Fuhr right to oppose electoral reform motion

Editor:

Our MP Stephen Fuhr and our federal government chose the correct path when they refused to support the Parliamentary Committee’s recommendation on Democratic Reform for the following reasons:

1. Our democratic system could work better, but it still functions well. Reform is not essential, especially if the cost is too high.

2. A referendum on this matter, as recommended by the committee, is a waste of time and money because it would almost certainly maintain the status quo.

3. A referendum campaign, in and of itself, is bound to create animosity. Now is not the time, in an already angry western world, to experiment with complex reforms that might lead to further division and voter confusion.

4. Democratic reform does not benefit the Conservatives, but it certainly would strengthen both the NDP and the Greens. So it is no surprise that the Conservatives on the committee drove the call for referendum, as they knew it would fail. But why did the NDP and the Greens allow themselves to be corralled into standing with the Conservatives? Bets are that the reasons were more personal than political. The NDP, after all, had just lost big in an election that was supposed to be theirs to win.

5. Nathan Cullen, NDP point man on the committee and a talented young politician from northern B.C., is apoplectic that the Liberal government refused the committee report in its entirety and backed away from immediate democratic reform. Cullen knew that reform is crucial to the NDP’s future.

6. The Liberals are not keeping this campaign promise, true, but circumstances have changed since the campaign, chief among them a Trump-controlled elephant to the south. Did the Liberal government also consider that their finite organizational energy would be better spent dealing with new circumstances? All of you who are choked about this “failure” of the Liberals, ask yourself if you have you ever changed direction because new circumstances meant that the keeping of a promise could cause more harm than good.

7. And, finally, there is a possibility reform might have proceeded had the NDP and the Greens responded differently in that Parliamentary committee. Since their members are likely the folks most upset, perhaps they should redirect their concerns to their own party brass.

Holly McNeil, Lake Country