Last week, during the podcast Uncommonshosted by Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Justin Trudeau returned to the whole story surrounding the electoral reform he promised during the 2015 election, where he won power.
Mr. Trudeau clearly expressed: “I would certainly have done things differently with regard to electoral reform, in order to avoid the next electoral battle being again under the first past the post voting system.”
The Prime Minister talks about two mistakes on his part. First, according to him, he left “the door open to proportional voting” and he “did not use my majority to establish the model I wanted”.
Clarity
Even though he had expressed his opposition to preferential voting during the Liberal Congress in 2012, Justin Trudeau was never clear in 2015 about his desire to move forward with preferential voting.
It was once the committee’s work on electoral reform began in 2016 that MPs from all parties realized that the Liberals were not talking about proportional voting, but about preferential voting.
Clearly, Justin Trudeau hid his real intentions during the 2015 campaign, because he would not have obtained the vote of those who want reform if he had thrown proportional voting into the trash. Liberal strategists probably knew that it was better for them to keep things vague in order to score points.
La population
In his interview with Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Justin Trudeau expressed his regret, but even if he had imposed preferential voting, the population should have been consulted by way of a referendum.
At that time, even if Justin Trudeau had imposed his majority, the population would not have given their consent to preferential voting, because this voting method does not resolve the shortcomings of the current system.
So, even if Justin Trudeau had gone ahead, we would have the same voting system in the next election.
