Electoral reform is toast, thank goodness
By Anthony Furey, Postmedia Network, First posted: | Updated:
Some promises are made to be broken. And Justin Trudeau’s pledge that 2015 would be the last election conducted under first-past-the-post fits that bill perfectly.
On Thursday, the electoral reform committee announced that, after holding consultations with stakeholders ranging from experts to regular Joes, they were recommending there be a referendum on whether to actually change our voting system as promised.
And not only that, but they recommended the government clearly articulate what exactly the other option would be on the ballot. It won’t be a nonsensical push-poll question to ask: “Do you like our current mean and nasty system or would you prefer something fair and equitable?” Nope. The referendum ballot will say: Do you prefer option 1 (the status quo) or option 2 (whatever that ends up being)?
If the government takes up this recommendation, which is more than possible, this means electoral reform is toast. If there is a referendum, the status quo will prevail. Plus Elections Canada boss Marc Mayrand has said there’s no time to hold both a referendum and then change the system in advance of the 2019 election. And so: Trudeau will have broken his promise.
Does this matter? Well, you tell me. How many people in your life were grousing on and on about our supposedly unfair and inequitable electoral system? I’m going to guess slim to zero, unless you work at a progressive think-tank or live in Toronto’s Annex neighbourhood.
The prime minister won his unexpectedly strong majority mandate not on the strength of any one promise or any collection of promises but on the fact that average Canadians were tired of the often unsmiling visage of Stephen Harper and wanted to toss the bums out.
It wasn’t because they desperately wanted to pull out our CF-18s from the ISIS fight. It wasn’t because they were suckers for fiscal punishment and hanker for multi-billion dollar deficits. And it sure as hell wasn’t because the many voters who abandoned the Conservatives and NDP did so because they wanted electoral reform above and beyond all else.
Last year the CBC Vote Compass, which puts questions to an audience highly open to progressive ideas, revealed that only 2% of respondents said democratic reform was a key issue for them. The topic just doesn’t resonate.
The truth is that Trudeau and the Liberal campaign team were masters at outflanking the NDP, and one of the shiny baubles they floated to this crowd was the electoral reform promise. I doubt even rank-and-file left-wingers particularly cared about the issue, but it’s long been an obsession for a number of vocal opinion leaders in those circles.
Special interest promises often only have implications that impact the lives of those special interests. If you set up some new advisory council or small funding initiative, most people outside of the affected community won’t even know let alone care. But electoral reform impacts everyone.
So when word got around that Trudeau was actually thinking of changing the way we’ve successfully voted since Confederation, a lot of regular people wondered what was going on. The Conservatives delivered an effective messaging campaign to the people about the hastiness of electoral reform and why it looked like the centre-left was just trying to switch to a voting system that would likely favour them.
Polls from the past year have consistently shown a staggering majority of Canadians want a referendum. The Liberals are poised to listen to these people. If they do, good for them. And good riddance to electoral reform.
