Trudeau’s treachery trick

Recently Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tried to expunge his promise to Canadians made during the 2015 federal election that, should he and his Liberal party be elected to govern, it would be the last one held under the antiquated “first-past-the-post” system we inherited in our colonial infancy. The reality is that he deliberately told a calculated “alternative fact” during the campaign with the hope that it would help boost his party past the frontrunning New Democrats. Both were in a dog fight to appeal to voters as the alternative to the “Trump-like” Harper Conservatives who had been cheerfully consumed for a decade with the suffocation of our democracy.

In the end, Canadians opted for the silly “sunny ways” mantra. Now, as a result of his treachery, the best chance we have had in our country’s history to jettison “democracylite” has been eclipsed. Who knows how long we will have to endure our current quasidemocratic system before the public mood will once more trend behind a political party that really would introduce a form of proportional representation?

Understand this: public relations is the crucial pivot point around which all progressive policy and action is directed. It is an inclusive means to the production of just decisions and laws. It is a system that invites debate, compromise, tolerance and consensus. Contrast that with the acrimonious adversarial atavism of f-p-t-p. Proportional representation is also our best inoculation against the rise of a arbitrary leader who vacuums all power towards himself like a Trump-et.

Roger Boutilier Wolfville