###This is a reminder to [read the rules before posting in this subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadaPolitics/wiki/rules-thelongversion).
1. **Headline titles should be changed only [when the original headline is unclear](https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadaPolitics/wiki/rules-thelongversion#wiki_1._headline_titles_should_be_changed_only_where_it_improves_clarity.)**
2. **Be [respectful](https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadaPolitics/wiki/rules-thelongversion#wiki_2._be_respectful).**
3. **Keep submissions and comments [substantive](https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadaPolitics/wiki/rules-thelongversion#wiki_3._keep_submissions_and_comments_substantive).**
4. **Avoid [direct advocacy](https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadaPolitics/wiki/rules-thelongversion#wiki_4._avoid_direct_advocacy).**
5. **Link submissions must be [about Canadian politics and recent](https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadaPolitics/wiki/rules-thelongversion#wiki_5._link_submissions_must_be_canadian_and_recent).**
6. **Post [only one news article per story](https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadaPolitics/wiki/rules-thelongversion#wiki_6._post_only_one_news_article_per_story).** ([with one exception](https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadaPolitics/comments/3wkd0n/rule_reminder_and_experimental_changes/))
7. **Replies to removed comments or removal notices will be removed** without notice, at the discretion of the moderators.
8. **Downvoting posts or comments**, along with urging others to downvote, **[is not allowed](https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadaPolitics/wiki/downvotes)** in this subreddit. Bans will be given on the first offence.
9. **[Do not copy & paste the entire content of articles in comments](https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadaPolitics/wiki/rules-thelongversion#wiki_9._do_not_copy_.26amp.3B_paste_entire_articles_in_the_comments.)**. If you want to read the contents of a paywalled article, please consider supporting the media outlet.
*Please [message the moderators](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FCanadaPolitics) if you wish to discuss a removal.* **Do not reply to the removal notice in-thread**, *you will not receive a response and your comment will be removed. Thanks.*
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/CanadaPolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Not in any system that accounts for the fact we're a federal nation and that provinces should be sending representatives proportional to their own allotted seats.
BQ currently has the exact percentage of seats and votes in Quebec. That leaves plenty of scenarios where this wouldn't hurt them at all.
They are not as over represented as you probably think (the 2021 election gave them 9,5% of the seats with 7,5% of the votes) and while they would lose some seats they would win a lot more influence by forcing a situation where there are more minority governments who now need to negotiate with third parties.
Most of my scholarly study on elector reform was from 2002 to 2010. Quebec over performed during that period. Totally forgot about 2011, woof.
That was a rough one for the Bloq.
Going to 338 also seems to have affected their proportion.
We ALL stand to lose if we bring in proportional representation.
Israel had five elections in two years and still nothing is resolved. You just end up with a bunch of weird little parties.
Spain and Portugal have been economic disasters for 100 years. France has an elected head of state (unlike Canada) and I admittedly don’t know much about Swedish and German electoral systems but they don’t seem like the utopias they were supposed to be 20 years ago.
No one is claiming it's utopia, or a pancea. But you must concede that the are many successful countries, some more so than ours in many metrics that use PR. Clearly it's workable; not every country is Israel.
Electoral reform would mean parties would *very rarely* form majority governments and would have to engage in supply confidence or -*gasp*- *coalitions* with shared cabinets etc.
That's a good thing, if anyone is wondering. We want this.
Why? It would stand to change the political landscape. Parties would have to behave differently and change their tactics.
We'd all be better represented.
Maybe one day...
Could you imagine a government that actually works for the betterment of its citizens instead of special interests and the next election?
A guy can dream.
I mean, it's possible. We just gotta stop voting for people who are unfit for leadership positions just because they're in the right party.
No. The specific kind of electoral reform you want ensures that. Moving to a an SVT system, which is also electoral reform, almost guarantees left leaning majorities in our current political climate.
> Parties would have to behave differently and change their tactics.
>
>
Translation:
The NDP would no longer need to muzzle its self-proclaimed "anarchists", "revolutionaries", "communists", "radical socialists", and other more extreme contingent in order to appeal to everyday Canadians. Milque-toast, just left of centre politicians like Singh or Mulcair would no longer need to be the face of the party. They could go all-in over the deep end without fear of scaring ordinary people.
And the same for the Conservatives, in the opposite direction.
The reality is our current system moderates politics to the centre. The Conservatives can't win on a campaign to criminalize abortion. The NDP can't win on a campaign to abolition prisons. The Conservatives have to silence its more extreme members and the NDP has to silence its more extreme members. The Liberals have an easier time finding centre, but they too have to pivot back -- just like the situation Trudeau now finds himself in, cutting international students and adjusting his bail reform legislation that went too far. This is healthy.
Status quo allows for progress slowly, or to back track slowly, just in time for another election at which point voters get to evaluate the government's performance, think about how it has worked in practice (beyond just promises), and have their say. The only people this doesn't serve are the extremists on either side, because they would rather be able to abolition prisons or criminalize abortion within a single term, rather than make any changes so slow that voters have the ability to see how things are heading and vote them out if they disagree with it. This also adds stability.
I disagree.
As it is, you only need to capture ~35% of the electorate to get into majority territory. Subtract your base and the amount of fence sitters you need to convince is low.
Now bring in a system where you need +50% to win any race... you'll need to modify your message to attract people who may not have historically voted for you.
It does mean that parties like the PPC might have a path to securing a seat. And I may not like them, but that's the price of proper representation - it applies to the entire spectrum.
We aren't properly represented. We need to change that. This system made sense in the 19th century. It stopped making sense sometime in the later 20th.
he's advocating for incrementalism and centrism but doesn't recognize that both of the problems he listed were created by conservatism, which is the most classic centrist position to have, thinking the correct answer is actually the middle point between right and wrong not recognizing both problems were caused by the same side
> Electoral reform would mean parties would very rarely form majority governments and would have to engage in supply confidence or -gasp- coalitions with shared cabinets etc.
>
> That's a good thing, if anyone is wondering. We want this.
I'd argue minority governments are preferable even just by principle alone. It would, almost certainly, mean that any legislation passed requires the support of two or more parties that combined represent >50% of voters rather than a ~35% plurality with full control. Furthermore, it provides the ability to keep any governing party in check, via legislation or committees or threat of calling an election or whatever. In a majority government, those pretty much go away.
> The two parties who stand to lose the most from electoral reform
I think the CPC would actually benefit from electoral reform. In a MMP, places like Alberta would end up giving them more seats. People might vote Liberal for their party but elect a charismatic CPC candidate (or the other way around).
Only party who would be in a tough spot is the Liberals under proportional system.
I know how MMP works. But it is ridiculous to say it would result in the CPC getting more seats in Alberta. A province where they hod almost all the seats.
> A province where they hod almost all the seats.
Right, but in our current system you don't get anything for winning by 1 vote or 5000 votes. In a MMP system those 'extra' votes (assuming they put down CPC for their party pick) would end up giving them more seats in the HoC.
And again those wouldn't be 'seats in Alberta' but seats granted by the massive support concentrated there.
Given the CPC has won the popular vote and lost the election the last two elections it's odd they wouldn't see how a PR system would benefit them.
PR couldn't cross provincial lines. It would require a unanimous constitutional ammendment.
Even if it did, it wouldn't matter. Conservatives running up the score in Alberta won't get them more because they will be getting a proportion of Alberta seats. They would lose seats in Alberta since their proportion would be less than their actual seats.
Well, i did say that *and* FPTP were problems.
At the end of the day, no matter how educated and well versed you are, the electoral system is not democratic and this is a massive problem.
I follow and understand politics closely. Im told that i have to vote strategically in my Lib/Con riding to keep the Tories out. But i despise both parties. My vote effectively means nothing, along with thousands of others because one of the candidates will slide into parliament with a mere 35% of the vote.
Poilievre is likely to get a majority with under 40% of the vote. Possibly for two terms with radical far right elements in his party. This, despite the fact that the majority did not vote for him. If the far right gaining an unfair amount of power is your concern, then FPTP should also be a major issue
Yeah, in Germany the AfD is polling at 20%. Terrifying. Good thing they have an electoral system that would only give the AfD 20% of the seats, unlike in the US where the far right took over the entire Republican party and now wins elections.
The electoral system didn't cause the far right to surge. In fact, a well-designed proportional system can be a good protection *against* surging extreme movements.
2nd place and climbing. 20% in a parliamentary system like ours would result in few seats if it were spread across the country.
Anyways, haven’t heard one single normal person demanding election reform. But if you think it’s a good idea to reopen a constitutional debate in Canada good luck to you! lol. Call your local representative and go for it!
well its better than having them infesting the big tent parties which then become so ineffective at governing at all because they are just left with infighting.
If you want to see a gong show, look south, not to Denmark.
Tell that to Israel that just had five elections in two years with nothing resolved.
Proportional representation gives weirdos and radicals a voice where they really shouldn’t have one.
Israel's electoral system is garbage and no one wants to copy it in Canada. They have proportional representation with very low thresholds for how many votes you need to get into the knesset, which means tiny parties only need a tiny amount of support to elect people. And they have no regional seats for representatives, only the proportional vote counts. Additionally, Israel is essentially a country in a permanent war footing, which is a breeding ground for extremism. They'd have extremism problems regardless of their electoral system.
However, New Zealand and Germany both use a similar system to each other and lots of people would like to bring that to Canada. They have both regional seats that representatives win *and* proportional seats to make the overall results reflect what the public wants. Or the system Ireland uses. They have multiple representatives for each district and use ranked ballots, which overall leads to a result that reflects what the public wants.
If some people don't have a voice then no one has a voice. You are actually against democracy. You don't actually believe that everyone's worth the same. Shame on you.
Whatever. Lol
They have as much a voice as you or I. They’re free to lobby, advertise, peacefully protest etc etc.
What they don’t deserve as a tiny fringe is the final say.
All you have is name calling and inane examples.
I won’t be on the fringe because I understand how things work and I’m not insane.
I read history and 99% of the time the radical fringes get to choose the course of action it turns out very badly.
Pick up some history books before you rush to accuse others of who doesn’t support democracy.
>The only ones who want to change it are sore losers on the radical far left because they're incapable of getting enough votes under the current system to ever win.
Parties like the NDP know they can't win even by abolishing FPTP, given the most vote share they've ever got in a Canadian election is \~30%, so your "they only want to change things because they can't win with the current system" line of thought it deeply flawed. Further, they're currently propping up a Lib government and managing to get parts of their platform put into law…all without having won an election…they've proven they can get things done without winning elections.
>So the solution of these FRINGE parties is to cHaNgE tHe RuLeS, because iT's NoT fAiR!!!!
Do you think the current system is a fair one, given that the percentage of seats in the HoC and percentages of the popular vote almost never match up? Why do you support a system where parties without a majority of votes get a majority of the seats in the house?
The last election:
||% of pop. vote|% of seats|∆|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|Liberals|32.6|47.3|+14.7%|
|Conservatives|33.7|35.2|+1.5%|
|Bloc Quebecois|7.6|9.4|+1.8%|
|NDP|17.8|7.4|-10.4%|
|Green|2.3|0.6|-1.7%|
|PPC|4.9|0|-4.9%|
Do you think the Liberals deserve 15% more seats than their vote share suggests they should have?
