Liberals are wary of a referendum on electoral reform - but should hold one anyway

Jeff Green | Jan 20, 2016

The new Liberal government finds itself dealing with harsh realities even before they deliver their first budget, as promises that looked good when sketched out as headlines in campaign literature documents get bogged down in the endless details of being turned into viable long-term policies and programs.

The bold promise by Prime Minister Trudeau during the campaign, “This will be the last election ever held in Canada under the 'first past the post' system” is certainly a case in point.

The campaign literature outlined the process, which the government, thus far at least, is committed to following. They will form a committee of parliamentarians, which will travel across the country to talk to Canadians about a number of systems that are used in other parliamentary democracies around the world. In 18 months or so the committee will recommend a system. The government will prepare and pass a bill that will institute a new system, which will be in place by October 2019, when the next federal election takes place.

Scott Reid, MP for Lanark Frontenac Kingston, and the Conservative Party critic for the Ministry of Democratic Institutions, has been one of those advancing the argument that the process the Liberals are setting up is flawed. In the first case, he argues that given their majority on both the committee that will come up with a system, and the parliament that will approve it in the end, they are bound to choose a system that either favours them in the next election, or is at least neutral to their chances.

Secondly, he argues that something as fundamental as the way we choose a government needs the endorsement of the entire population, through a national vote.

While Reid makes a strong case, the government is rightly wary of a referendum on electoral reform.

While a national referendum would not be binding on the government, it might as well be because if a voting system is rejected by a free vote, a government that then brazenly implements that system would appear to be anything but democratic.

All previous referenda on electoral reform in Canada have lost. And the Liberals' election promise was to implement a new system, not to hold a referendum on a new system. If they hold a losing referendum they will appear to have wriggled out of an election promise.

But it is not a given that a referendum would be doomed to lose. The latest one to lose in BC actually received 57% support, and lost because the bar was set at 60% instead of a simple majority of 50%. And when a referendum was held in Ontario nine years ago, the McGuinty government did not take a stand in favor or against it, and people had difficulty understanding the proposal.

However they intend to ratify a new system, what the Trudeau government needs to do to is come up with an electoral system that balances the need to represent the geography and demographics of the country while making sure that every vote has a consequence.

If the new system is difficult to understand it will be difficult to support, and difficult to implement no matter how it is ratified.

The process that chooses the new system must be seen as non-partisan. It must be able to achieve a broad consensus of support, even if it does not go to a referendum.

The option also exists for the government to develop and implement a new system and put it in place for the 2019 general election, and they can hold a referendum on the system during that election as well.

That way, the voters will be able to learn how the system functions when put into practice, which will likely be easier than explaining the system in the abstract. As they are voting, voters will be in the best position to evaluate the system they are using.

The other advantage would be cost. Holding a referendum during an election is cheaper than holding a stand-alone referendum.

The chief drawback to this idea - and it is a big one - is that if the referendum fails, not only will it be back to the drawing board on electoral reform, the government that is elected in 2019 will have been chosen using a system that voters will have rejected, which is not an ideal situation.

Nothing is simple about electoral reform, from how it is carried out to the way the new system works, to how it is ratified and ultimately accepted and understood by the public and the parties.

But the basic issue holds, the current system created a democracy gap and leads to divisive politics and needs to be replaced or at least modified.