Author Topic: Government Day-to-Day  (Read 53222 times)

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Offline Queefer Sutherland

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Re: Government Day-to-Day
« Reply #885 on: November 23, 2020, 07:14:10 pm »
I forgot my link. It sums up how I feel:

https://reviewcanada.ca/magazine/2017/05/why-trudeau-abandoned-electoral-reform/

From that link:

It was incontestably part of the Liberal platform in 2015. Liberal leader Justin Trudeau solemnly pledged to change the electoral system so that the next election, presumably in 2019, would be decided by a new way to count votes. The Special Committee on Electoral Reform was created in the spring of 2016, and it delivered its report in December. It proposed two things. The first was that Canada replace its traditional system of voting (the ­single-member plurality system known widely as the first-past-the-post model) with a proportional system of representation (where seats in the House of Commons would be allocated according to the proportion of votes each party received). Second, it recommended that the idea be put to a referendum.

Both notions were poisonous to the Liberals, and Trudeau abandoned the commitment. For one, he had consistently said that he did not want to go to the people. That position was surprising, since British Columbia had done it twice, as had Ontario and Prince Edward Island. (The United Kingdom, New Zealand and the Australian Capital Territory also put their electoral reforms to the people.) Prince Edward Island even held a second referendum in October 2016 while the issue was being debated in Ottawa.

Just as importantly, the Liberals certainly did not want a proportional system. It was never clear what Trudeau expected. There were indications that he was favourable to the idea of ranked ballots—the system whereby voters choose their favourites in descending order. It took little time for experts to predict, using past results and some imagination, that under such a system the Liberals would be guaranteed a place in government forever. It was a non-starter for the majority of non-Liberals on the committee.
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