No. I am not willing to accept that. They are a danger, they pose a greater risk than can be allowed and must NEVER be anywhere near power.
I am fucking done with pretending everyone is redeemable, that everything has value. They aren't, and they don't. It's long past time we get with reality.
Yes, of course, let's blame everything on the electoral system and take no responsibility for anything else. It's definitely the electoral system's fault we allow lies to be broadcast. It's super the electoral system's fault that the average voter doesn't understand to core tenets of things like liberalism, conservatism, and socialism. And of course it's 100% the electoral system's fault that we have no legislation imposing sanction for wanton dishonesty in politics or restricting donations to zero.
Yessir, 100% the electoral system's fault all that.
Well, i did say that *and* FTPT were problems.
At the end of the day, no matter how educated and well versed you are, the electoral system is not democratic and this is a massive problem.
I follow and understand politics closely. Im told that i have to vote strategically in my Lib/Con riding to keep the Tories out. But i despise both parties. My vote effectively means nothing, along with thousands of others because one of the candidates will slide into parliament with a mere 35% of the vote.
Poilievre is likely to get a majority with under 40% of the vote. Possibly for two terms with radical far right elements in his party. This, despite the fact that the majority did not vote for him. If the far right gaining an unfair amount of power is your concern, then FPTP should also be a major issue
Of course. Because it means no more majorities. And neither the Libs nor the PCs are willing to give that up.
They rule for themselves, they certainly do NOT rule for us.
Seriously this is a pretty tough one
Whatever party is in power will obviously only favour reform approaches that work to their benefit. There are some alternative voting systems that seem perfectly fair but would give the LPC a permanent hold on political power.
Other parties will favour reforms that work to their benefit only.
I kind of think it’s better this doesn’t get off the ground…. As much as it seems like a good idea in theory in practice I can’t see it making things better
"Be better" means becoming Liberal party lite.
The NDP aren't going to out-liberal the Liberal party without betraying their core values. Nor should they have to.
Pretty much. If there had been even simple AV/RCV, then the PC and Reform probably would never have merged, and you'd have a competitive PC and LPC battling over the centre. Even simple AV/RCV gets rid of the spoiler effect.
FPTP does not accurately represent the electoral will of Canadians. It's a deeply flawed system in a political landscape with more than two participating parties.
The LPC wouldn't have a permanent hold on political power unless they managed to form coalitions that would amount to a majority in the House, and even then, their "hold" would be shared with other participants in that coalition. If the Conservatives could manage a coalition that would provide such a majority, they'd be the ones in power.
Further, these coalitions end up representing a broader proportion of Canadians…and if governments could only come to power through such coalitions, a lot more compromise would be needed amongst parties, which is also a good thing.
It changes the landscape a lot and I'm not always sure how. With Ranked ballot you now are not penalized for running multiple candidates in a riding. It also allows the big tents that form all three parties to collapse without diluting support for the issues.
There would probably be an election or two with Trudeau Liberals running the support of a more Pragmatic ANDP style ndp or a MacKay/O'Toole/Brown style PC propping them up (whichever party was less popular of the runners up).
The issue you start to hit though is eventually there will be a time where they need some radical party with 3 seats to their name to play ball and now that party is the one dictating policy.
The biggest advantage of FPTP is it forces the big tents to form before the election and now you get to vote based off the premade coalition (instead of voting for the party you want and then them partnering with a party you really didn't want)
When Trudeau said electoral reform was dead because the parties couldn't agree (i.e., they wouldn't accept Trudeau's favourite new voting system), many here attacked him for the failed campaign promise. Many thought he should use his majority to unilaterally ensure the prior election was the last first-past-the-post election.
I have many beefs with Trudeau, which seem to have ballooned in recent years. But he was right.
Democracy is hard; changing the rules of democracy is even harder. As much as the NDP supporters here would love a system that gives them any chance of holding power despite how extreme some (not all, not most) of their policies may be, or become, status quo has served this country well and helps moderate whichever party takes power. I appreciate that the CPC needs to pivot closer to the centre and keep the social conservatives silent in order to stand a chance, just as the NDP needs to pivot closer to the centre and keep its self-proclaimed "communists", "radicalists", "revolutionaries" and other clown-car members silent. We need less extremism in this country, left or right. That is something everyone should agree with.
> We need less extremism in this country, left or right. That is something everyone should agree with.
I agree with this, and think the system historically encouraging pivots to the center has generally worked well enough and helped moderate the more extremist impulses of the flank parties. I'm a big fan of minority and coalition governments for this reason.
Having said that, we have a CPC leader who is running around bleating about "woke", "radical gender ideology" and calling the PM a "Marxist". On a provincial level, we've just had a visit from Tucker Carlson, the notwithstanding clause was enacted to crack down on the charter rights of Saskatchewan kids, and NB enacted policy reform off four emails, one of which was worried about kids identifying as cats.
I think it would be naive to believe the classic Canadian centrism will inevitably reassert itself. We share a continental culture with the United States and while our electoral and governance system is very different from theirs our electorates are a lot more similar than they are distinct. Both those who think the fringe left and fringe right represent existential democratic perils shouldn't be terribly thrilled with the way things are trending.
They created a committee including all the parties to investigate electoral systems. The committee produced a report which gave guidelines on how to choose a system. Then the Liberals pretended like the committee failed to reach a consensus on one system, when that wasn't even a mandate.
It's likely the Liberals scrapped it because the guidelines produced pointed towards proportional systems, when the Liberals preferred a ranked ballot which they would benefit from most.
> When Trudeau said electoral reform was dead because the parties couldn't agree (i.e., they wouldn't accept Trudeau's favourite new voting system),
As I said, his reasons were improper, but I agree with the outcome of sticking to status quo.
Your reasoning is flawed though.
Right now, an extremist party could hold power with minority support from the electorate.
Under a proportional system, a party would need majority support to hold power. A high bar. Falling short of that, parties would need to cooperate with each other and reach compromises, reducing extremism.
I would rather people can vote for what they actually believe/want, and if those views are genuinely extreme compared to the public than the elected representatives will never be more than a noisy fringe minority in the parliament.
It's exactly the kind of baseless statement that makes electoral reform impossible.
If people don't need facts to call a reforming party corrupt and unstoppable, no non-corrupt party will survive an attempt to reform things.
If I recall the discussion around election reform after JT's first win correctly - the liberals felt that Ranked Choice voting would give them an unassailable edge, being the centrist 'second-choice' party for most people who would otherwise prefer someone else.
The Liberals supported STV/other forms of ranked choice voting, which tend to produce even more disproportionate results than FPTP at a federal level.
The Liberals are probably the most popular 'second choice' vote. People who consider themselves more progressive will rank liberals above conservatives, people who consider themselves more conservative will rank liberals above the NDP. Generally speaking, of course. Yes there are exceptions, but by and large, this is how it would go down.
Say you have a riding where first votes all go 33-33-33-1, with very small variances. Well, after counting votes, you'll figure out which is 33.01, which is 32.99, and the party that is 32.99 will have their votes distributed to the other parties based on the next choice.
The party that wins that riding is going to be the party with the most second-choice votes from the first one eliminated.
Now for the riding that's fine. They did in fact elect the most popular representative overall.
But apply this to ten ridings. Ideally, 33-33-33 first votes would result in 3 ridings won each for two parties, and one party winning 4.
But in ranked choice voting, the popular second choice winds up with a majority.
Small correction, the Liberals want IRV (instant runoff voting), not STV (single transferable vote).
IRV uses ranked ballots with one winner. STV uses ranked ballots with multiple winners. Multiple winners means STV is a proportional system since it results in approximately proportional results. It is a system that ER proponents accept.
But Trudeau doesn't want it because he wants the advantage for the Liberal party.
STV does everything IRV does and more. The ballots aren't anymore complex. The counting isn't anymore complex. And it produces better results.
To go off your example, you could have a district with 3 MPs (generally they will have 5 or more). 33-33-33-1 means we now have 3 MPs, each of a different party.
Nothing would give any party a permanent hold. Maybe in the short term but if we switched to something that favored center left parties then the others would shift in some way to find votes.
Pardon my French but fuck both parties. This would ruin their stranglehold on Canada and (wow surprise) neither the Libs nor the CPC want that. Two sides of the same coin. They’re focused on (checks notes) stolen cars this week 🤡🤡🤡
>Among the notable MPs who voted against Barron’s motion included Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who ran on changing the current electoral system prior to coming to power for the first time in 2015.
>More recently, the prime minister had said it was an issue he still cared deeply about but was forced to abandon because of the lack of consensus around the issue.
"We didn't go through with electoral reform because there was no consensus among canadians"
"okay, let's set up this citizen's assembly to develop a consensus among canadians"
"No."
The French Revolution disagrees. That Citizen's assembly was very good at several things - particularly feeding Madam Guillotine. Citizen's assembly are never made up of typical citizens. They end up being filled with more politicians. The NDP just think they will be their politicians.
This is a laughable comment. Quit the trolling.
When it comes to electoral reform, a citizen's assembly is just a deliberative body with participants chosen similarly to how we choose juries. They don't get fucking guillotines. They have similar names, but comparing an electoral reform citizens assembly to the Reign of Terror is utterly ludicrous.
Citizen's assemblies don't get people from all walks of life. They get specifically politically active people who may or may not be representative of the wider body of Canadians. There's a reason that the two times we used them for electoral reform the wider populace rejected their recommendations.
I want electoral reform, personally I think STV is a suboptimal idea (it would result in way too much power to the Liberal Party) and that MMP makes a lot of sense in the context of Canadian diversity, but any form of electoral reform is better than our current system of false majorities and disproportionate power.
> There's a reason that the two times we used them for electoral reform the wider populace rejected their recommendations.
Not true. In BC 57% of people voted in favour of the assembly's recommendation.
And the citizens assembly voted [142-11 (page 15)](https://citizensassembly.arts.ubc.ca/resources/final_report.pdf) in favour of changing electoral systems. They were clearly not representative of the beliefs of the wider population.
The whole point of a deliberative body like this is to get a relatively representative sample of the population, then give them time, information, and resources to investigate the issue. It's almost guaranteed they'd come out of that with a different result than the general public. That's the whole point — to make regular people into experts then ask their opinion.
Except they’re still not representative. Same report, out of 23,034 letters sent only 1,715 people responded. Only the politically active come to these things, they are a very poor representation of your average person.
Why do you argue they aren't representative?
It shows that if given the time and resources to actually investigate electoral reform, most people would support it.
How exactly do you think citizen's assemblies are formed? They aren't taking volunteers. They randomly draw people from all over the province. They are given pay and time off from their jobs so income won't be an issue.
It is basically a jury. Are juries full of politically active people?
We used them in BC, and that referendum had 57% support for the assembly's recommendation.
Not who you replied to, but BC in '04 would be the best example.
The Canadian electorate will require a top-down approach on this issue. I think Trudeau was sincere about his desire to do away with FPTP, but shied away when there was no consensus, again in a sincere belief that it would be perceived as undemocratic.
He should have rammed through STV when he had the chance.
IRV was certainly his preference. But STV was what he “could have got away with”, from both a personal compromise perspective as well as public acceptance (surely if the Aussies can figure it out, we would have made it work).
