Grits could benefit from voting reform

In one respect, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s announcement that he’s reneging on electoral reform was hardly a surprise. The prime minister was merely following a long-standing political tradition of saying one thing before an election, and doing something different afterward.

His reversal calls to mind that old Groucho Marx joke: “These are my principles. If you don’t like them, I have others.”

But the question is: Why did he do it? One explanation is that the world looks different after you’re in power. Why blow up the very system that put you there?

And that could be his thinking. But if so, it’s a remarkably shortsighted point of view.

The Grits might be in office today, but nothing lasts forever. Yes, Trudeau formed a majority government in 2015, but he did so with only 39.4 per cent of the ballot.

Basically, he got lucky. The Tories and the NDP split the opposition vote in just the right proportion, and handed him a victory.

The same thing happened in 2011, but that time the Tories came out ahead. Stephen Harper won almost the same share of the popular vote as Trudeau — 39.6. However on this occasion, the NDP and Liberals conveniently split the remainder, and the Tories got their majority.

Since the Second World War, this has been the pattern. The Liberals and Conservatives have racked up 11 majority governments with less than 50 per cent of the vote.

Move to a proportional-representation scheme, however, and the math changes. Now the minority parties hold far more seats in parliament. That greatly reduces the likelihood of majority governments.

But here’s the thing: The threat to the Tories is much greater. Since 1960, there has been only one federal election in which proportional representation would have produced a Conservative majority.

In all the others, opposition MPs, taken together, would have outnumbered the Tories. Indeed, that’s what would have happened in 2011. Instead of gaining a 25-seat majority, Harper would have been outnumbered by the Liberals, NDP and Greens combined.

And this is the puzzling aspect of Trudeau’s decision. With proportional representation, the Grits have several routes to power. They could either win an outright majority, or failing that, they could form a coalition with the NDP and Greens, both of which lean in their direction (I’m leaving out the Bloc Québécois, since its numbers don’t affect the outcome).

The Conservatives, however, have no such option. There are no other right-wing parties of consequence to get in bed with. They must either win hands-down, or be consigned to perpetual opposition.

So why would Trudeau discard a new electoral model that, at worst, would almost guarantee the Liberals a dominant role for years to come? Perhaps he has no interest in sharing power.

But a different reason suggests itself. The more his party boosted proportional representation, the more public opposition grew. I imagine party polling must have confirmed such a trend.

It has long been held that Canadians desire electoral reform. I don’t believe it.

There are indeed fervent supporters who show up at town-hall meetings and create the appearance of momentum. But when voters understand the consequences, they shy away, as they did during two referendums in B.C.

I recall once sitting on the floor of the Saskatchewan legislature as an official. A tedious committee meeting was underway. There were maybe five people in the chamber.

I asked the minister beside me if he could possibly imagine the proceedings having an impact beyond those four walls. His answer was that the public have a subliminal sense of what goes on in parliament, even if they’re not paying direct attention.

Trudeau ran into just that obstacle. Canadians don’t grasp every nuance of electoral reform, but they intuitively distrust where it would lead.