National Post (National Edition)
DECADE OF LOSING
After a decade of losing
Liberals’ version of electoral reform is to regain power.
The federal Liberals have been out of office for more than nine years now, their longest period on the opposition benches since Sir John A. Macdonald defeated Alexander Mackenzie in 1878.
For most of the century after Macdonald’s death, Liberals dominated Ottawa: between 1896, when Sir Wilfrid Laurier took office, and 2006, when Paul Martin left it, Liberals were in power for 77 years. During that period, everything was hunkydory with Canada’s electoral system, as far as they were concerned. Thanks to its carefully nurtured support in Quebec, the party could be assured of retaining its hold on power, even as Western Canada turned overwhelmingly against it. Sure it wasn’t fair or equitable, but them’s the breaks. That’s the way the system worked.
Now, however, the party has lost three successive elections, so something must be wrong — not with the party, but with the electoral system. How can anyone put their faith in a system that doesn’t reliably elect Liberals?
That appears to be the root cause of Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau’s declaration that, if he has his way, the election in October will be the last under the first-past-the-post system, which has served Canada reliably since Confederation and hasn’t hindered the country from attaining its present level of peace, prosperity and tolerance. The only thing wrong, it appears, is that it can no longer be counted on to assure regular, lengthy periods of Liberal rule.
In the past, even during those occasional periods when the Liberals were out of power, they could expect to return to office once voters tired of the Tories. In a system in which Liberals or Conservatives were the only viable choices, they knew they just had to bide their time. One election, two at the most, and they’d be back on top. But it’s very possible that, given current trends, October could see the party lose again, for the fourth time, perhaps this time to the New Democrats. Clearly, this is intolerable. Liberals can’t countenance a system in which they are forced to compete against a serious challenge from not one, but two rivals. So the system has to change.
Trudeau says he isn’t fussy about which system is chosen in place of first-past-the-post, just so long as it ensures the Liberal seat count is a closer reflection of its share of the popular vote. He could go with a ranked ballot — in which people pick their first, second and third choices, which get shuffled around depending on the outcome — or any of several variations on proportional representation, which can get pretty convoluted and unpredictable. Again, none of this mattered when Liberals held power, but now it does.
The argument that first-pastthe-post fails to reflect voter preferences is misleading. It’s true that it rewards parties with a geographic concentration of support, as it did the Liberals when Pierre Trudeau won 74 out of 75 seats in Quebec, more than in the rest of the country combined, in 1980. Or when the Bloc Québécois was winning upwards of 50 seats entirely in Quebec. But the Liberals never argued that those results failed to reflect Canadian desires. Instead, Liberal hegemony in Quebec was seen as a bulwark against separatism, while the Bloc’s popularity was viewed as the legitimate reflection of widespread dissatisfaction.
In both cases, it prompted a national effort to deal with the causes of the discontent felt by many Quebecers. It’s reasonable to suggest that the successful campaign to defeat separatism — which today appears to be in a state of retreat — resulted largely from the problems revealed by the first-past-the-post system. In fact, the system works wonderfully: communities across the country choose who they want to represent them. The government thus reflects the will of the majority of the country’s communities. If the Greens only have one seat, despite getting four per cent of the vote, it’s because only one community favoured the party enough to elect its candidate. This may not reflect the mathematical puritanism of the alternatives, but it has produced one of the best-run, most prosperous and admired countries on the planet. The Liberals only want to end it because they haven’t had their turn in almost a decade.
The alternatives being eyed by Trudeau would make it harder to produce majority governments, and easier to end up with coalitions. Many of the world’s least stable, most chaotic governments are chosen under the systems Trudeau advocates. Given that Canada has two centre-left parties and only one centre-right party, it would likely ensure an endless series of Liberal-NDP partnerships, with the Conservatives semi-permanently on the outside. The Liberals and NDP could take turns heading the government, trading ministries and offices, horse-dealing over who gets to take credit for what, but the end result would rarely change. Rather than risk the chance of Canadians ever having another Conservative government, Trudeau’s plan would largely take away the choice and leave 35 to 40 per cent of the country permanently stuck with governments they don’t support.
This might please “progressives,” who think democracy consists of always having their own way. But once the change takes place, it’s unlikely it could ever be reversed. The NDP has always favoured an alternative system, because it seemed their only route to power. But the Liberals were more than happy with the old system until it stopped working in their favour. That’s the real message behind the Liberal “reform” package. The reform they’re really after is to be in power again.
Trudeau’s plan would ensure an endless series of Liberal-NDP coalitions, with the Conservatives semi-permanently on the outside