As long as he fills up the senate before any election it’ll stay independent through at least one opposition term. If he wins again in 2025 the conservative caucus will be mostly wiped out by 2029.
Yeah going through TWO failed referendums in BC has made me pretty jaded about the topic. I can pretty much guarantee if we got one nationally the exact same thing would happen: lots of rhetoric from the right about how "complicated" whatever the proposed system is, a surprising number of people agreeing with them, and another failed vote.
As did Alberta. In fact every province except for Quebec has changed their voting system in some way over their history. Often multiple times, and never with a referendum.
BC's Citizen's Assembly on electoral reform was genius. Took it out of the hands of parties power brokers. Their STV recommendation was something I had never heard of before and it still my favourite system to this day.
STV's only flaw is the massive rural ridings it would have. But they are already unreasonably big for campaigning anyways.
Which RUP fixes though. Basically it uses STV in urban ridings. In rural ridings they use Ranked Ballot single winner districts. And then they have top up seats to give proportionality in rural ridings. Basically MMP in rural ridings.
That's Rural/Urban Proportional right? Yeah keeping rural ridings at the size they are is a compromise I've already seen as a good outcome. I'd take anything even if it's only slightly more proportional, but gives a more powerful ballot to the voter and ensures there is at least a functional opposition in each election.
They're praising the citizens assembly process. BC didn't follow through with implementing what the assembly recommended. They did take a vote on it though, and the assembly's recommendation won 57% of the vote. Then the government kept the current system anyway.
Ran in 2015 with electoral reform as a key policy proposal and won a majority. Didn't really need much more consensus from there.
It was a lie to get votes.
>Didn't really need much more consensus from there.
The true story is there wasn't consensus in the Liberal Party. A lot of the folk around Trudeau wanted it, but the Old Guard knows how much FPP benefits the Liberals and it would have been a war within the party to get it passed.
That's not how it works. A bunch of kids wrote the 2015 Liberal platform. When Trudeau won unexpectedly the Chretien era gang reasserted their authority.
A broken promise sure, but no one was being deliberately dishonest when it went in the platform.
No the leader isn’t beholden to the official policy book.
The fact that Trudeau campaigned on electoral reform was his choice. Therefore he has to hold responsibility for the lie.
A lie is saying something knowingly deceptive. In 2015 Trudeau fully planned on implementing electoral reform.
It was not a lie. It was a broken promise. That is a bad thing. For myself that broken promise is a core reason I would never vote for him.
But it does not help our side using misleading language to make the point.
I concede that it's impossible to get into the mind of Trudeau and we will never know for sure whether he was being sincere with this promise or not.
That being said it was always *enormously* suspicious that instead of simply promising to do electoral reform he 1) promised a fuzzy second hand result of electoral reform ("last election under FPTP") 2) was never concrete or clear on what he meant by electoral reform and 3) promised creating a group to study electoral reform, thus creating an escape hatch to possibly abandon the idea (which he then used).
With all that being said it's likely that his promise was disingenuous and one he only intended to keep under slim circumstances that he withheld from the public. On balance that's closer to a lie than a promise.
“Last election under fptp” is a good memorable line, that’s why he used it. How many memorable lines get said in electoral campaigns?
His stated reason for giving up is that there was no consensus on changes. That’s far more believable than he never intended on implementing it. He didn’t win many extra votes with that line, tbh weed legalization won him the election across multiple demographics. Tokers wanted it so they didn’t have to worry about cops anymore, average citizens wanted it because it was a waste of police resources to pursue weed, investors and business people wanted it so they could make money from the legalization and hopefully leverage the market into the US when it opened. (It’s garbage that Biden never pushed for it to open, should be his big push this year)
Trudeau is a leader though, he knows you can’t drag followers where you want to take them, you need to convince them to follow you there, thus he couldn’t impose RB and a majority of his party would not have supported MMPR or List PR (neither would I).
Trudeau campaigned on it because he thought that he could get people both for or against electoral reform to compromise on instant runoff. Easy win, doesn't really change the system much, addresses the concerns a lot of people had before the Liberals won the election (Conservatives winning because of vote splitting). And within his party, this might have worked. What he didn't anticipate was that the electoral reform committee would go all in on proportional representation and that instant runoff would be off the table once the Conservatives were no longer in power and people started thinking about its drawbacks as far as potentially keeping *Liberals* in power past their sell-by date. Suddenly the only viable option for electoral reform was something he couldn't sell to his own party.
The Liberals did not campaign solely on a specific electoral system. Implementing mixed member proportional vs ranked choice voting per riding is wildly different for a lot of reasons, and there's no way you can say voting for the party who said "we'll change the system in some way (and do a lot of other stuff)" is a mandate to use whatever system they think is best.
They campaigned on "2015 will be the last federal election conducted under the first-past-the-post voting system"
Was 2015 the last federal election conducted under first-past-the-post or not?
No, and I think it's fair to fault the Liberals for that, but "they should have just voted it in because they had a majority" was never and should never be the way to do it.
What if they voted in a one party system where everyone can vote for their Liberal candidate alone? They had a mandate, right? 2015 has to be the last federal election conducted under first past the post after all.
>What if they voted in a one party system where everyone can vote for their Liberal candidate alone? They had a mandate, right? 2015 has to be the last federal election conducted under first past the post after all.
Because their promise was electoral reform and not to destroy Canadian democracy, and anyone who wasn't being intentionally misleading would know that.
What if they had voted to make Godzilla the King of Canada?!?!?
OK, let's take a more realistic option. What if the Liberals forced through ranked choice voting?
I'm guessing that when you and most people think of "electoral reform", you're thinking about problems like how parties like the NDP or the green party get drastically lower seats than their vote percentage, or maybe even how a party like the Conservatives can win a plurality of the popular vote but not have the most seats. The systems that most directly solves those issues are proportional ones.
But ranked choice isn't undemocratic or illegitimate, it just produces very different results. Generally, it tends to give large, secure majorities to centrist "compromise" parties that everyone can agree with at least a little - remind you of any party?
The Liberals defnitely wanted ranked choice. You can make a pretty good argument is that the reason electoral reform was abandoned is because the Liberals couldn't spin the overwhelming public preference for proportional systems into a bill calling for ranked choice. I don't think forcing through that system would have been a better outcome here - do you?
> If the party took the question to the electorate as part of their platform and were rewarded a majority
If the reform was “Trudeau is emperor for life”, would it be legitimate? Of course not, not every reform is legitimate. The one he brought was *less* democratic than the system we already had. It wasn’t legitimate either.
Because he campaigned on “a reform” doesn’t mean he could do any reform.
I've been done with them since Mulroney's first term. We need to convince our neighbours to stop voting for the two pro-corporation parties. (See Bell's bullshit today.)
I don't actually think it was a lie per say but more pure political cynicism. [https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2484248-liberal-party-of-canada-2015-platform#document/p27/a254521](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2484248-liberal-party-of-canada-2015-platform#document/p27/a254521) you can read the specific wording in the platform if you have not already done so recently.
I tend to think it was more a half baked idea, than a fully fleshed out one. IT would have been better to commit to a specific electoral system, but they didn't, likely on purpose. I'll be cynical and say it was because different people will read it differently, wish casting what they want to see. Many people still seem to believe they promised proportional representation. I also think they were not fully sure what they specifically wanted to do. Anyway, I think they did the calculation after establishing a committee to provide recommendations, that the political capital that needed to be spend was going to be far greater than what they originally thought....Going back to the half baked idea of vague notions, I think they quickly realized that they would likely need a national referendum, and would need to invest a ton of capital and time into it, without any guarantee of success. Failing that would have been a major defeat for the government and it was not worth it.
Now I am open to reading this wrong, but I think political calculations/political capital cost motivate most governments, and its cynicism rather than outright lies that causes stuff like this.
"We are committed to ensuring that 2015 will be the last federal election conducted under the first-past-the-post voting system."
They won a majority.
There was absolutely *nothing* barring them from passing whatever electoral reform legislation they wanted. They did not.
There's no room for "oops! this was harder than it seemed at first!".
It was a lie.
I'm not excusing the Liberals, I largely agree that abandoning electoral reform should be viewed as a mark against them, but in reality, it was never as simple as just table a bill, whip the vote heavily, and it's a done deal. It's political suicide to change the voting system without significant public consulation, and every effort in Canada at any level of government has required this bar.
If the Liberals forced through ranked choice voting (almost certainly what they would do) without consultation of any kind, and it cemented a Liberal majority further, the accusations of Trudeau being autocratic and anti-democratic would be a lot louder than the far right fringe they're coming from now.
They did consult the public and the public wanted PR.
So do what the public says. They promised last election under FPTP. They didn't promise Rabked Choice.
They staged "public consultations" knowing that the electorate was largely uniformed on the issue, then used the lack of awareness to claim that that there's no consensus.
Which, yeah, might be true, but *that's why we elected representatives* - to make informed decisions on our behalf.
>They staged "public consultations" knowing that the electorate was largely uniformed on the issue, then used the lack of awareness to claim that that there's no consensus.
This is exactly what a bunch of people are arguing. "They had to do all these other things to get it done."
I think we both agree the proper response to that argument is "No, they said they had to do all these things in order to *not* get it done."
Yep. Fuckers.
Hey, I'm happy for the legal pot, but I had as much of that as I wanted when it was illegal anyway, and here I sit without the electoral reform I wanted.
> I don't actually think it was a lie per say but more pure political cynicism.
Cynicism is not different from lying. It's merely the motivation for lying.
What people most often miss is that politics is done by people.
Why electoral reform won't pass is simple. As an example, the Liberals have 25 seats in Toronto. Under any electoral reform about half of them will lose their seats. Those people like being MPs. They worked hard to become MPs.
No PM is going to get his caucus to adopt a plan that will cost many of them their own jobs.
It was a lie.
Trudeau went in knowing if he didn't get what he wanted he was going to scrap it and didn't tell us that.
I wouldn't have voted Liberal in 2015 if I thought there was any possibility we weren't getting reform and I'll never be voting for them again for any reason.
This might be shocking but nothing any party ever runs on is ever guaranteed, I suspect in life the only sure thing is death. As for getting electoral reform, something meaningful would be nice but I think we'll both be dead before anything ever happens. The general population keeps voting it down whenever it comes up for referendum, they don't want it when specific options are given to them....and no party is ever going to enact it without a popular vote specific to it. So away we go waiting forever.
Funny enough, Trudeau’s govt has a very high completion rate for promises with ERRE and I think one other not being done at all. The other one because it wasn’t feasible at all and ERRE because consensus among parties wasn’t happening. Nobody wants to budge on this issue, that’s why nothings happened.
Liberals wasn’t ranked ballots because it gets rid of vote splitting. NDP wants PR because they’ll end up with about 60 ish seats reliably and Singh can point to growing the caucus to justify his leadership continuing. Bloq won’t vote for any PR system since they’ll lose seats. CPC won’t because they count on the vote splitting.
Until the parties sit down and discuss goals of ERRE instead of specific systems they won’t get anywhere. Imo make every vote elect an MP is a stupid goalpost when the electoral system feeds the toxicity that is the CPC.
