Why vote reform ditched? Leitch’s rise

OTTAWA • Ramping up his rhetoric after axing his campaign promise to change Canada’s voting system, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attacked the very idea of proportional representation.

At an event in Iqaluit, a member of the public asked Trudeau a question about electoral reform. He suggested parties with ideas such as Conservative leadership candidate Kellie Leitch’s — an apparent reference to her proposal to test immigrants for “Canadian values” — could be encouraged under a proportional representation system, which would align vote counts to seat counts, thus giving smaller parties an opportunity to have more say in parliament.

Those “fringe voices,” he said, would “end up holding the balance of power.” The current system works well, he added, because people “learn to get along” and don’t “amplify small voices.”

“Do you think that Kellie Leitch should have her own party?” Trudeau said. “Proportional representation in any form would be bad for Canada.”

Proportional representation was the system recommended by an all-party parliamentary committee that studied electoral reform for months last summer and fall. The committee’s report had recommended the government hold a referendum on whether or not to switch to some form of proportional representation, but the government announced in January it was no longer pursuing a change, ostensibly because it hadn’t heard a “broad consensus” from Canadians on the issue.

Trudeau has long stated he would have preferred an alternative vote or ranked ballot system — something that would benefit the centrist Liberal Party. And with his comments Thursday, Trudeau appeared to justify the policy turnaround based on concerns about proportional representation.

Leitch used the opportunity in a fundraising attempt. In a Friday Facebook post that included a link to her campaign donation page, Leitch fired back at Trudeau, saying he “refuses to listen to ordinary Canadians.”