Disappointment seemed to flow from most political quarters in Parry Sound-Muskoka this week, with news that Trudeau’s Liberals would no longer pursue their campaign promise to reform Canada’s electoral system.
Trish Cowie, who ran as the federal Liberal candidate during the 2015 election in this riding, posted a video to her Facebook page calling the decision very disappointing and saying “that’s a pretty big hit to me personally.”
During the 2015 election campaign, Cowie touted Trudeau’s promise that 2015 would be the last election under a first-past-the-post system. Cowie did however say that she sympathizes with the Liberal’s decision in that “when we are dealing with one of the most fundamental aspects of our democracy, being the way in which we choose to govern ourselves, we do have to step carefully. They went through a very lengthy, drawn out process and have decided that we can’t go forward, there’s just not enough consensus or broad support from Canadians.”
Provincial Green Party candidate Matt Richter, who has called for electoral reform at both the provincial and federal levels for some time, referred to Trudeau’s decision, delivered by his newly-appointed Democratic Institutions Minister Karina Gould on Wednesday, as a missed opportunity. “It was there. It was realistic for the taking,” said Richter.
I heard him say along with the Liberals that there wasn’t consensus to change the electoral system and I find that pretty far-fetched. There’s a consensus among the people that our current system is flawed in as much that 39 per cent of the votes, which Justin Trudeau received, gave him a majority. In any rational, logical context people would say that is mathematically incorrect.
Provincial Green Party Candidate in 2014, Matt Richter
Richter questioned whether Trudeau’s back-tracking on a key electoral promise had more to do with fear in his Liberal quarters that the party would not fare as well during the next federal election under a different electoral system such as proportional representation with a threshold of say, five per cent. The way that would work, according to Richter, is for example if a party, whether it be in Ontario or Canada, gets five or more per cent of the vote, then they would be entitled to get representation in government. Richter noted that the conversation regarding a more accurate voting system that better reflects how people vote has been taking place for some time at both the federal and provincial levels, because people know the system has intrinsic flaws. He reiterated that Trudeau’s Liberals missed a great opportunity for meaningful change.
Parry Sound-Muskoka Conservative MP Tony Clement said there are pros and cons to electoral reform but has maintained that any changes should be presented to Canadians in a referendum.
Here we’ve got the Liberals just abandoning the field. They spent millions of dollars for 150 Town Hall meetings, more money on the online survey, hundreds and hundreds of hours on parliamentarians’ time who were involved on the parliamentary committee and of course in Parliament itself and then basically the Prime Minister throws the electoral reform minister Maryam Monsef under the bus, brings in a new minister and buries the issue – I just think it’s just another major broken promise from the Liberals.MP Tony Clement
The Conservative MP cited promises made and broken by Trudeau’s Liberals like bringing in a balanced budget within two years of being elected and no increased taxes on the middle class. “So this was strike three in a very short period of time to abandon this promise,” he said. “If I were a progressive voter who was talked away from voting NDP or Green into voting Liberal in the last election on the basis of this promise, I would feel completely abandoned by the Liberals right now.”
We were unable to reach Parry Sound-Muskoka former NDP candidate during the 2015 federal election, Matt McCarthy for comment.
See Doppler’s related story and editorials on electoral reform below:
Listen Up! Seems Trudeau’s electoral reform promise was only intended for ousting the Conservatives
Clement accuses Liberals of trying to ram through electoral reform; calls for a referendum
Listen Up! Electoral reform is an issue worthy of a fight: Opinion
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