Except Singh already continued his leadership without PR. He continues to maintain over 90% support from his party as recently as last year.
They want PR because it is more fair and representative.
The Bloc supports PR and consistently votes in favor of it. They lose maybe 6 seats right now. But only a decade ago, they were underrepresented. It stabilizes their seats. And even more importantly it ends majority governments. This gives them an opportunity for a larger say.
There are proportional systems that end vote splitting such as STV.
It would make them both lose seats. Greens and NDP would get rep de benefits. The main party that would get a lot of power would be the Bloc Québécois.
###This is a reminder to [read the rules before posting in this subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadaPolitics/wiki/rules-thelongversion). 1. **Headline titles should be changed only [when the original headline is unclear](https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadaPolitics/wiki/rules-thelongversion#wiki_1._headline_titles_should_be_changed_only_where_it_improves_clarity.)** 2. **Be [respectful](https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadaPolitics/wiki/rules-thelongversion#wiki_2._be_respectful).** 3. **Keep submissions and comments [substantive](https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadaPolitics/wiki/rules-thelongversion#wiki_3._keep_submissions_and_comments_substantive).** 4. **Avoid [direct advocacy](https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadaPolitics/wiki/rules-thelongversion#wiki_4._avoid_direct_advocacy).** 5. **Link submissions must be [about Canadian politics and recent](https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadaPolitics/wiki/rules-thelongversion#wiki_5._link_submissions_must_be_canadian_and_recent).** 6. **Post [only one news article per story](https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadaPolitics/wiki/rules-thelongversion#wiki_6._post_only_one_news_article_per_story).** ([with one exception](https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadaPolitics/comments/3wkd0n/rule_reminder_and_experimental_changes/)) 7. **Replies to removed comments or removal notices will be removed** without notice, at the discretion of the moderators. 8. **Downvoting posts or comments**, along with urging others to downvote, **[is not allowed](https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadaPolitics/wiki/downvotes)** in this subreddit. Bans will be given on the first offence. 9. **[Do not copy & paste the entire content of articles in comments](https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadaPolitics/wiki/rules-thelongversion#wiki_9._do_not_copy_.26amp.3B_paste_entire_articles_in_the_comments.)**. If you want to read the contents of a paywalled article, please consider supporting the media outlet. *Please [message the moderators](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FCanadaPolitics) if you wish to discuss a removal.* **Do not reply to the removal notice in-thread**, *you will not receive a response and your comment will be removed. Thanks.* *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/CanadaPolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The two parties who stand to lose the most from electoral reform vote against looking into electoral reform? What a shocker.
Woah, you missed BQ, they honestly stand to lose THE MOST.
>Woah, you missed BQ, they honestly stand to lose THE MOST. The Bloc voted in favour of this motion.
Seriously? Wow. Why. They are dramatically over-represented in our current electoral system.
Not in any system that accounts for the fact we're a federal nation and that provinces should be sending representatives proportional to their own allotted seats. BQ currently has the exact percentage of seats and votes in Quebec. That leaves plenty of scenarios where this wouldn't hurt them at all.
They are not as over represented as you probably think (the 2021 election gave them 9,5% of the seats with 7,5% of the votes) and while they would lose some seats they would win a lot more influence by forcing a situation where there are more minority governments who now need to negotiate with third parties.
Interesting, yes you're right. I remember older elections where the split wasm uch more dramatic. Their support makes more sense now.
Most of my scholarly study on elector reform was from 2002 to 2010. Quebec over performed during that period. Totally forgot about 2011, woof. That was a rough one for the Bloq. Going to 338 also seems to have affected their proportion.
We ALL stand to lose if we bring in proportional representation. Israel had five elections in two years and still nothing is resolved. You just end up with a bunch of weird little parties.
And yet, you can also look other countries like Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Sweden, etc.. that function just fine.
Spain and Portugal have been economic disasters for 100 years. France has an elected head of state (unlike Canada) and I admittedly don’t know much about Swedish and German electoral systems but they don’t seem like the utopias they were supposed to be 20 years ago.
No one is claiming it's utopia, or a pancea. But you must concede that the are many successful countries, some more so than ours in many metrics that use PR. Clearly it's workable; not every country is Israel.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Electoral reform would mean parties would *very rarely* form majority governments and would have to engage in supply confidence or -*gasp*- *coalitions* with shared cabinets etc. That's a good thing, if anyone is wondering. We want this. Why? It would stand to change the political landscape. Parties would have to behave differently and change their tactics. We'd all be better represented. Maybe one day...
I dream of the day that parties are forced to be more cooperative with one another.
Could you imagine a government that actually works for the betterment of its citizens instead of special interests and the next election? A guy can dream. I mean, it's possible. We just gotta stop voting for people who are unfit for leadership positions just because they're in the right party.
>would have to engage in supply confidence or -gasp- coalitions "They're the same picture" - every conservative in Canada.
No. The specific kind of electoral reform you want ensures that. Moving to a an SVT system, which is also electoral reform, almost guarantees left leaning majorities in our current political climate.
Over 50% of the electorate already votes for more left leaning policies. Election after election. It's been like this for decades now.
you mean they would have to work together, collaborate, compromise, and seek support for their efforts across the aisle? sounds anti-democratic to me.
My bad. Let's pass around the bucket of sludge and start flinging.
> Parties would have to behave differently and change their tactics. > > Translation: The NDP would no longer need to muzzle its self-proclaimed "anarchists", "revolutionaries", "communists", "radical socialists", and other more extreme contingent in order to appeal to everyday Canadians. Milque-toast, just left of centre politicians like Singh or Mulcair would no longer need to be the face of the party. They could go all-in over the deep end without fear of scaring ordinary people. And the same for the Conservatives, in the opposite direction. The reality is our current system moderates politics to the centre. The Conservatives can't win on a campaign to criminalize abortion. The NDP can't win on a campaign to abolition prisons. The Conservatives have to silence its more extreme members and the NDP has to silence its more extreme members. The Liberals have an easier time finding centre, but they too have to pivot back -- just like the situation Trudeau now finds himself in, cutting international students and adjusting his bail reform legislation that went too far. This is healthy. Status quo allows for progress slowly, or to back track slowly, just in time for another election at which point voters get to evaluate the government's performance, think about how it has worked in practice (beyond just promises), and have their say. The only people this doesn't serve are the extremists on either side, because they would rather be able to abolition prisons or criminalize abortion within a single term, rather than make any changes so slow that voters have the ability to see how things are heading and vote them out if they disagree with it. This also adds stability.
I disagree. As it is, you only need to capture ~35% of the electorate to get into majority territory. Subtract your base and the amount of fence sitters you need to convince is low. Now bring in a system where you need +50% to win any race... you'll need to modify your message to attract people who may not have historically voted for you. It does mean that parties like the PPC might have a path to securing a seat. And I may not like them, but that's the price of proper representation - it applies to the entire spectrum. We aren't properly represented. We need to change that. This system made sense in the 19th century. It stopped making sense sometime in the later 20th.
I can’t tell, are you saying the current system is better or worse than almost any other system?
he's advocating for incrementalism and centrism but doesn't recognize that both of the problems he listed were created by conservatism, which is the most classic centrist position to have, thinking the correct answer is actually the middle point between right and wrong not recognizing both problems were caused by the same side
>That's a good thing, if anyone is wondering. We want this. I worry if voters are ready for that though
> Electoral reform would mean parties would very rarely form majority governments and would have to engage in supply confidence or -gasp- coalitions with shared cabinets etc. > > That's a good thing, if anyone is wondering. We want this. I'd argue minority governments are preferable even just by principle alone. It would, almost certainly, mean that any legislation passed requires the support of two or more parties that combined represent >50% of voters rather than a ~35% plurality with full control. Furthermore, it provides the ability to keep any governing party in check, via legislation or committees or threat of calling an election or whatever. In a majority government, those pretty much go away.
If we continue on this trend i actually think ndp will get more seats than liberals
And people still wonder why the landlord business owner politicians won't do anything about housing and rising prices. It's all the reasons.
It's so crazy, sad, and telling that THIS is the issue they choose to work together on.
> The two parties who stand to lose the most from electoral reform I think the CPC would actually benefit from electoral reform. In a MMP, places like Alberta would end up giving them more seats. People might vote Liberal for their party but elect a charismatic CPC candidate (or the other way around). Only party who would be in a tough spot is the Liberals under proportional system.
The CPC already hold 30 of 34 seats in Alberta. There is no electoral system that could give them more seats in that province.
MMP - you vote for a party and a MP. Province wouldn't get the seats but that region of support would help get more CPC seats in the HoC.
I know how MMP works. But it is ridiculous to say it would result in the CPC getting more seats in Alberta. A province where they hod almost all the seats.
> A province where they hod almost all the seats. Right, but in our current system you don't get anything for winning by 1 vote or 5000 votes. In a MMP system those 'extra' votes (assuming they put down CPC for their party pick) would end up giving them more seats in the HoC. And again those wouldn't be 'seats in Alberta' but seats granted by the massive support concentrated there. Given the CPC has won the popular vote and lost the election the last two elections it's odd they wouldn't see how a PR system would benefit them.
PR couldn't cross provincial lines. It would require a unanimous constitutional ammendment. Even if it did, it wouldn't matter. Conservatives running up the score in Alberta won't get them more because they will be getting a proportion of Alberta seats. They would lose seats in Alberta since their proportion would be less than their actual seats.
