If they start talking about it again, you'll know they no longer believe they have a chance of winning without it
If things had worked out the way the Liberal party intended, Canada would already have abandoned its old tried and true approach to voting, in which the most votes in each constituency gets the seat, and the most seats gets the government.
In its place we’d have a shiny new system, likely involving party lists in place of individual candidates, mixed-member ballots, single transferable votes and other such exotic features, which would supposedly make the outcome simpler and fairer, even if it meant some Members of Parliament being anointed by the party rather than the voter. Come the next election we could look forward to new parties with new agendas, fevered post-election manoeuvring as deals were done, coalitions negotiated and favoured cabinet posts bandied about, and all the excitement of wondering — perhaps for days — who would end up in charge.
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Federal Liberals took a stab at reform in the early days after their 2015 victory, but retreated when voters didn’t favour their preferred alternative. Looking back, they might wish they’d persevered. Given the current state of the polls, their best hope of holding office beyond the next election might be some power-sharing smorgasboard pitting Liberals, New Democrats, Greens and perhaps an independent or two against the currently popular Conservatives.
Addressing his flight from reform just a year after taking office, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau maintained it was no longer necessary because the Liberals were so popular. “Under Mr. Harper, there were so many people unhappy with the government and its approach that they were saying, ‘We need electoral reform in order to no longer have a government we don’t like.’”
If the popularity of the government is the criterion by which the need for change is judged, it’s worth noting that 58 per cent of Canadians today say they disapprove of the job Trudeau’s doing. The prime minister is far less popular today than Harper was then: according to an Abacus poll his approval rating stands at 25 per cent, compared to Harper’s 39 per cent a year before the 2015 election (which, it must be noted, he lost).
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Nonetheless, precedent suggests that abandoning a system under which Canada has thrived for almost 160 years remains a bad idea. If the uncertainty and disruption that often haunts coalition regimes was limited to remote, unimportant states, there might be little need for concern. Unfortunately that’s not the case: Germany has for years been the essential member of the European Union, a stable, prosperous and sensible state that acted as the glue able to hold together the framework of a rickety 27-country political union. Today it’s a mess.
Since the retirement of Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2021 the three-party coalition that took her place has stumbled from gaffe to gaffe. A mass protest by farmers brought central Berlin to a standstill Monday. Striking transit drivers last week shut down service for three days. Germany is back to burning coal to get it through the winter, having misguidedly shut down nuclear plants in anticipation of gas supplies from Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Most critically, in November a $90 billion plan to use leftover COVID money to finance an ambitious climate scheme was ruled unconstitutional, killing a scheme that was at the heart of the coalition’s very existence.
The ruling left the three-party government — typical of the sort of mish-mash that oftens comes with proportional representation — struggling to justify its continued hold on power. Its formation resulted from a 2021 deal between the left-wing Social Democratic Party, the right-wing Free Democratic Party and Alliance 90/The Greens, itself the product of several mergers dating back to before German reunification. The SPD, the biggest of the partners, won just 25 per cent of the vote; the three together barely reached 50 per cent. All three are far less popular today. Sensing weakness, an array of other parties are jockeying for position in anticipation of a possible collapse.
There were 47 parties approved for the 2021 vote. They included a Bavaria party, a Marxist-Leninist party, an animal welfare party, a hip-hop party, a vegan party, Christians for Germany and numerous others. Sahra Wagenknecht, a well-known member of a Die Linke (The Left) says she is quitting to form her own party, named after herself, envisioned as a “left-wing conservative party” that would be tough on immigration but easy on spending.
The Alternative for Germany (AfD), labelled by Reuters news service “Germany’s most successful far-right party since the Nazis” drew just 10 per cent support in 2021 but has since doubled it to 23 per cent, more than any of the three coalition partners. The AfD is viewed with such alarm that Germany’s domestic intelligence agency identified it as a threat to democracy, sparking suggestions it could be banned. A recent report revealed party leaders attended a secret meeting outside Berlin to discuss a proposal in which millions of immigrants, including those with German passports, would be rounded up and forcibly deported to a “model state” in Africa.
The report attracted widespread condemnation. Nonetheless, AfD’s strength makes it conceivable it could be invited to join some future multi-party government.
It’s not extremism that should worry Canada, given its near-total absence from our history. It’s the potential for political paralysis. A vital feature of Canada’s electoral system is the certainty it gives governments. Rarely has one lacked the power to act if it was willing to face the consequences. If it means dubious policies can be forced through in the face of strident opposition, it also means necessary measures can be taken even if they’re not popular. If too many governments quail at the thought of such decision-making, it’s the fault of bad leadership, not a bad system. As a rule, Canadian governments fall when voters weary of their accumulated record, not from any single mistake, or because a minor coalition partner senses its chances are better if it jumps ship.
Trudeau is getting a taste of that now, as his future hangs on his ability to jolly along NDP leader Jagmeet Singh. Fortunately for him Singh has proven fairly easy to keep jolly, requiring only periodic pledges to spend gobs of money on programs that seem mysteriously bedevilled by delays. But even Singh may have his limits. The prime minister, he says, “only acts when he is forced to, or when his political future is on the line.”
The future may be getting too close for comfort for the Liberals. If they start talking about electoral reform again, you’ll know they no longer believe they have a chance of winning without it. Which is another mark against it. Elections don’t exist to reward failing governments by letting them hang onto the power they so badly mishandled when they had it.
National Post
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