Liberals new electoral reform survey slammed
MyDemocracy.ca unleashes storm of scorn on Twitter
OTTAWA — Days after complaining that an all-party committee didn’t recommend a specific alternative to Canada’s voting system, the Trudeau government launched Monday an online interactive survey on electoral reform — which doesn’t ask about specific voting models.
The new online portal, called MyDemocracy.ca, was immediately criticized by opposition parties as an attempt to either steer public opinion towards Justin Trudeau’s once-preferred voting system — ranked balloting — or to produce an unclear result that would justify abandoning the prime minister’s promise that the 2015 federal election would be the last conducted under first-past-the-post.
It also spawned a Twitter hashtag “#rejectedERQs,” where thousands mocked the federal survey with their own proposed questions, such as “Would you like to keep the status quo OR be a little ungrateful brat?” and “Would you prefer the Liberals just admit they lied or dick you around with a nonsensical survey and pretend they care?”
But Democratic Institutions Minister Maryam Monsef insisted MyDemocracy.ca is a “new, engaging initiative that will allow all Canadians to have an opportunity to have a say in this conversation.”
The government has sent post cards to 15 million Canadian households, encouraging people to go to the website or phone to participate in the survey. During mid-afternoon question period on Monday, Monsef boasted that more than 8,000 users had already completed the survey.
But NDP democratic reform critic Nathan Cullen shot back: “There are 20,000 tweets mocking this minister’s survey.”
He derided the government initiative as a “pop-psych survey” and advised Monsef that the first rule for engaging the public should be “not to treat Canadians like they are stupid.”
Cullen questioned why the survey doesn’t mention the word proportional, despite the fact that almost 90 per cent of the witnesses who testified before the all-party committee favoured some form of proportional voting system — a conclusion ultimately recommended by the majority on the oppositiondominated committee.
Conservative democratic reform critic Scott Reid said MyDemocracy.ca “feels like being on a dating website designed by (late Cuban dictator) Fidel Castro.”
“No matter how hard someone tries to be against the prime minister’s preferred electoral system, the survey tells them that they really do support it. It is like magic,” he scoffed.