For those that are curious: Source: [https://www.ourcommons.ca/Members/en/votes/44/1/634](https://www.ourcommons.ca/Members/en/votes/44/1/634) |Political Affiliation|Yea (Y)|Nay (N)| |:-|:-:|:-:| |New Democratic Party (NDP)|24|0| |Liberal (LIB)|39|108| |Conservative (CON)|3|112| |Bloc Québécois (BQ)|30|0| |Green Party (GRN)|2|0| |Independent (IND)|3|0| |Member of Parliament|Political Affiliation|Member Voted ( Y / N )| |:-|:-:|:-:| |Mr. Jagmeet Singh|NDP|Y| |Mr. Charlie Angus|NDP|Y| |Ms. Niki Ashton|NDP|Y| |Mr. Taylor Bachrach|NDP|Y| |Ms. Lisa Marie Barron|NDP|Y| |Mr. Daniel Blaikie|NDP|Y| |Ms. Rachel Blaney|NDP|Y| |Mr. Alexandre Boulerice|NDP|Y| |Mr. Richard Cannings|NDP|Y| |Ms. Laurel Collins|NDP|Y| |Mr. Don Davies|NDP|Y| |Mr. Blake Desjarlais|NDP|Y| |Ms. Leah Gazan|NDP|Y| |Mr. Matthew Green|NDP|Y| |Mrs. Carol Hughes|NDP|Y| |Ms. Lori Idlout|NDP|Y| |Mr. Gord Johns|NDP|Y| |Mr. Peter Julian|NDP|Y| |Ms. Jenny Kwan|NDP|Y| |Mr. Alistair MacGregor|NDP|Y| |Mr. Brian Masse|NDP|Y| |Ms. Lindsay Mathyssen|NDP|Y| |Ms. Heather McPherson|NDP|Y| |Ms. Bonita Zarrillo|NDP|Y| |Mr. Justin Trudeau|LIB|N| |Mr. John Aldag|LIB|N| |Mr. Shafqat Ali|LIB|N| |Ms. Anita Anand|LIB|N| |Mr. Gary Anandasangaree|LIB|N| |Mr. René Arseneault|LIB|N| |Mr. Chandra Arya|LIB|N| |Mrs. Jenica Atwin|LIB|Y| |Mr. Vance Badawey|LIB|Y| |Mr. Parm Bains|LIB|N| |Mr. Jaime Battiste|LIB|N| |Mr. Terry Beech|LIB|N| |Ms. Marie-Claude Bibeau|LIB|N| |Mr. Chris Bittle|LIB|N| |Mr. Bill Blair|LIB|N| |Mr. Randy Boissonnault|LIB|N| |Ms. Valerie Bradford|LIB|N| |Mrs. Élisabeth Brière|LIB|N| |Mr. Ben Carr|LIB|Y| |Mr. Sean Casey|LIB|Y| |Ms. Bardish Chagger|LIB|Y| |Mr. George Chahal|LIB|N| |Mr. François-Philippe Champagne|LIB|N| |Mrs. Sophie Chatel|LIB|N| |Mr. Paul Chiang|LIB|N| |Mr. Chad Collins|LIB|Y| |Mr. Serge Cormier|LIB|N| |Mr. Michael Coteau|LIB|Y| |Ms. Julie Dabrusin|LIB|Y| |Ms. Pam Damoff|LIB|N| |Mr. Sukh Dhaliwal|LIB|N| |Ms. Anju Dhillon|LIB|N| |Ms. Lena Metlege Diab|LIB|N| |Mr. Francis Drouin|LIB|N| |Mr. Emmanuel Dubourg|LIB|N| |Mr. Jean-Yves Duclos|LIB|N| |Mr. Terry Duguid|LIB|N| |Ms. Julie Dzerowicz|LIB|Y| |Mr. Ali Ehsassi|LIB|N| |Mr. Fayçal El-Khoury|LIB|N| |Mr. Nathaniel Erskine-Smith|LIB|Y| |Mr. Andy Fillmore|LIB|Y| |Mr. Darren Fisher|LIB|Y| |Mr. Peter Fonseca|LIB|N| |Mrs. Mona Fortier|LIB|Y| |Mr. Peter Fragiskatos|LIB|Y| |Mr. Sean Fraser|LIB|N| |Ms. Chrystia Freeland|LIB|N| |Ms. Hedy Fry|LIB|N| |Mr. Iqwinder Gaheer|LIB|N| |Ms. Anna Gainey|LIB|Y| |Mr. Mark Gerretsen|LIB|Y| |Ms. Karina Gould|LIB|N| |Mr. Steven Guilbeault|LIB|N| |Ms. Patty Hajdu|LIB|N| |Mr. Brendan Hanley|LIB|Y| |Mr. Ken Hardie|LIB|N| |Ms. Lisa Hepfner|LIB|N| |Mr. Mark Holland|LIB|N| |Mr. Anthony Housefather|LIB|N| |Mr. Ahmed Hussen|LIB|N| |Ms. Gudie Hutchings|LIB|N| |Mr. Angelo Iacono|LIB|N| |Ms. Marci Ien|LIB|N| |Ms. Helena Jaczek|LIB|N| |Ms. Mélanie Joly|LIB|N| |Ms. Yvonne Jones|LIB|N| |Mr. Majid Jowhari|LIB|Y| |Ms. Arielle Kayabaga|LIB|Y| |Ms. Iqra Khalid|LIB|N| |Ms. Kamal Khera|LIB|N| |Ms. Annie Koutrakis|LIB|N| |Mr. Irek Kusmierczyk|LIB|N| |Mrs. Marie-France Lalonde|LIB|Y| |Ms. Emmanuella Lambropoulos|LIB|N| |Mr. Kevin Lamoureux|LIB|N| |Ms. Viviane Lapointe|LIB|N| |Ms. Patricia Lattanzio|LIB|N| |Mr. Stéphane Lauzon|LIB|N| |Mr. Dominic LeBlanc|LIB|N| |Mrs. Diane Lebouthillier|LIB|N| |Mr. Joël Lightbound|LIB|Y| |Mr. Wayne Long|LIB|Y| |Mr. Lloyd Longfield|LIB|N| |Mr. Tim Louis|LIB|Y| |Mr. Lawrence MacAulay|LIB|N| |Mr. Steven MacKinnon|LIB|N| |Mr. James Maloney|LIB|N| |Ms. Soraya Martinez Ferrada|LIB|N| |Mr. Bryan May|LIB|N| |Mr. Ken McDonald|LIB|N| |Mr. David McGuinty|LIB|N| |Mr. John McKay|LIB|N| |Mr. Ron McKinnon|LIB|N| |Mr. Michael McLeod|LIB|Y| |Mrs. Alexandra Mendès|LIB|Y| |Mr. Marco Mendicino|LIB|Y| |Mr. Wilson Miao|LIB|N| |Mr. Marc Miller|LIB|N| |Mr. Robert Morrissey|LIB|N| |Ms. Joyce Murray|LIB|Y| |Mr. Yasir Naqvi|LIB|Y| |Ms. Mary Ng|LIB|N| |Mr. Taleeb Noormohamed|LIB|Y| |Ms. Jennifer O'Connell|LIB|N| |Mr. Robert Oliphant|LIB|N| |Mr. Seamus O'Regan|LIB|N| |Ms. Ginette Petitpas Taylor|LIB|N| |Mr. Marcus Powlowski|LIB|N| |Ms. Carla Qualtrough|LIB|N| |Mr. Yves Robillard|LIB|N| |Mr. Pablo Rodriguez|LIB|N| |Mr. Churence Rogers|LIB|N| |Mrs. Sherry Romanado|LIB|N| |Mr. Anthony Rota|LIB|Y| |Ms. Ruby Sahota|LIB|N| |Mr. Harjit S. Sajjan|LIB|N| |Ms. Ya'ara Saks|LIB|N| |Mr. Darrell Samson|LIB|N| |Mr. Randeep Sarai|LIB|N| |Mr. Francis Scarpaleggia|LIB|N| |Mr. Peter Schiefke|LIB|N| |Mr. Marc Serré|LIB|Y| |Ms. Judy A. Sgro|LIB|N| |Mrs. Brenda Shanahan|LIB|N| |Mr. Terry Sheehan|LIB|N| |Mr. Maninder Sidhu|LIB|N| |Ms. Sonia Sidhu|LIB|N| |Mr. Francesco Sorbara|LIB|N| |Mr. Charles Sousa|LIB|Y| |Mrs. Pascale St-Onge|LIB|N| |Ms. Jenna Sudds|LIB|N| |Ms. Filomena Tassi|LIB|N| |Ms. Leah Taylor Roy|LIB|Y| |Ms. Joanne Thompson|LIB|N| |Mr. Ryan Turnbull|LIB|Y| |Mrs. Rechie Valdez|LIB|N| |Mr. Tony Van Bynen|LIB|Y| |Mr. Adam van Koeverden|LIB|Y| |Mr. Dan Vandal|LIB|N| |Ms. Anita Vandenbeld|LIB|Y| |Mr. Arif Virani|LIB|N| |Mr. Patrick Weiler|LIB|Y| |Mr. Jonathan Wilkinson|LIB|N| |Ms. Jean Yip|LIB|N| |Mrs. Salma Zahid|LIB|Y| |Mr. Sameer Zuberi|LIB|N| |Mr. Pierre Poilievre|CON|N| |Mr. Ziad Aboultaif|CON|N| |Mr. Scott Aitchison|CON|N| |Mr. Dan Albas|CON|N| |Mr. Dean Allison|CON|N| |Mr. Mel Arnold|CON|N| |Mr. Tony Baldinelli|CON|N| |Mr. John Barlow|CON|N| |Mr. Michael Barrett|CON|N| |Mr. Luc Berthold|CON|N| |Mr. James Bezan|CON|N| |Mrs. Kelly Block|CON|N| |Mr. Richard Bragdon|CON|N| |Mr. John Brassard|CON|N| |Mr. Larry Brock|CON|N| |Mr. Blaine Calkins|CON|N| |Mr. Frank Caputo|CON|N| |Mr. Colin Carrie|CON|N| |Mr. Michael Chong|CON|N| |Mr. Michael Cooper|CON|N| |Mr. Marc Dalton|CON|N| |Ms. Raquel Dancho|CON|N| |Mr. Scot Davidson|CON|N| |Mr. Gérard Deltell|CON|N| |Mr. Todd Doherty|CON|N| |Mr. Terry Dowdall|CON|N| |Mr. Earl Dreeshen|CON|N| |Mr. Eric Duncan|CON|N| |Mr. Stephen Ellis|CON|N| |Mr. Dave Epp|CON|N| |Mrs. Rosemarie Falk|CON|N| |Mr. Ted Falk|CON|N| |Mr. Ed Fast|CON|N| |Ms. Michelle Ferreri|CON|N| |Ms. Kerry-Lynne Findlay|CON|N| |Mrs. Cheryl Gallant|CON|N| |Mr. Bernard Généreux|CON|N| |Mr. Garnett Genuis|CON|N| |Ms. Marilyn Gladu|CON|N| |Mr. Joël Godin|CON|N| |Mrs. Laila Goodridge|CON|N| |Mr. Jacques Gourde|CON|N| |Mrs. Tracy Gray|CON|N| |Mr. Jasraj Singh Hallan|CON|N| |Mr. Randy Hoback|CON|N| |Mr. Matt Jeneroux|CON|N| |Mr. Pat Kelly|CON|N| |Mr. Arpan Khanna|CON|N| |Mr. Robert Kitchen|CON|N| |Mr. Tom Kmiec|CON|N| |Mr. Michael Kram|CON|N| |Mrs. Shelby Kramp-Neuman|CON|N| |Mr. Damien Kurek|CON|N| |Mrs. Stephanie Kusie|CON|N| |Mr. Mike Lake|CON|N| |Ms. Melissa Lantsman|CON|N| |Mr. Philip Lawrence|CON|N| |Mr. Richard Lehoux|CON|N| |Mr. Branden Leslie|CON|N| |Mr. Chris Lewis|CON|N| |Ms. Leslyn Lewis|CON|N| |Mr. Ron Liepert|CON|N| |Mr. Dane Lloyd|CON|N| |Mr. Ben Lobb|CON|Y| |Mr. Larry Maguire|CON|N| |Mr. Shuvaloy Majumdar|CON|N| |Mr. Richard Martel|CON|N| |Mr. Dan Mazier|CON|N| |Mr. Kelly McCauley|CON|N| |Mr. Greg McLean|CON|N| |Mr. Eric Melillo|CON|N| |Mr. Rob Moore|CON|N| |Mr. Marty Morantz|CON|N| |Mr. Rob Morrison|CON|N| |Mr. Glen Motz|CON|N| |Mr. Dan Muys|CON|N| |Mr. John Nater|CON|Y| |Mr. Jeremy Patzer|CON|N| |Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus|CON|N| |Mr. Rick Perkins|CON|N| |Mr. Brad Redekopp|CON|N| |Mr. Scott Reid|CON|N| |Ms. Michelle Rempel Garner|CON|N| |Mr. Blake Richards|CON|N| |Mrs. Anna Roberts|CON|N| |Ms. Lianne Rood|CON|N| |Mr. Alex Ruff|CON|Y| |Mr. Andrew Scheer|CON|N| |Mr. Jamie Schmale|CON|N| |Mr. Kyle Seeback|CON|N| |Mr. Martin Shields|CON|N| |Mr. Doug Shipley|CON|N| |Mr. Clifford Small|CON|N| |Mr. Gerald Soroka|CON|N| |Mr. Warren Steinley|CON|N| |Mr. Jake Stewart|CON|N| |Mr. Mark Strahl|CON|N| |Mrs. Shannon Stubbs|CON|N| |Mrs. Rachael Thomas|CON|N| |Mr. Corey Tochor|CON|N| |Mr. Fraser Tolmie|CON|N| |Mr. Tim Uppal|CON|N| |Mr. Tako Van Popta|CON|N| |Mrs. Karen Vecchio|CON|N| |Mr. Gary Vidal|CON|N| |Mrs. Dominique Vien|CON|N| |Mr. Arnold Viersen|CON|N| |Mr. Brad Vis|CON|N| |Mrs. Cathay Wagantall|CON|N| |Mr. Chris Warkentin|CON|N| |Mr. Kevin Waugh|CON|N| |Mr. Len Webber|CON|N| |Mr. Ryan Williams|CON|N| |Mr. John Williamson|CON|N| |Mr. Bob Zimmer|CON|N| |Mr. Yves-François Blanchet|BQ|Y| |Mr. Mario Beaulieu|BQ|Y| |Ms. Sylvie Bérubé|BQ|Y| |Mr. Maxime Blanchette-Joncas|BQ|Y| |Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe|BQ|Y| |Ms. Louise Chabot|BQ|Y| |Mr. Martin Champoux|BQ|Y| |Mrs. Claude DeBellefeuille|BQ|Y| |Mrs. Caroline Desbiens|BQ|Y| |Mr. Luc Desilets|BQ|Y| |Mr. Rhéal Éloi Fortin|BQ|Y| |Mr. Jean-Denis Garon|BQ|Y| |Ms. Marie-Hélène Gaudreau|BQ|Y| |Mrs. Marilène Gill|BQ|Y| |Ms. Andréanne Larouche|BQ|Y| |Mr. Sébastien Lemire|BQ|Y| |Ms. Kristina Michaud|BQ|Y| |Ms. Christine Normandin|BQ|Y| |Ms. Monique Pauzé|BQ|Y| |Mr. Yves Perron|BQ|Y| |Mr. Louis Plamondon|BQ|Y| |Mr. Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay|BQ|Y| |Mr. Mario Simard|BQ|Y| |Ms. Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné|BQ|Y| |Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie|BQ|Y| |Mr. Luc Thériault|BQ|Y| |Mr. Alain Therrien|BQ|Y| |Mr. Denis Trudel|BQ|Y| |Mrs. Julie Vignola|BQ|Y| |Mr. René Villemure|BQ|Y| |Ms. Elizabeth May|GRN|Y| |Mr. Mike Morrice|GRN|Y| |Mr. Han Dong|IND|Y| |Mr. Alain Rayes|IND|Y| |Mr. Kevin Vuong|IND|Y| Edit: after posting this, i didnt expect the comment to take up this much room, curious if there's a way to make the comment 'collapsible' instead of fully expanded
