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PM Justin Trudeau's Canada

I don't necessarily agree with all that, although your second sentence is dead on. So many variations on so many voting systems (and so many acronyms), and there would have likely been more than one mode that the Liberals could have made peace with. I agree, however, that the Liberals would have liked nothing better than to pick some form of ranked ballots and implemented it without a referendum. Nonethelesss, even if there had somehow been a strong consensus in favour of MMP, even if the Tories were still caterwauling, the Liberals might have found it difficult to not to at least proceed in some fashion (likely a referendum). However, with the oppostion parties all screaming loudly in different directions, public opinion divided (and not entirely convinced of the need for any reform), and a sh*tshow of a referendum in the offing, they cut their losses.
 
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An advocate of electoral reform has some interesting thoughts on the news yesterday.

https://www.facebook.com/meslin/posts/10154098534011968


The Liberals have officially walked away from their electoral reform pledge. To be honest, I think this was the most responsible thing for them to do.

Implementing a fair voting system by 2019 was never a realistic goal, and the campaign promise was reckless. Any practical, fair and proportional system would require a re-drawing of our federal riding boundaries, and that alone could take years. We'd also likely need to switch from hand-counted ballots to electronic tabulators, which would also take years to implement (terms of reference, tendering process, purchase, manufacture, distribution, testing, and training).

Trudeau had to find a way to get out of this mess, and he had two main options:
1) Call a referendum.
2) Walk away.

Of those two options, I'm glad he walked away.

Canadians aren't informed enough nor engaged enough for this process to take place right now. Our school curriculum, sadly, teaches nothing about voting systems and the media has largely ignored the details of this important issue. What Canadians deserve, is a less-rushed deliberative process that is educational, informative, and well-funded. A responsible campaign promise for 2019 would be a commitment to creating a randomly-selected Citizens Assembly or Citizens Reference Panel to look closely at the issue, followed by a single-election pilot project and then followed by a referendum. In other words, let a non-partisan body choose an alternative system, let citizens try it out, and then give voters the final choice.

In the meantime, let's focus on where voting reform is indeed possible in the short term: City Councils. Municipal voting reform across Canada will break the stranglehold of first-past-the-post. It will show people that other options are available. It will normalise reform, and slowly marginalise our current system.

This federal situation was always a mirage. Let's get back to work: bottom-up is the way forward. First we take back our Councils, then we take our Parliaments.
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Does the general public really even care about electoral reform? My guess is no.

Its inside baseball.
 
BurlOak said:
Looks like the Liberals make promises with no intention of keeping them. The $10B max ($25B over 4 years) deficits is another example.

It was surprising how seriously the committee took their work (both NDP and CPC included). They sampled significant public input and provided for a path forward for the government. The Liberal not going forward from here is strong proof that it was just one of those promises to get elected, and not really one they believe in.
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Last night's National ran a bit on promises from the last campaign that have been broken. In addition to electoral reform they came up with these:

upload_2017-2-2_11-45-45.png


They also made a good point that the timing of officially giving up on electoral reform is interesting....with all that is going on in, and coming out of, America....it is doubtful this "controversy" lingers for long.
 

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narduch said:
Does the general public really even care about electoral reform? My guess is no.

Its inside baseball.
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I think you are right.....but when I discuss it with people who advocate for reform they always remind me that there was no need for a referendum because the election gave the gov't a clear mandate to reform.....so we can't really have it both ways, it was either a promise that meant something and therefore is controversial in being broken or it is one that was unimportant and few voters cared about it...in which case he never had a mandate to act without a referendum. (just my opinion).
 
TOareaFan said:
I think you are right.....but when I discuss it with people who advocate for reform they always remind me that there was no need for a referendum because the election gave the gov't a clear mandate to reform.....so we can't really have it both ways, it was either a promise that meant something and therefore is controversial in being broken or it is one that was unimportant and few voters cared about it...in which case he never had a mandate to act without a referendum. (just my opinion).
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Good point.

And that's also part of the problem. If they held a referendum, a good segment of stakeholders would scream bloody murder, and if they moved forward without a referendum, a good segment of stakeholders would scream bloody murder. On that issue alone, it was lose/lose.
 
The cynical side in me sees that the Liberals were never too honest about going through with electoral reform (they would be one of the losing parties), and were looking for a time to kill it as quietly as possible.

These few weeks were perfect.
 
BurlOak said:
What was Harper's main promise in 2006? Lowering GST by 2%.
How about in 2011? Returning to balance budget.

Compare to Chretien and scrapping GST, McGuinty with his no new tax pledge, or Wynne in 2014 with no cap'n trade. There is a pattern.
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I don't think one can reduce the party down to just promising one thing. They promise multiple things to get elected.

The CPC also pledged not to touch income trusts, but then taxed them after the were elected—Stephen Harper admitting it was a very tough decision.

The CPC cut a number of public servant jobs after they said most savings would be from retirement and consolidation.

The OLP also boasted about their record on transit building during the last election.

And it seems almost cliché to bring up: the PCPO in 1995 promised they wouldn't close hospitals as part of their healthcare plan.
 
It was a bit sad that new Minister Gould was hung out to dry on her first real act in the house. Trudeau just used and abused this poor woman. At least he could have made this decision a month ago and got Monsef to make their announcement.

The promise was made for 2 main reasons.
  1. To bring the progressive vote over from the NDP and Green.
  2. If nobody was paying attention, they could have just rammed through a ranked ballot system.
narduch said:
Does the general public really even care about electoral reform? My guess is no.

Its inside baseball.
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Probably not much on its own, but it is now a pattern of behavior just like Liberals and their Entitlements.
 
This is going to be problematic for Canada:

22 refugees entered Manitoba near Emerson border over the weekend

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/22-refugees-enter-manitoba-1.3969874

And the CBC continues to run puff pieces like this! Extremely irresponsible in encouraging more migrants to take the dangerous trip in this weather.

'We are part of the Canadian people' now, frostbitten refugee on road to recovery says

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/refugees-canada-border-crossing-1.3963012

A bit more of a briefer behind the issue- many of those attempting the trip are Africans whose cases have been rejected by the US government and are looking for a second chance with the Canadian government.

Minnesota becomes a gateway to Canada for rejected African migrants

http://www.startribune.com/minnesot...nada-for-rejected-african-migrants/412771883/
 
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jje1000 said:
This is going to be problematic for Canada:

22 refugees entered Manitoba near Emerson border over the weekend

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/22-refugees-enter-manitoba-1.3969874

And the CBC continues to run puff pieces like this! Extremely irresponsible in encouraging more migrants to take the dangerous trip in this weather.

'We are part of the Canadian people' now, frostbitten refugee on road to recovery says

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/refugees-canada-border-crossing-1.3963012

A bit more of a briefer behind the issue- many of those attempting the trip are Africans whose cases have been rejected by the US government and are looking for a second chance with the Canadian government.

Minnesota becomes a gateway to Canada for rejected African migrants

http://www.startribune.com/minnesot...nada-for-rejected-african-migrants/412771883/
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I don't see anything wrong with CBC reporting - the question is whether these individuals are actually refugees. Somalia, perhaps...but Ghana?

AoD
 
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