Thursday, September 10, 2020

The Justin Trudeau's betrayal of his Proportional representation promises

In 2015 Justin Trudeau said:

I've really reflected in this because I felt betrayed when he went back on his word and the First-Past-the-Post (FPP) system remained in place. Many people think that once he got a majority, it wasn't to his advantage to change the system.

Maybe I am naive but after that reflection, now I trust that his reason for going back on his word was that, after consultations and analysis, he figured out that there are more Canadians who collectively prefer FPP, than Canadians who prefer a particular alternative.

I am convinced that many people who now say that he should have kept his word, would have criticized him for behaving as an autocrat implementing a particular Proportional Representation (PR) system they didn't like.

The reality is that whatever PR system chosen, wouldn't be the "best" proportional representation according to a large part of the population.

I read yesterday a parable of 9 people who wanted to choose something, One convinced two others for choosing a crappy option, and from the other 6, each 2 proposed better option but each one different than the others. When they voted, the three people who wanted the crapy option won. I think that's why we are stuck with FPP. We may agree that proportional representation is better than FPP but not agreeing on which one.

In the end, it was his mistake in the first place for being so confident about something that he didn't know he could achieve; but also our mistake for failing to agree on a PR system. Any of them, even if we had to review it and fine tune it later. 

 Instead of "castigating" the Liberals, we should continue working on achieving PR consensus.