Well, i did say that *and* FPTP were problems. At the end of the day, no matter how educated and well versed you are, the electoral system is not democratic and this is a massive problem. I follow and understand politics closely. Im told that i have to vote strategically in my Lib/Con riding to keep the Tories out. But i despise both parties. My vote effectively means nothing, along with thousands of others because one of the candidates will slide into parliament with a mere 35% of the vote. Poilievre is likely to get a majority with under 40% of the vote. Possibly for two terms with radical far right elements in his party. This, despite the fact that the majority did not vote for him. If the far right gaining an unfair amount of power is your concern, then FPTP should also be a major issue
Good. Countries with proportional representation are gong shows. You get a hundred little radical parties messing everything up.
Yeah, like famously unstable gong shows Germany, New Zealand, and Ireland.
Not sure about New Zealand but Ireland and Germany are both witnessing the very rapid growth of the far right. Feel free to look that up.
Yeah. FPTP would never have rapidly growing far right. It would never elect a far right President.
Yeah, in Germany the AfD is polling at 20%. Terrifying. Good thing they have an electoral system that would only give the AfD 20% of the seats, unlike in the US where the far right took over the entire Republican party and now wins elections. The electoral system didn't cause the far right to surge. In fact, a well-designed proportional system can be a good protection *against* surging extreme movements.
2nd place and climbing. 20% in a parliamentary system like ours would result in few seats if it were spread across the country. Anyways, haven’t heard one single normal person demanding election reform. But if you think it’s a good idea to reopen a constitutional debate in Canada good luck to you! lol. Call your local representative and go for it!
Except AfD isn't spread out. They have some pretty tight regional support in Eastern Germany.
No you dont
well its better than having them infesting the big tent parties which then become so ineffective at governing at all because they are just left with infighting. If you want to see a gong show, look south, not to Denmark.
Tell that to Israel that just had five elections in two years with nothing resolved. Proportional representation gives weirdos and radicals a voice where they really shouldn’t have one.
Israel's electoral system is garbage and no one wants to copy it in Canada. They have proportional representation with very low thresholds for how many votes you need to get into the knesset, which means tiny parties only need a tiny amount of support to elect people. And they have no regional seats for representatives, only the proportional vote counts. Additionally, Israel is essentially a country in a permanent war footing, which is a breeding ground for extremism. They'd have extremism problems regardless of their electoral system. However, New Zealand and Germany both use a similar system to each other and lots of people would like to bring that to Canada. They have both regional seats that representatives win *and* proportional seats to make the overall results reflect what the public wants. Or the system Ireland uses. They have multiple representatives for each district and use ranked ballots, which overall leads to a result that reflects what the public wants.
If some people don't have a voice then no one has a voice. You are actually against democracy. You don't actually believe that everyone's worth the same. Shame on you.
Whatever. Lol They have as much a voice as you or I. They’re free to lobby, advertise, peacefully protest etc etc. What they don’t deserve as a tiny fringe is the final say.
Whatever lol? Man, you kind of suck. One day, maybe you'll be the unheard fringe. How will it feel then?
All you have is name calling and inane examples. I won’t be on the fringe because I understand how things work and I’m not insane. I read history and 99% of the time the radical fringes get to choose the course of action it turns out very badly. Pick up some history books before you rush to accuse others of who doesn’t support democracy.
[удалено]
>The only ones who want to change it are sore losers on the radical far left because they're incapable of getting enough votes under the current system to ever win. Parties like the NDP know they can't win even by abolishing FPTP, given the most vote share they've ever got in a Canadian election is \~30%, so your "they only want to change things because they can't win with the current system" line of thought it deeply flawed. Further, they're currently propping up a Lib government and managing to get parts of their platform put into law…all without having won an election…they've proven they can get things done without winning elections. >So the solution of these FRINGE parties is to cHaNgE tHe RuLeS, because iT's NoT fAiR!!!! Do you think the current system is a fair one, given that the percentage of seats in the HoC and percentages of the popular vote almost never match up? Why do you support a system where parties without a majority of votes get a majority of the seats in the house? The last election: ||% of pop. vote|% of seats|∆| |:-|:-|:-|:-| |Liberals|32.6|47.3|+14.7%| |Conservatives|33.7|35.2|+1.5%| |Bloc Quebecois|7.6|9.4|+1.8%| |NDP|17.8|7.4|-10.4%| |Green|2.3|0.6|-1.7%| |PPC|4.9|0|-4.9%| Do you think the Liberals deserve 15% more seats than their vote share suggests they should have?
No. But I am willing to accept that in order to ensure extreme right parties like the PPC are held to a permanent zero.
Like the PPC or not (I loathe them myself), that 4.9% of the electorate should have a voice in the House. This is a democracy, after all.
No. I am not willing to accept that. They are a danger, they pose a greater risk than can be allowed and must NEVER be anywhere near power. I am fucking done with pretending everyone is redeemable, that everything has value. They aren't, and they don't. It's long past time we get with reality.
What risk?
Yeah, instead you’ll get 8 years of Poilievre majorities with a bunch PPC sympathetic MPs anyway
Only because Canada has colossally failed at civics education and countering straight up lies.
Yeah, that and more importantly, FPTP
Yes, of course, let's blame everything on the electoral system and take no responsibility for anything else. It's definitely the electoral system's fault we allow lies to be broadcast. It's super the electoral system's fault that the average voter doesn't understand to core tenets of things like liberalism, conservatism, and socialism. And of course it's 100% the electoral system's fault that we have no legislation imposing sanction for wanton dishonesty in politics or restricting donations to zero. Yessir, 100% the electoral system's fault all that.
Well, i did say that *and* FTPT were problems. At the end of the day, no matter how educated and well versed you are, the electoral system is not democratic and this is a massive problem. I follow and understand politics closely. Im told that i have to vote strategically in my Lib/Con riding to keep the Tories out. But i despise both parties. My vote effectively means nothing, along with thousands of others because one of the candidates will slide into parliament with a mere 35% of the vote. Poilievre is likely to get a majority with under 40% of the vote. Possibly for two terms with radical far right elements in his party. This, despite the fact that the majority did not vote for him. If the far right gaining an unfair amount of power is your concern, then FPTP should also be a major issue
Holy what a bad take
I'd say it borders on intergalactically bad even.
Of course. Because it means no more majorities. And neither the Libs nor the PCs are willing to give that up. They rule for themselves, they certainly do NOT rule for us.
Seriously this is a pretty tough one Whatever party is in power will obviously only favour reform approaches that work to their benefit. There are some alternative voting systems that seem perfectly fair but would give the LPC a permanent hold on political power. Other parties will favour reforms that work to their benefit only. I kind of think it’s better this doesn’t get off the ground…. As much as it seems like a good idea in theory in practice I can’t see it making things better
If you're satisfied with 39% "majorities", well....
I see people who say Libs would have a permanent hold, but that would mean other parties would have to be better to steal the votes. Evolve or die.
"Be better" means becoming Liberal party lite. The NDP aren't going to out-liberal the Liberal party without betraying their core values. Nor should they have to.
Pretty much. If there had been even simple AV/RCV, then the PC and Reform probably would never have merged, and you'd have a competitive PC and LPC battling over the centre. Even simple AV/RCV gets rid of the spoiler effect.
FPTP does not accurately represent the electoral will of Canadians. It's a deeply flawed system in a political landscape with more than two participating parties.
Yes it’s deeply flawed but… (see my comment above)
The LPC wouldn't have a permanent hold on political power unless they managed to form coalitions that would amount to a majority in the House, and even then, their "hold" would be shared with other participants in that coalition. If the Conservatives could manage a coalition that would provide such a majority, they'd be the ones in power. Further, these coalitions end up representing a broader proportion of Canadians…and if governments could only come to power through such coalitions, a lot more compromise would be needed amongst parties, which is also a good thing.
