OTTAWA – With Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stepping down as Liberal leader, observers have noted that not running as planned in the upcoming election is technically the closest he has ever come to following through on his 2015 campaign promise for electoral reform.
“Trudeau’s initial promise was to reform first past the post voting, which would give Canadians a more nuanced and healthy democratic choice,” explains Prof. Helen MacKenzie of U of T’s political science dept. “But then he realized that might lose him seats, or require working weekends, so instead he just kinda hung out for 10 years.
“But sure, slightly upending the forthcoming election sorta counts as reforming our electoral process. If you squint at it,” added MacKenzie.
Despite bold promises to introduce a system of proportional representation or ranked choice balloting, Trudeau has reportedly been “really swamped” for the past 10 years in office, leaving today’s announcement as his largest progress on the file.
“You have to understand, the PM has been too busy to do the thing Canadians explicitly elected him to do,” explains political columnist Jean-Pierre Thornton. “He’s had his hands full fulfilling requests by Canadian corporations for more temporary foreign workers, choosing going away gifts for ministers who quit on him, siding with every single corporation over striking workers, Stephen Colbert appearances… As for electoral reform, this’ll have to do.”
In his farewell address, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau touched on his abandoned campaign promise for electoral reform.
“If I have one regret, I do wish we’d been able to change the way we elect our governments in this country,” Trudeau explained. “Specifically, to change it in such a way that I would’ve been elected Prime Minister for another 10 years. But I was told that that kind of electoral math was ‘impossible’ and ‘utterly insane’, so I guess my biggest electoral reform will be stirring the pot a little before the inevitable summer Poilievre blowout. Peace.”
Following Trudeau’s announcement, political observers have noted that leaving the residence at 24 Sussex is also the closest the PM has ever come in 10 years to improving housing availability for Canadians.
