We haven’t heard much in mainstream media about the all-party committee on electoral reform (ERRE) that has just finished four months of expert and public consultations and will be making its recommendation to the federal government.
According to Fair Vote Canada, a multi-partisan advocacy group, of the ERRE witnesses with a position on voting systems, 88 per cent recommended proportional representation.
Only four per cent supported a ranked voting system and 67 per cent thought a referendum was undesirable or unnecessary.
This reinforces the findings of decades of research from around the world and those of 13 previous electoral reform processes in Canada, including two representative and impartial citizens assemblies.
It is worrisome that remarks by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Democratic Institutions Minister Maryam Monsef seem to be distancing themselves from the committee’s findings.
The Liberal platform in the last election promised real change.
Many people, and I am thinking in particular of young adults, are already cynical about the political system in Canada.
To backpedal on that fundamental promise of electoral reform would be a blow to democracy.
Phyllis Beardsley
Vernon
