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Guest Column / Elizabeth May Trudeau’s Big Test—Will Electoral Reform be Real?

it is the boldest reform, wrapped The mandate letter to House Leader illusory. As polling analyst Eric Gre- in an unequivocal promise: 2015 Dominic LeBlanc is full of welcome nier concluded for CBC News, the I will be the last election held un- news—fewer whipped votes, no more Liberals, with 39 per cent of the vote der the first-past-the-post (FPTP) vot- omnibus budget bills, more decorum in 2015, would have won even more and respect in the House. In other seats with ranked ballots.CR ing system. It was part of the Liberal MO AT words, the total top-down control E IC platform and was confirmed in the Ranked ballots areD no real reform at from the PMO is ending. Speech from the Throne. all. Virtually every pundit predicts the The NDP also promised to get rid of And here is where the two big re- fix is in; that Trudeau will tell Monsef FPTP, as did the Green Party. So while forms collide. It will be the real test of what he wants and Liberal MPs on FPTP delivered, once again, a “false the commitment to ministerial con- committee will vote as instructed. trol over departments and the libera- majority”—a majority for the Liber- I am going to go out on a limb here tion of parliamentary committees if als with 39 per cent of the popular and disagree with the cynics. I predict electoral reform leads to proportional vote—nearly 65 per cent of Canadi- we will get an open and honest na- representation (PR). ans voted for a candidate running tional consultation. I predict Liberal on a platform for electoral reform. Minister for Democratic Institutions MPs will be encouraged by the min- On this issue, as on climate change Maryam Monsef is off to an impres- ister and her Parliamentary Secretary, and our healthcare system, among a sive start. She has already fulfilled Mark Holland, to provide their own handful of others, Prime Minister Jus- item one of her mandate letter—cre- best advice. I believe we have a real tin Trudeau can claim support from ation of an arm’s length, blue-ribbon chance to move to the fairest voting two Canadians in three. advisory board for recommendations system, likely a hybrid, such as what for Senate appointments. Dion has proposed. Trudeau’s reforms do not end with changing the way we vote. He has For electoral reform, she has prom- I am prepared to suspend disbelief executed the most sweeping reforms ised broad and open national consul- and accept that Trudeau means what of the exercise of prime ministerial tations. Proportional representation he says. After all, that Liberal vote in powers since his father started the is on the table as an option. But so, the House in the last Parliament was process of accumulating them. He is too, is a move to ranked or preferen- allowed to be a free vote. The support the first prime minister since Lester tial ballots. for PR was strong, even if the anti-PR B. Pearson ‎to recognize that being We know the Liberal caucus is split votes in the Liberal caucus edged out prime minister is not a full-time job. on the issue. When the NDP used the pro-MMP MPs. How can I accept Like most pre-1970 Canadian prime one if its opposition days in the last that there is any chance the Liberal ministers, he has retained portfolios Parliament to advance a motion fa- MPs will choose a system that is fairer for himself. He has sent clear signals, vouring mixed-member proportional but will disadvantage their own party? such as through the unprecedented (MMP) voting, the Liberal MPs were Because to believe otherwise is to as- publication of ministerial mandate split pretty much right down the sume Trudeau means none of what letters, that we are returning to true middle. Foreign Affairs Minister Sté- he says. A rigged process moving in government-by-cabinet. phane Dion is an enthusiastic propo- the direction of enshrining Liberal nent of proportional representation, power forever will make everything inisters are to be respon- having proposed his own hybrid ver- else Trudeau claims to embrace not sible for their depart- sion to accommodate Canada’s re- sunny ways but a trick of the light—a M ments—and for their own gional particularities. But in that split transitory non-reform. conduct and performance. We are vote, we know how our future PM back to respecting the principle of voted. Trudeau is personally against Electoral reform will be the ultimate ministerial accountability. And com- proportional representation and he test of the new prime minister’s mittees are to be liberated. We are favours another form of majoritarian credibility. told that parliamentary secretaries voting. A ranked ballot may seem an Elizabeth May is leader of the Green Party will not whip votes in committees. improvement, but its advantages are of Canada. [email protected]

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