‘Not surprising’ Trudeau regrets breaking electoral reform pledge as Conservatives soar, says Fair Vote Canada
‘Not surprising’ Trudeau regrets breaking electoral reform pledge as Conservatives soar, says Fair Vote Canada
The prime minister’s comments on the Uncommons podcast were part of a larger communications strategy to talk to ‘niche’ audiences, says former Liberal staffer Muhammed Ali.
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Trudeau also commented on the form of electoral reform:
He said one of his mistakes was leaving the door open to proportional representation when he did not plan to pursue it. The other, he said, was “not using my majority to bring in the model that I wanted”—the ranked ballot.
Trudeau said he believes a ranked ballot is the most effective at reducing polarization because it causes parties to moderate their message in an effort to pitch to be the second choice of supporters of other parties.
However, the system was dismissed by many of the Liberals’ opponents who noted that as a centrist party the Liberals were likely to receive more second-choice votes and be the primary beneficiaries of such a model.He regrets not using his first-past-the-post majority to push through a change to the electoral system that would mainly benefit his own party.
And he should. That was fucking stupid. I don't care if the Liberals would have benefited from from ranked choice vs prop rep, because either of those options would have been far, far better than first past the post. Perfect is the enemy of good, and because of their stupidity (and the stupidity of the NDP and other parties supporting electoral reform for not just saying "Fuck it, do whatever you want as long as it's not FPTP") we probably won't see another chance at this for a decade or more.
First-past-the-post does need to go, but what gets me is that Trudeau started an electoral reform process involving public consultations and buy-in from the other parties, and what he regrets is not that he shut it down when it wasn't going towards his preferred system, but that he didn't just skip all that and use his majority to implement his preferred aystem.
First past the post has benefitted the Liberals more than any other party in federal politics. I read an analysis that said something like 65% of the elections where the popular vote was upside down to the MP count has been in Liberal majorities.