Public protesting after Liberals abandon electoral reform

By Amy Yee

Canadians are calling Prime Minister Justin Trudeau out on broken promises after he announced on Feb. 1 that electoral reform will no longer be part of his government’s mandate.

Protests demanding electoral reform took place on Parliament Hill on Sunday, kicking off a week of campaigning for the cause.

During his campaign up to the 2015 federal election, Trudeau promised voters that once elected, his government would make changes to the Canadian voting system. The first step in the process, he said, would be to create a committee to table the subject.

The Special Committee on Electoral Reform was created on June 7 of last year. According to its mandate, its objective was to “conduct a study of viable alternate voting systems to replace the first-past-the-post system, as well as to examine mandatory voting and online voting.”

After hearing from political experts and advisors for three weeks, the committee recommended that the government issue a referendum on the idea of inputting a proportional voting system. Democratic Institutions Minister Maryam Monsef, however, criticized the committee for not issuing a specific alternative system.

Monsef was later switched out with MP Karina Gould in a cabinet shuffle issued on Jan. 10.

On Feb. 1, Gould announced she had received directives from Trudeau that electoral reform would not be in her portfolio due to a finding that Canadians did not want a new voting system.

A petition to the House of Commons, sponsored by NDP MP Nathan Cullen, has emerged, pushing the government to continue its research into providing alternative voting systems. It has attracted more than 55,000 signatures online.

Electoral reform is still listed as a platform promise on the Liberals’ website. “We are committed to ensuring that 2015 will be the last federal election conducted under the first-past-the-post voting system,” the website states. “Within 18 months of forming government, we will introduce legislation to enact electoral reform.”