It seems obvious at this stage that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has still not gained any conviction on electoral reform. He hardly understood what he was promising when he said that the 2015 election would be the last federal election using first-past-the-post. He seemed to have no understanding of the alternatives. As the expression goes, he was shooting from the lip.
He compounded the confusion on the file when he appointed a naïve, newly elected MP as minister of democratic reform. They were a great combination; he knew little and she knew less. And there did not appear to be any knowledgeable staff to help her out.
Reviewing the principles Minister Monsef stipulated to the special commons committee, it was a wonder that they could do the job at all. When you ask people to advise on restoring the legitimacy and effectiveness of the voting process, you need to pose a benchmark for them to target. Encouraging engagement and participation by underrepresented groups is a completely different subject. Ensuring the accessibility and inclusiveness of an uncomplicated process while safeguarding the integrity of the process might tie some people in knots. Throw in preserving local representation and the task is impossible. And those are just the principles.
The mandate required the committee to identify and study viable reform options while getting experts to tell them all the constitutional, legal and implementation parameters. In their spare time, while calling on all these experts, they were to travel over the length and breadth of Canada to see what the people might want. And they were not to forget to include anyone who might feel left out!
Did we mention that the committee was to spend the summer—and were paid extra—so they were also asked to study such things as mandatory voting and on-line voting.
It was amazing that the committee actually did a reasonable job of what they were asked to do. It was when Minister Monsef stood up in the House of Commons saying that the committee had not done its job that the fecal matter hit the fan blades. It would have made more sense for the Prime Minister to fire her immediately but she got up in the House the next day and apologized for what she said.
Despite the Minister being so obviously unsuited to the job and the Prime Minister’s lack of understanding of voting reform, we are going to hear more on this subject. We might not all like what we hear,
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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry
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