembly, activists from Fair Vote Canada and a number of academics and celebrity supporters.

The No side, calling itself KNOW-STV included a few former politicians, backroom operatives from the Liberal and NDP parties, and two former members of the Citizen's Assembly (Pilon 2010: 78).

The NDP and its leader Carole James were also critical of the proposed STV model while refusing to make it a campaign issue.

Even though the BC NDP had committed to adopt proportional representation in 1999, they claimed to prefer a different model and the party was deeply split on the issue in general.

Indeed, the government imposition of a supermajority requirement for the referendum to be binding was widely seen as a concession to members of the Liberal caucus opposed to reform.

Although polls conducted in April and May indicated more support for the proposal than against it, the number of undecided voters remained high, and there was an expectation that "a bewildered public would simply vote it down on election day" as can typically happen (Pilon 2010: 80).

Post-referendum research and analysis pointed to the ineffectiveness of public education efforts, of the YES-STV and KNOW-STV campaigns, and of the media to act as "effective grassroots indicators" (Pilon 2010: 81).

Meanwhile, the referendum campaign received limited media attention, as both major parties were officially neutral on the proposed change.

Just days before the referendum, two thirds of British Columbians admitted to knowing "nothing/very little" about the proposed STV system (Pilon 2010: 77 and 79).

The public itself was quite divided; and some in the electoral reform community expressed concern that the Legislature might impose a "watered-down" or partisan-inspired system in lieu of the STV model.

However, the Premier later issued a statement, on April 27, 2006[permanent dead link‍], indicating that the date of the referendum would be postponed until May 2009 to coincide with the next provincial election.