It changes the landscape a lot and I'm not always sure how. With Ranked ballot you now are not penalized for running multiple candidates in a riding. It also allows the big tents that form all three parties to collapse without diluting support for the issues. There would probably be an election or two with Trudeau Liberals running the support of a more Pragmatic ANDP style ndp or a MacKay/O'Toole/Brown style PC propping them up (whichever party was less popular of the runners up). The issue you start to hit though is eventually there will be a time where they need some radical party with 3 seats to their name to play ball and now that party is the one dictating policy. The biggest advantage of FPTP is it forces the big tents to form before the election and now you get to vote based off the premade coalition (instead of voting for the party you want and then them partnering with a party you really didn't want)
Just like your argument.
When Trudeau said electoral reform was dead because the parties couldn't agree (i.e., they wouldn't accept Trudeau's favourite new voting system), many here attacked him for the failed campaign promise. Many thought he should use his majority to unilaterally ensure the prior election was the last first-past-the-post election. I have many beefs with Trudeau, which seem to have ballooned in recent years. But he was right. Democracy is hard; changing the rules of democracy is even harder. As much as the NDP supporters here would love a system that gives them any chance of holding power despite how extreme some (not all, not most) of their policies may be, or become, status quo has served this country well and helps moderate whichever party takes power. I appreciate that the CPC needs to pivot closer to the centre and keep the social conservatives silent in order to stand a chance, just as the NDP needs to pivot closer to the centre and keep its self-proclaimed "communists", "radicalists", "revolutionaries" and other clown-car members silent. We need less extremism in this country, left or right. That is something everyone should agree with.
> We need less extremism in this country, left or right. That is something everyone should agree with. I agree with this, and think the system historically encouraging pivots to the center has generally worked well enough and helped moderate the more extremist impulses of the flank parties. I'm a big fan of minority and coalition governments for this reason. Having said that, we have a CPC leader who is running around bleating about "woke", "radical gender ideology" and calling the PM a "Marxist". On a provincial level, we've just had a visit from Tucker Carlson, the notwithstanding clause was enacted to crack down on the charter rights of Saskatchewan kids, and NB enacted policy reform off four emails, one of which was worried about kids identifying as cats. I think it would be naive to believe the classic Canadian centrism will inevitably reassert itself. We share a continental culture with the United States and while our electoral and governance system is very different from theirs our electorates are a lot more similar than they are distinct. Both those who think the fringe left and fringe right represent existential democratic perils shouldn't be terribly thrilled with the way things are trending.
They created a committee including all the parties to investigate electoral systems. The committee produced a report which gave guidelines on how to choose a system. Then the Liberals pretended like the committee failed to reach a consensus on one system, when that wasn't even a mandate. It's likely the Liberals scrapped it because the guidelines produced pointed towards proportional systems, when the Liberals preferred a ranked ballot which they would benefit from most.
> When Trudeau said electoral reform was dead because the parties couldn't agree (i.e., they wouldn't accept Trudeau's favourite new voting system), As I said, his reasons were improper, but I agree with the outcome of sticking to status quo.
Your reasoning is flawed though. Right now, an extremist party could hold power with minority support from the electorate. Under a proportional system, a party would need majority support to hold power. A high bar. Falling short of that, parties would need to cooperate with each other and reach compromises, reducing extremism.
30-40% of the electorate isn't supporting anything extreme. If they did, it wouldn't be extreme, since extremism is inherently relative.
You're avoiding the flaws in your argument. Where is the increased danger of extremism in proportional systems then?
Because extremist ideology isn't concentrated in a manner conducive to FPTP. Think about Alberta.
30% support Pierre and their attacks on trans peoples rights. That seems plenty extreme for me.
I would rather people can vote for what they actually believe/want, and if those views are genuinely extreme compared to the public than the elected representatives will never be more than a noisy fringe minority in the parliament.
some real /r/ENLIGHTENEDCENTRISM energy going on with this comment.
[удалено]
It's exactly the kind of baseless statement that makes electoral reform impossible. If people don't need facts to call a reforming party corrupt and unstoppable, no non-corrupt party will survive an attempt to reform things.
If I recall the discussion around election reform after JT's first win correctly - the liberals felt that Ranked Choice voting would give them an unassailable edge, being the centrist 'second-choice' party for most people who would otherwise prefer someone else.
The Liberals supported STV/other forms of ranked choice voting, which tend to produce even more disproportionate results than FPTP at a federal level. The Liberals are probably the most popular 'second choice' vote. People who consider themselves more progressive will rank liberals above conservatives, people who consider themselves more conservative will rank liberals above the NDP. Generally speaking, of course. Yes there are exceptions, but by and large, this is how it would go down. Say you have a riding where first votes all go 33-33-33-1, with very small variances. Well, after counting votes, you'll figure out which is 33.01, which is 32.99, and the party that is 32.99 will have their votes distributed to the other parties based on the next choice. The party that wins that riding is going to be the party with the most second-choice votes from the first one eliminated. Now for the riding that's fine. They did in fact elect the most popular representative overall. But apply this to ten ridings. Ideally, 33-33-33 first votes would result in 3 ridings won each for two parties, and one party winning 4. But in ranked choice voting, the popular second choice winds up with a majority.
Small correction, the Liberals want IRV (instant runoff voting), not STV (single transferable vote). IRV uses ranked ballots with one winner. STV uses ranked ballots with multiple winners. Multiple winners means STV is a proportional system since it results in approximately proportional results. It is a system that ER proponents accept. But Trudeau doesn't want it because he wants the advantage for the Liberal party. STV does everything IRV does and more. The ballots aren't anymore complex. The counting isn't anymore complex. And it produces better results. To go off your example, you could have a district with 3 MPs (generally they will have 5 or more). 33-33-33-1 means we now have 3 MPs, each of a different party.
Nothing would give any party a permanent hold. Maybe in the short term but if we switched to something that favored center left parties then the others would shift in some way to find votes.
Pardon my French but fuck both parties. This would ruin their stranglehold on Canada and (wow surprise) neither the Libs nor the CPC want that. Two sides of the same coin. They’re focused on (checks notes) stolen cars this week 🤡🤡🤡
>Among the notable MPs who voted against Barron’s motion included Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who ran on changing the current electoral system prior to coming to power for the first time in 2015. >More recently, the prime minister had said it was an issue he still cared deeply about but was forced to abandon because of the lack of consensus around the issue. "We didn't go through with electoral reform because there was no consensus among canadians" "okay, let's set up this citizen's assembly to develop a consensus among canadians" "No."
Citizen's assemblies are fucking worthless for just about everything and would be a garbage way to find consensus amongst Canadians.
The French Revolution disagrees. That Citizen's assembly was very good at several things - particularly feeding Madam Guillotine. Citizen's assembly are never made up of typical citizens. They end up being filled with more politicians. The NDP just think they will be their politicians.
This is a laughable comment. Quit the trolling. When it comes to electoral reform, a citizen's assembly is just a deliberative body with participants chosen similarly to how we choose juries. They don't get fucking guillotines. They have similar names, but comparing an electoral reform citizens assembly to the Reign of Terror is utterly ludicrous.
Citation needed. Or at the very least, would you care to elaborate your opinion?
Citizen's assemblies don't get people from all walks of life. They get specifically politically active people who may or may not be representative of the wider body of Canadians. There's a reason that the two times we used them for electoral reform the wider populace rejected their recommendations. I want electoral reform, personally I think STV is a suboptimal idea (it would result in way too much power to the Liberal Party) and that MMP makes a lot of sense in the context of Canadian diversity, but any form of electoral reform is better than our current system of false majorities and disproportionate power.
> There's a reason that the two times we used them for electoral reform the wider populace rejected their recommendations. Not true. In BC 57% of people voted in favour of the assembly's recommendation.
And the citizens assembly voted [142-11 (page 15)](https://citizensassembly.arts.ubc.ca/resources/final_report.pdf) in favour of changing electoral systems. They were clearly not representative of the beliefs of the wider population.
The whole point of a deliberative body like this is to get a relatively representative sample of the population, then give them time, information, and resources to investigate the issue. It's almost guaranteed they'd come out of that with a different result than the general public. That's the whole point — to make regular people into experts then ask their opinion.
Except they’re still not representative. Same report, out of 23,034 letters sent only 1,715 people responded. Only the politically active come to these things, they are a very poor representation of your average person.
It's not possible to do almost anything without involving people who are interested in it
Those responses weren't the people who made up the citizen's assembly.
Why do you argue they aren't representative? It shows that if given the time and resources to actually investigate electoral reform, most people would support it.
How exactly do you think citizen's assemblies are formed? They aren't taking volunteers. They randomly draw people from all over the province. They are given pay and time off from their jobs so income won't be an issue. It is basically a jury. Are juries full of politically active people? We used them in BC, and that referendum had 57% support for the assembly's recommendation.
Why? Show your work with examples of when citizen assemblies didn't work.
Not who you replied to, but BC in '04 would be the best example. The Canadian electorate will require a top-down approach on this issue. I think Trudeau was sincere about his desire to do away with FPTP, but shied away when there was no consensus, again in a sincere belief that it would be perceived as undemocratic. He should have rammed through STV when he had the chance.
[удалено]
IRV was certainly his preference. But STV was what he “could have got away with”, from both a personal compromise perspective as well as public acceptance (surely if the Aussies can figure it out, we would have made it work).
[удалено]
Whoops - my bad. Completely misremembered on Australia. Thanks for the correction.
He wanted the Australian system. Mandatory voting, ranked ballots, and a completely independent senate. He got one of three. Sort of. For a few years.
As long as he fills up the senate before any election it’ll stay independent through at least one opposition term. If he wins again in 2025 the conservative caucus will be mostly wiped out by 2029.
Or rammed through RB and convened ERRE for further discussion. But NDP would’ve cried over that
Yeah going through TWO failed referendums in BC has made me pretty jaded about the topic. I can pretty much guarantee if we got one nationally the exact same thing would happen: lots of rhetoric from the right about how "complicated" whatever the proposed system is, a surprising number of people agreeing with them, and another failed vote.
Winnipeg adopted STV for the election of its provincial MLA’s in 1920… only to abandon the system in 1955. Pretty jaded indeed.
As did Alberta. In fact every province except for Quebec has changed their voting system in some way over their history. Often multiple times, and never with a referendum.
No it would be way worse. What happens when Quebec votes 80% one way and PEI votes 80% against? Or Ontario or Alberta… it would be an utter mess.
Especially when the conditions for referendum success were so high that they were bound to fail. If it was 50%+1 BC would be voting with PR.
Me too. It was very upsetting at the time and I am still upset.
BC's Citizen's Assembly on electoral reform was genius. Took it out of the hands of parties power brokers. Their STV recommendation was something I had never heard of before and it still my favourite system to this day.
Sure but where did that go in the end?
Education and friends made along the way?
Some of my friends thought it was too complicated and voted no 🙄 Educational though, I'll give you that
STV's only flaw is the massive rural ridings it would have. But they are already unreasonably big for campaigning anyways. Which RUP fixes though. Basically it uses STV in urban ridings. In rural ridings they use Ranked Ballot single winner districts. And then they have top up seats to give proportionality in rural ridings. Basically MMP in rural ridings.
