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Electoral reform betrayal

The government won’t fulfill its electoral reform promise in time for the 2019 election — if at all.
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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made it clear last week that the federal government would not pursue electoral reform before the next election.

The government won’t fulfill its electoral reform promise in time for the 2019 election — if at all.

In the prime minister’s mandate letter to Karina Gould, the new Democratic Institutions minister, Justin Trudeau wrote that changing the electoral system will not be in her mandate.

“A clear preference for a new electoral system, let alone consensus, has not emerged,” Trudeau wrote. “Furthermore, without a clear preference or a clear question, a referendum would not be in Canada’s best interest.”

During the election in 2015, Trudeau had promised to replace the first-past-the-post voting system with an alternative voting system that Canadians agreed was the most fair in time for the next election.

Skeena-Bulkley Valley MP Nathan Cullen, the NDP democratic reform critic and the vice-chair of the electoral reform committee, has spent much of last year travelling the country holding town hall meetings to listen to what Canadians want for electoral reform.

The Committee for Electoral Reform submitted its report to the government in December, detailing that the majority of Canadians and 200 elections experts wanted a proportional voting system. Despite this, the prime minister said that a clear consensus had not emerged from the report. Cullen voiced his disappointment in Parliament on Feb. 1.

“The prime minister promised to be different. He promised to bring more people into the democratic process. He promised to make every vote count, and he promised millions of Canadians that 2015 would be the last election under the outdated and unfair voting system,” he said.

Until the next election, the nation will keep an electoral system inherited from the United Kingdom where the member of Parliament is elected by receiving the most votes. However, the majority of votes cast does not necessarily reflect the popular vote across the country.

For example, in the last election, the NDP received 19.7 per cent of the popular vote, yet only had 44 seats, while the Liberals had 39.5 per cent of the popular vote and won 184 seats (out of 338). The NDP are clearly in favour proportional representation.

Cullen is now trying to collect signatures for a petition to the federal government to renew its commitment to ending the first-past-the-post system in time for the next election. The petition is open until March 2 and it has collected approximately 40,000 signatures to date.