Former Lancastrian

So one of the most popular and photographed leaders of the world seems to have stirred up a bit of a hornets nest regarding Electoral Reform.

Trudeau promised he’d introduce electoral reform legislation within 18 months of forming government. The legislation would be based on the recommendations of a special, all-party parliamentary committee mandated to fully and fairly study alternatives to first-past-the-post, including ranked ballots and proportional representation.
Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau vowed that the upcoming general election will be the last one using the first-past-the-post voting system.

Fast forward to a couple of hours ago
Justin Trudeau's Liberal government is abandoning a commitment to reform the federal electoral system.
A new mandate letter issued to Minister of Democratic Institutions Karina Gould says "changing the electoral system will not be in your mandate."

Only 29 promises broken Justin or I guess they were Alternative promises.
https://www.trudeaumetre.ca

SchnookoLoly

Ugh. That really sucks. Was looking forward to electoral reform... BLAH. Will have to wait until the next federal election then and hope that someone else pledges it...

Souvy

No ruling party with a majority will ever go for proportional representation.

Simples.

magnumpi

If Trump has said he would do it, then it would be done by now.

ann m

This. It seems no party, once in government, has the appetite for drastic reform. I am not surprised by this. It would need a huge amount of work and a huge amount of support. I wouldn't call him a liar. It's the 'reality bites' when you get into office. Unless you are a Trump, then you do whatever you like

Souvy

Remember that the Liberals were in third place when he made that pledge.

Former Lancastrian

So it was a pledge not a promise?
pledge
plej/Submit
noun
1.
a solemn promise or undertaking.

This is why I hate politicians of all stripes when they do things like this.
Has JT done some good things then yes he has and the same can be said about Harper even.
In the last election the Liberals ended up with 39.5% of the vote and ended up with 184 seats which is 54%.
The Greens got 3.5% of the vote and ended up with 1 seat.

I guess the argument is should every vote count?

Souvy

My mistake. It was indeed a promise.

The argument in favour of the current system (same as in the UK) is that it tends to result in majority governments that can make things happen.

The argument in favour of PR is that it better represents how the population voted. The flip side is that it results in no party having a majority. Coalitions are thus needed and so nothing ever gets done (this might actually be a good thing).

BristolUK

So using the "majority government doesn't want PR" idea, speaking in favour of it when the third party would be entirely expected.

So just another typical action for a typical political party/typical politician as opposed to something exclusively Liberal as certain posters who start "Liberals do bad thing" threads would have us believe.

You can almost hear them spit as they say 'Liberal'

Souvy

Yes.

Why would any majority government introduce a voting system guaranteed to knacker its majority?

Former Lancastrian

Oh I agree sometimes we need majority governments to get things done and sometimes coalition governments manage to stop the ones in charge without the majority becoming to powerful and basically doing what they want.

If you take a simple problem lets say daycare spaces across Canada. Most will agree there needs to be more done. So all 3 major parties agree on this but each will have its own opinion/plan on how best to deal with this. They will then bicker over aspects of each others plans and eventually nothing gets done and then the next crisis rears its head and off they go again. Rinse & Repeat.

The replacement of the fighter jets is a prime example of this and this has been going on for how long?

BristolUK

Of course. I'm agreeing.

Years ago I was never in favour of PR for the reasons you mentioned - never getting anything done.

But I never believed one individual could gain so much control and power in the way Thatcher and then Blair did. So I changed my mind.

Ideally one could say "we represent a third of the people now but we have a 10% share of government" or whatever, and be in favour of it.

Then, when forming the majority government, recognising that in five years time you could be back to only 10% when you still have a third support, so continue to be in favour of PR to protect that long term position.

But that needs forward thinking.

Quite bizarre that it's what they have in other countries and it works well enough.

A lot of Brits openly admire Germany, often grudgingly. But have their system? "Pah, we don't want Fritz showing us what to do."

Souvy

I agree with you agreeing to me agreeing with you.

Should we just get a room?

<Oh. Hang on. Maybe not>

BristolUK

Only if there's a Keurig machine and we pick our own coffee pods.

Ebonhawke

I was reserving my opinion to try to see which of the various types of proportional representation systems that the Liberals would propose. I did have a couple of concerns about specific types, but there are a few different systems, so was curious as to the model(s) that they would put forward. I don't have any particular animosity to the current 'first-past-the-post' system, but there's always opportunities to explore whether processes could be improved!

My concerns were/are

- Because of the particular population dynamics of Canada, a PR type system may be skewed by geography. Approximately half of the population of Canada lives between Windsor and Quebec City. Add in the Greater Vancouver Area, and some PR models may simply result in candidates campaigning on issues that appeal to a small percentage of the country (geographically speaking), which could create geographical political friction.

- Again, depending on the system put forward, the system could allow for people to be 'helicoptered' into ridings as their representatives - who have never previously set foot in the riding, and really don't know the issues for that area (I realize that this does happen, to some extent, now), and be a way of rewarding/punishing loyalists/detractors with particular ridings.