Scuttled electoral reform betrays those who saw Trudeau as antidote to political...

[Stelio Kontos]

http://news.nationalpost.com/full-co...tical-cynicism

“A massive political deception” is how NDP leader Tom Mulcair, portrayed the Liberal government’s abandonment of electoral reform.

Mulcair’s claim suggests that when Justin Trudeau committed — unequivocally and without reservation — to make the 2015 election the last to be conducted under the first-past-the-post system, he knew he was lying.

On first inspection, it smacks of George Stephanopoulos’ cynical defence of his former boss, Bill Clinton: “The president has kept all the promises he intended to keep.”

But I’m not so sure. That would indicate a level of premeditated mendacity we haven’t seen yet, even from a government that is becoming more elastic in the application of its principles by the day.

Opinion polls suggest a plurality of Canadians want changes to the way they elect governments, but there is no agreement on what kind of change.


A special committee of MPs that studied electoral reform recommended a referendum, pitting the current system against an unspecified form of proportional representation. The Liberals dissented, while the NDP and Green members added a supplementary report that also questioned the need for a referendum.

The Liberals’ preferred option was a ranked ballot system that would have kept them in power until one of the prime minister’s progeny was old enough to continue his dynastic rule.

But it quickly became apparent that this was a non-starter without a referendum, which would likely have opted for the status quo in any case.

So, I don’t believe the Liberals planned to lie all along.

But there is no doubt that they have broken a campaign promise — and not one of the little ones, like creating a more detailed parliamentary expense form.

As Mulcair pointed out, the pledge was made 1,813 times. It helped get the Liberals elected and there will be many voters who will never give Trudeau the benefit of the doubt again.

“How can Canadians believe anything this prime minister says after he so blatantly and intentionally betrayed his own words?” asked Mulcair.

The evidence that this was a very bad day indeed for the government was apparent on the glum faces on the Liberal backbench, where many MPs looked as if they’d just been told the government planned to wipe out the Canadian moose.

Opposition members who spent much of their summer crisscrossing Canada gauging opinion on electoral reform were incandescent.

“I’m frustrated, angered and saddened,” said NDP democratic reform critic Nathan Cullen, whose mood will be brightened when he sees the next polling report.

Yet, even in his distress, he extended his sympathies to the hapless figure of new Democratic Reform Minister Karina Gould, whose marching orders from the prime minister were released just before she had to deliver the news to Canadians. “Changing the electoral system will not be in your mandate,” the letter said.

Earlier this month, the Burlington, Ont., MP was elevated to cabinet. In a remarkable act of self-sacrifice, she marched towards the cameras Wednesday to announce her job has become all but redundant.

She did passably well defending the indefensible, although she would probably like to erase the clip where she said “MOST of our electoral promises have (been) kept.”

The Ekos poll from last November, which suggested a plurality of Canadians believe the current electoral system does not do to a good job of representing what voters want, also tracked trust in government. The poll suggested that trust doubled with Trudeau’s electoral victory, from near historic lows under Stephen Harper.

But after this news, confidence and faith in the promises made by this government will crumble.

Trudeau made clear promises, with no provisos, that have turned to ashes. The new minister blustered that “time and time again we have said there needed to be consensus.”

But to suggest this was always the case is nonsense. The caveat about consensus first emerged in an interview given by the accident-prone former minister, Maryam Monsef, last May.

Monsef was lampooned for claiming to want evidence of “broad buy-in” while rejecting a referendum, because it would exclude young people, women, minorities and people with “exceptionalities,” because they don’t vote in large numbers. Instead, the government would listen to Canadians via Twitter, “the 21st-century way.”

There followed the pointless town-hall listening exercise and the asinine mydemocracy.ca online survey.

This costly consultation concluded Wednesday with news that, if the Liberals couldn’t get the system that would guarantee them power in perpetuity, they’d stick with the one that delivered them a whopping majority last time.

For those of us who prefer strong, stable governments that directly elect MPs to represent their communities, the decision to leave this hornets’ nest unstirred is welcome news.

But for those who voted for Trudeau as an antidote to political cynicism — and in the hope that he would overturn what they consider an unjust electoral system — it is nothing short of a betrayal.

tl;dr Trudeau's backing down from one of he and his party's central promises that helped get them elected, to reform the electoral process.

I guess he's just another self-interested politician. Who would have guessed?

[Arewn]

Who would have guessed?

Everyone who was paying attention.

And I'm not really saying that as a slight against Trudeau. More a commentary on politicians in general.

[Zandalarian Paladin]

Thoroughly disappointed in that.

That was one of the strong points I was looking forward to the Trudeau government.

Still remain the legalization of Marijuana, even if I don't plan to be a client myself, and basic income prototype.

[Independent voter]

GM to cut 625 jobs in Canada, move some work to Mexico: union

Trudeau faces off with hecklers for 30 minutes at Canadian Labour Congress youth*conference

Instead of saying globalization ushered in the Brexit and Trump people should say globalization ushered in Brexit and Trump and Trudeau.

If Trudeau doesn't do anything about globalization, someone else will.

[Rennadrel]

Yep, the stupid fuck strikes again. Par for the course from the Lie-beral government of Canada, and just another nail in the coffin of the queen of SJWs in Canada. Anyone too stupid to realize that this asshat will just keep taxing the shit out of us in order to pay for his gross spending habits deserves it, but the rest of Canada won't tolerate his bullshit taxes.

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GM to cut 625 jobs in Canada, move some work to Mexico: union

Trudeau faces off with hecklers for 30 minutes at Canadian Labour Congress youth*conference

Instead of saying globalization ushered in the Brexit and Trump people should say globalization ushered in Brexit and Trump and Trudeau.

If Trudeau doesn't do anything about globalization, someone else will.

Sadly none of the other options are any better. Most of the leadership candidates for the Conservatives are nutters, Kelly Leitch in particular is a racist windbag, and O'Leary is Harper 2.0 just with a desire to make wealth inequality worse for the 99%. It is disgusting how out of touch they are with reality, stupid fuckwit politicians the lot of them.

[Stelio Kontos]

And Tennis wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer.

[Dhrizzle]

The UK Lib Dem party also bailed on their promises of electoral reform, although in our case it was by letting the Conservatives pitch the "Alternative Vote" system that, whilst superior to FPTP, was more confusing than PR and easier to campaign against.

As the majority were not in favour of electoral reform, what were the alternatives that they did want?

[monkmastaeq]

I would have rather seen harper for another term =/.

[turboether]

At least you got weed though, right?

[jimboa24]

At least you got weed though, right?

So does California and Colorado and several other states, and several more to come. Canada can't even smugly claim superiority over the U.S. in terms of weed availability anymore.

[Rennadrel]

At least you got weed though, right?

Even that could fall through the cracks. Even though there are significant tax benefits to decriminalization, the system just hasn't been implemented. There aren't many licensed dispenseries, Toronto for instance has been shutting down those that violate bylaws and aren't registered. The roll out date is April 20th and there hasn't been much talk about it the last six months.