As progress on some measures in the Liberal-NDP confidence-and-supply agreement continue to play out publicly, the two parties have quietly been in talks to table electoral reform legislation before the next federal vote.
While not a full-scale overhaul of the federal voting system as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau once promised, within the two-party confidence-and-supply agreement are a series of electoral reform proposals aimed at expanding “the ability for people to vote.”
Specifically, the Liberals and New Democrats agreed to explore:
- Allowing an “expanded” three-day voting period during general elections;
- Allowing voters to cast their ballots at any polling place within their riding; and
- Improving the mail-in ballot process with both accessibility and maintaining integrity in mind.
…
Expanding the amount of days Canadians have to cast their ballot may be the most significant proposal currently under negotiation.
Overall not super interesting. These are good proposals of course, but not exactly the kind of electoral reform that I think most of us are looking for. Maybe that will change but I’m not feeling particularly hopeful.
Okay, so their approach to disenfranchised voters:
- No actual voting change.
- No voting reform.
- No enforcement of existing laws forcing companies to give people 8 hours to vote.
- We’ll give them more days they can vote on! Sure that’s the problem.
Eat the rich.
No enforcement of existing laws forcing companies to give people 8 hours to vote.
It’s 3 hours not 8 and includes time after your shift so if polls close at 7 and you work until 5 then you are entitled to 1 hour off
Eat the rich.
Too fatty. Just guillotine them and leave them for the birds.
I got excited for a moment.
So did I, but I guess at this point we should know better.
They’re not actually doing much reforming. It’s steps in the right direction but nobody is touching fptp
Better late than never, even if this is almost guaranteed to be an NDP effort.
A minority government has been in power for all of Canada’s best achievements. This isn’t a surprise. The NDP would seem short-sighted in the office and bludgeoned in the press, but as the conscience of the Liberals they have the power to push them for our good.
It’s an interesting one-two punch to the cruelty and PR of the Cons. The Libs can defend in the press and play victim to the Dems’ horrible machinations - insert dramatic swoon here - and the Cons have to fight both fronts. Accidentally, while no one’s looking, Canadians’ long-term happiness improves in every way that isn’t American Rat-race cool.
Oh, so Trudeau’s interested in electoral reform again is he? Funny how just after he first got elected all those promises and commitees to look at alternatives to FPTP just faded… but now that he might lose it’s suddenly back on the table?
Never forget, the promise was broken.
I wish he was even considering changing FPTP though. According to the article, the changes they’re exploring are pretty lackluster.
I wish they’d see the writing on the wall and just throw together a ranked ballot system before we end up with Premier PP. The last thing we need is that fucking capital-fascist in charge. I’d still be pissed that it took being directly in Trudeau’s interest before he finally followed through, but I’d still rather it done than not.
That was the problem the first go-around, the Liberals favoured ranked ballot but would consider STV, the NDP wouldn’t support anything other than MMP, the CPC wouldn’t support any change, and the Bloc just wanted to play spoiler. The Liberals were in a minority on the committee. The only system they could get agreement on was MMP, which is what was recommended.
MMP is good for proportionality, but it can have issues with party lists, members not tied to geographic areas can be difficult to remove, and responsibility for geographic areas is shared, making it easier to dodge. The biggest drawback is explaining the system to a general public who only have known a one vote, one member, one riding system. Ranked or STV are much easier to explain and the current riding system doesn’t need to change.
Anyway, the Bloc and CPC were going to campaign hard on calling any change a Liberal power grab. Internal polling (not the dog and pony show web poll) showed that most voters didn’t care about the issue, but the “Liberal Power Grab” would gain traction. With the CPC promising to roll back any changes, the whole thing looked more and more like an effort in futility.
In the end, they decided to take their lumps and move on. After all the heat they took for trying, as far as the Liberals are concerned, the issue is dead.
Various failures in proportional representation systems elsewhere in the world indicated those systems are fundamentally flawed.
Proportional representation is the system Israel has. A guy like Benjamin Netanyahu can just cut some deals with far right whack jobs and form a coalition to be PM of Israel.
Are you saying you like how that worked out?
Also the EU has a proportional representation system and people in Britain didn’t feel the EU parliament represented them. Do we like how that worked out?
The biggest problem with FPTP is the name. Let’s rebrand it as Community Representation (because that’s what it is) and move on from spreadsheet warriors being triggered by some numbers in one column not matching the other column.
Bottom line is community representation systems represents minority interest better than proportional representation systems. Just because you can’t put power dynamics on a spreadsheet doesn’t mean they don’t exist. In fact power dynamics is the most important thing in politics and the power dynamics in a proportional representation system is completely terrible.
Only about looks at watch multiple years late
The best time would have been on the first day of the administration, after finishing the broken and lame TPP and NAFTA2, equalizing pay in the fed, and then … aw shit, pandemic. Sure there was a lot of noodling around fixing Harper’s multi-year fustercluck, but the timeline before the pandemic was kinda tossed at that point. You remember how hard it was to get ignorant hillbillies to actually vaccinate, right?
The second-best time for non-mortal concerns may be today. Glad to see it’s finally getting a look.
They’re not changing the voting system, if the article content is correct. They are just looking at making it easier to vote.
The Liberals have been net beneficiaries of FPTP in more election than all other parties put together since the 60s. They aren’t going to endanger that, ever.
canadian politics are interesting to say the least
It would be fun to throw something random in there like term limits. I’d appreciate barring anyone who has been an MP for 20 years from running again.
Conservatives might win, time for election reform!
Did you read the article? They’re just making it easier to vote (3 day voting window, expanding mail in votes, etc.) they’re not doing any serious changes
No, it’s clear by the comments in this thread that most people didn’t read the article.
Well if most Canadians don’t want a conservative government isn’t it in our interest? Doing Ford was re-elected in Ontario by 19% of the electorate…