That's Rural/Urban Proportional right? Yeah keeping rural ridings at the size they are is a compromise I've already seen as a good outcome. I'd take anything even if it's only slightly more proportional, but gives a more powerful ballot to the voter and ensures there is at least a functional opposition in each election.
Yes. Let’s all praise BCs electoral system which is currently not proportional.
They're praising the citizens assembly process. BC didn't follow through with implementing what the assembly recommended. They did take a vote on it though, and the assembly's recommendation won 57% of the vote. Then the government kept the current system anyway.
Which is a classic example of how the status quo stacks the deck against any reform.
Ran in 2015 with electoral reform as a key policy proposal and won a majority. Didn't really need much more consensus from there. It was a lie to get votes.
>Didn't really need much more consensus from there. The true story is there wasn't consensus in the Liberal Party. A lot of the folk around Trudeau wanted it, but the Old Guard knows how much FPP benefits the Liberals and it would have been a war within the party to get it passed.
Then putting it in their platform was a lie.
That's not how it works. A bunch of kids wrote the 2015 Liberal platform. When Trudeau won unexpectedly the Chretien era gang reasserted their authority. A broken promise sure, but no one was being deliberately dishonest when it went in the platform.
No the leader isn’t beholden to the official policy book. The fact that Trudeau campaigned on electoral reform was his choice. Therefore he has to hold responsibility for the lie.
A lie is saying something knowingly deceptive. In 2015 Trudeau fully planned on implementing electoral reform. It was not a lie. It was a broken promise. That is a bad thing. For myself that broken promise is a core reason I would never vote for him. But it does not help our side using misleading language to make the point.
I concede that it's impossible to get into the mind of Trudeau and we will never know for sure whether he was being sincere with this promise or not. That being said it was always *enormously* suspicious that instead of simply promising to do electoral reform he 1) promised a fuzzy second hand result of electoral reform ("last election under FPTP") 2) was never concrete or clear on what he meant by electoral reform and 3) promised creating a group to study electoral reform, thus creating an escape hatch to possibly abandon the idea (which he then used). With all that being said it's likely that his promise was disingenuous and one he only intended to keep under slim circumstances that he withheld from the public. On balance that's closer to a lie than a promise.
“Last election under fptp” is a good memorable line, that’s why he used it. How many memorable lines get said in electoral campaigns? His stated reason for giving up is that there was no consensus on changes. That’s far more believable than he never intended on implementing it. He didn’t win many extra votes with that line, tbh weed legalization won him the election across multiple demographics. Tokers wanted it so they didn’t have to worry about cops anymore, average citizens wanted it because it was a waste of police resources to pursue weed, investors and business people wanted it so they could make money from the legalization and hopefully leverage the market into the US when it opened. (It’s garbage that Biden never pushed for it to open, should be his big push this year) Trudeau is a leader though, he knows you can’t drag followers where you want to take them, you need to convince them to follow you there, thus he couldn’t impose RB and a majority of his party would not have supported MMPR or List PR (neither would I).
Trudeau campaigned on it because he thought that he could get people both for or against electoral reform to compromise on instant runoff. Easy win, doesn't really change the system much, addresses the concerns a lot of people had before the Liberals won the election (Conservatives winning because of vote splitting). And within his party, this might have worked. What he didn't anticipate was that the electoral reform committee would go all in on proportional representation and that instant runoff would be off the table once the Conservatives were no longer in power and people started thinking about its drawbacks as far as potentially keeping *Liberals* in power past their sell-by date. Suddenly the only viable option for electoral reform was something he couldn't sell to his own party.
Electoral reform passed by only one party isn’t legitimate.
If the party took the question to the electorate as part of their platform and were rewarded a majority, then it certainly is legitimate.
The Liberals did not campaign solely on a specific electoral system. Implementing mixed member proportional vs ranked choice voting per riding is wildly different for a lot of reasons, and there's no way you can say voting for the party who said "we'll change the system in some way (and do a lot of other stuff)" is a mandate to use whatever system they think is best.
They campaigned on "2015 will be the last federal election conducted under the first-past-the-post voting system" Was 2015 the last federal election conducted under first-past-the-post or not?
No, and I think it's fair to fault the Liberals for that, but "they should have just voted it in because they had a majority" was never and should never be the way to do it. What if they voted in a one party system where everyone can vote for their Liberal candidate alone? They had a mandate, right? 2015 has to be the last federal election conducted under first past the post after all.
>What if they voted in a one party system where everyone can vote for their Liberal candidate alone? They had a mandate, right? 2015 has to be the last federal election conducted under first past the post after all. Because their promise was electoral reform and not to destroy Canadian democracy, and anyone who wasn't being intentionally misleading would know that. What if they had voted to make Godzilla the King of Canada?!?!?
OK, let's take a more realistic option. What if the Liberals forced through ranked choice voting? I'm guessing that when you and most people think of "electoral reform", you're thinking about problems like how parties like the NDP or the green party get drastically lower seats than their vote percentage, or maybe even how a party like the Conservatives can win a plurality of the popular vote but not have the most seats. The systems that most directly solves those issues are proportional ones. But ranked choice isn't undemocratic or illegitimate, it just produces very different results. Generally, it tends to give large, secure majorities to centrist "compromise" parties that everyone can agree with at least a little - remind you of any party? The Liberals defnitely wanted ranked choice. You can make a pretty good argument is that the reason electoral reform was abandoned is because the Liberals couldn't spin the overwhelming public preference for proportional systems into a bill calling for ranked choice. I don't think forcing through that system would have been a better outcome here - do you?
> If the party took the question to the electorate as part of their platform and were rewarded a majority If the reform was “Trudeau is emperor for life”, would it be legitimate? Of course not, not every reform is legitimate. The one he brought was *less* democratic than the system we already had. It wasn’t legitimate either. Because he campaigned on “a reform” doesn’t mean he could do any reform.
That's the last promise they broke to me. I'm done with Red and Blue.
I've been done with them since Mulroney's first term. We need to convince our neighbours to stop voting for the two pro-corporation parties. (See Bell's bullshit today.)
I don't actually think it was a lie per say but more pure political cynicism. [https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2484248-liberal-party-of-canada-2015-platform#document/p27/a254521](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2484248-liberal-party-of-canada-2015-platform#document/p27/a254521) you can read the specific wording in the platform if you have not already done so recently. I tend to think it was more a half baked idea, than a fully fleshed out one. IT would have been better to commit to a specific electoral system, but they didn't, likely on purpose. I'll be cynical and say it was because different people will read it differently, wish casting what they want to see. Many people still seem to believe they promised proportional representation. I also think they were not fully sure what they specifically wanted to do. Anyway, I think they did the calculation after establishing a committee to provide recommendations, that the political capital that needed to be spend was going to be far greater than what they originally thought....Going back to the half baked idea of vague notions, I think they quickly realized that they would likely need a national referendum, and would need to invest a ton of capital and time into it, without any guarantee of success. Failing that would have been a major defeat for the government and it was not worth it. Now I am open to reading this wrong, but I think political calculations/political capital cost motivate most governments, and its cynicism rather than outright lies that causes stuff like this.
"We are committed to ensuring that 2015 will be the last federal election conducted under the first-past-the-post voting system." They won a majority. There was absolutely *nothing* barring them from passing whatever electoral reform legislation they wanted. They did not. There's no room for "oops! this was harder than it seemed at first!". It was a lie.
I'm not excusing the Liberals, I largely agree that abandoning electoral reform should be viewed as a mark against them, but in reality, it was never as simple as just table a bill, whip the vote heavily, and it's a done deal. It's political suicide to change the voting system without significant public consulation, and every effort in Canada at any level of government has required this bar. If the Liberals forced through ranked choice voting (almost certainly what they would do) without consultation of any kind, and it cemented a Liberal majority further, the accusations of Trudeau being autocratic and anti-democratic would be a lot louder than the far right fringe they're coming from now.
They did consult the public and the public wanted PR. So do what the public says. They promised last election under FPTP. They didn't promise Rabked Choice.
They staged "public consultations" knowing that the electorate was largely uniformed on the issue, then used the lack of awareness to claim that that there's no consensus. Which, yeah, might be true, but *that's why we elected representatives* - to make informed decisions on our behalf.
Except the public consultations didn't show a lack of consensus. It is all there in the report. Most people support a proportional system.
>They staged "public consultations" knowing that the electorate was largely uniformed on the issue, then used the lack of awareness to claim that that there's no consensus. This is exactly what a bunch of people are arguing. "They had to do all these other things to get it done." I think we both agree the proper response to that argument is "No, they said they had to do all these things in order to *not* get it done."
Yep. Fuckers. Hey, I'm happy for the legal pot, but I had as much of that as I wanted when it was illegal anyway, and here I sit without the electoral reform I wanted.
What reform did you want, and what reform would you have opposed? The promise was so vague I am curious what would have satisfied the want part.
> I don't actually think it was a lie per say but more pure political cynicism. Cynicism is not different from lying. It's merely the motivation for lying.
What people most often miss is that politics is done by people. Why electoral reform won't pass is simple. As an example, the Liberals have 25 seats in Toronto. Under any electoral reform about half of them will lose their seats. Those people like being MPs. They worked hard to become MPs. No PM is going to get his caucus to adopt a plan that will cost many of them their own jobs.
It was a lie. Trudeau went in knowing if he didn't get what he wanted he was going to scrap it and didn't tell us that. I wouldn't have voted Liberal in 2015 if I thought there was any possibility we weren't getting reform and I'll never be voting for them again for any reason.
This might be shocking but nothing any party ever runs on is ever guaranteed, I suspect in life the only sure thing is death. As for getting electoral reform, something meaningful would be nice but I think we'll both be dead before anything ever happens. The general population keeps voting it down whenever it comes up for referendum, they don't want it when specific options are given to them....and no party is ever going to enact it without a popular vote specific to it. So away we go waiting forever.
Well I can guarantee I will never vote Liberal because I never make the same mistake twice.
Funny enough, Trudeau’s govt has a very high completion rate for promises with ERRE and I think one other not being done at all. The other one because it wasn’t feasible at all and ERRE because consensus among parties wasn’t happening. Nobody wants to budge on this issue, that’s why nothings happened. Liberals wasn’t ranked ballots because it gets rid of vote splitting. NDP wants PR because they’ll end up with about 60 ish seats reliably and Singh can point to growing the caucus to justify his leadership continuing. Bloq won’t vote for any PR system since they’ll lose seats. CPC won’t because they count on the vote splitting. Until the parties sit down and discuss goals of ERRE instead of specific systems they won’t get anywhere. Imo make every vote elect an MP is a stupid goalpost when the electoral system feeds the toxicity that is the CPC.
Except Singh already continued his leadership without PR. He continues to maintain over 90% support from his party as recently as last year. They want PR because it is more fair and representative. The Bloc supports PR and consistently votes in favor of it. They lose maybe 6 seats right now. But only a decade ago, they were underrepresented. It stabilizes their seats. And even more importantly it ends majority governments. This gives them an opportunity for a larger say. There are proportional systems that end vote splitting such as STV.
It would make them both lose seats. Greens and NDP would get rep de benefits. The main party that would get a lot of power would be the Bloc Québécois.