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Trudeau reversal on Electoral Reform
Dear Prime Minister,
In the last few days you’ve been in the news for making statements that proportional representation would allow “extremists” to gain power in our parliament. I suspect you know full well that this is pure nonsense but are choosing to state it because you are trying to save face from your reprehensible about-face on your promise of ending the first past the post electoral system.
Stephen Harper WAS an extremist who gained control of a major party and was then able to capture full control in Parliament with only 39% of Canadian voters supporting him under our current electoral system. Your referencing of Kelly Leitch having her own party and then becoming the balance of power in a proportional electoral system is pure fiction and simply scaremongering for your own political purposes. You want to make it somehow appear to be doing the right thing by reversing your promise instead of the cynical politically expedient thing you have done.
First, if such a situation did exist, for instance a centre-right party held the largest block of seats and needed to ask for the support of Kelly Leitch’s 2 or 3 seats in a coalition to become the government, Leitch would NOT be able to dictate policy to the larger party. That isn’t how political coalitions work and you know this. The larger party would grant one or two minor concessions that they could live with to the small party to get their support, but would not agree to anything very extreme because the people who supported the larger centre-right party would balk at that, as well as the majority of Canadians and would eventually cost them politically. You know this too.
As it stands now, under our flawed first past the post system, Kelly Leitch has a chance of winning the leadership of a mainstream party, just as Harper did, if she can convince enough of the extremists within that group to support her. Or she may win through some other form of behind the scenes machinations, another thing you know all about from being party to many leadership conventions yourself. Then under first past the post, she could very well have a majority government with barely more than a third of Canadian votes. This is the true danger to our democracy.
Secondly, outside of Italy, all countries that use a form of proportional representation have a threshold of votes that a party must reach to become represented proportionally, usually 2 to 5%. This is explicitly part of those systems to curb potential extremism. Most countries that use proportional representation have more moderate governments that do not swing back and forth in terms of left-right policy as ours does. Germany and Scandinavian countries come to mind as examples of sensible stable government.
You have a huge job to reverse some of the damage that Harper’s unfair majority did to Canada. I doubt if you will have time to do all of it before the next election. Let’s hope that your shameful rejection of your election promise do not mean that we have to endure Kelly Leitch or Kevin O’Leary as our next extremist Prime Minister with a unfair fake “majority” first past the post government.
Regards,
Jim Traversy
Mayne Island BC