It was amusing reading the editorial in the Toronto Star the other day that urged the Liberal government to “Go slow on election reform.” The ghost of Torstar founder Joseph Atkinson must have done another ceremonial spin in his grave. It sounds like a last gasp from an overly opinionated crowd down at One Yonge Street. The summer doldrums have combined with cost cutting and they have run out of all ideas and guts.
If the Toronto Star whiz kids have not already figured it out, the Trudeau government has had the ship’s enunciator on ‘Dead Slow’ on the electoral reform file since Day One of the regime.
Take the cabinet member given the file, for goodness sake. Has this wet-behind-the-ears debutante shown any progress? Do you think she knows what this is all about? Does anyone care? Just try to help her and see how far you get?
Fellow cabinet minister Dominic LeBlanc has been her designated mentor on this file and he appears with her but can hardly stay long enough to hear what she says before going off to do something important.
She set up a committee along the lines that she was told and finally told the Opposition what was going on. What did the Opposition do? They got into a snit about it. They said the question was too important to have a Liberal-dominated committee. She must have taken her time getting back to Dominic LeBlanc on that but he must have told her: “So what if they want more Opposition grunts on the committee? We’re still the government and they can’t pass anything we don’t like. Give ‘em what they want.”
That is why we now have a committee with more opposition members than Liberals. Nobody cares.
And the Conservatives on the committee are demanding a referendum. They have no idea what the committee will decide but they want a referendum anyway. They can shout all they like. Nobody cares.
The chair of the committee has a reputation as a bit of a maverick. Nobody cares.
The chief electoral officer was the first witness for the committee. He warned them that there is not really enough time for them to consult with Canadians and for his office to do its work on a changed system. And nobody really cares.
The real danger in all of this is that when the committee does ask the public their opinion, they will find nobody cares.
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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry
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