Time to act on electoral reform promise

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/08/2024 (654 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

“We can have an electoral system that does a better job of reflecting the concerns, the voices of Canadians from coast to coast, and give us a better level of governance.”

Those aren’t the words of some radical revolutionary bent on upending Canadian society. They are the words of our prime minister, shortly after he was first elected and people could be forgiven for believing he might still deliver on his campaign promise of electoral reform.

But here we are, nearly a full decade under the Trudeau regime, and we are stuck with the same “first past the post” system that is virtually guaranteed to keep giving disproportionate power to the Conservative and Liberal parties.

And in that two-party tango which has basically encompassed the entirety of Canada’s legislative history, the Liberals are likely in the process of stepping on their last toes before being asked to exit the dance floor. While they desperately try to cling to their last vestiges of popularity, in acts like taking credit for the pharmacare or dental plans the NDP had to drag them into kicking and screaming, it seems highly doubtful the Liberals will form the next government.

So what better time than now to finally act on that dusty old election promise of electoral reform? After all, the Liberals have been stoking the fires with fears of what a majority government under the Pierre Poilievre Conservatives would mean for Canada and the world.

Rightly so. I, too, shudder at the thought of the backsteps we will see on major issues like the environment, drug/judicial policy, and protections for marginalized people. The Liberals might not have been great, or even good, on these issues. But there can be little doubt that the Conservatives will be significantly worse.

If the Liberals are as concerned about all this as they claim, they have the opportunity to limit the damage the Conservatives can do.

Introducing any of the many voting systems geared towards more proportional representation for the next election would almost certainly prevent the Conservatives from achieving a majority government. And all those arguments the Liberals made back in 2015 still stand.

Our current system is abhorrent at representing the actual views of the populace. In the last election the NDP won over three million votes, well over half of what the Liberals or Conservatives did, yet they were only given 25 seats in parliament, compared to the Liberals 160 and the Conservatives 119.

Obviously these numbers make clear exactly why the two traditional ruling parties want to keep this system.

But the Liberals have a chance to make history in these twilight days of their regime, by giving Canada the system of real representative government that they promised. There is still plenty of time and it would pass a parliamentary vote easily enough, as the under-represented parties would surely support such a motion.

So, one might ask, what is the holdup?

Why does it not even seem to be on the radar to give Canadians a more representative system, while also ensuring the incoming Conservative government won’t be able to do nearly as much damage should they win the upcoming election? And not only that, the Liberals have a chance to be viewed as the party that selflessly abdicated their grip on power for the greater good of the nation.

We’ve seen what wonders a similar act south of the border has done for the reputation of the thankfully outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden. If Trudeau wants to salvage a legacy out of his term, this is the best way.

Sure, the Liberal party would be limiting its own capacity to consolidate power in the future, after the Conservatives inevitably wear out their welcome and the electorate decides to recycle dance partners once more.

But one would hope that such a craven calculation would not outweigh their chance to limit the harm of a Poilievre majority. One hopes that the Liberals professed fears aren’t just so much lip service, because I struggle to see any reason that they wouldn’t take this opportunity, other than a bid of class solidarity among the political caste to maintain the status quo.

To have our political leaders putting such considerations ahead of the good of the governed would be bad enough for Canada, but it would also be highly naïve of the Liberals. As we have seen from right-wing politicians in the U.S., and the Canadian political tides have a tendency to follow suit, I would not expect the Conservatives to be offering the Liberals any similar opportunities to consolidate power in the future.

Alex Passey is a Winnipeg author.