The Council of Canadians Montreal chapter protested on Wednesday afternoon against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to abandon his promise of electoral reform announced that same day.
Chapter activist Abdul Pirani tells us, “We had close to 65-70 persons, mostly young people. Not bad for the first manifestation called at the last minute after Trudeau announced in the parliament that the reform will not be possible before the next election in 2019. This is the beginning of the protest with many, many more to come.”
The protest took place in -15 Celsius weather outside Trudeau’s constituency office at 1100 Boulevard Crémazie Est in Montreal.
During the last federal election, the Liberals promised that the 2015 election would be the last held until the first-past-the-post voting system and set a deadline of May 2017 to introduce legislation on electoral reform. Undoubtedly many people voted for Trudeau because of this pledge to make our voting system more democratic. Now, just 15 months after the election, Trudeau has abandoned that promise.
We strongly condemn Trudeau’s decision to not make every vote count.
We believe it is wrong that the current electoral system means that the Liberals with only 39.47 per cent of the popular vote hold 54.48 per cent of the seats (basically meaning 100 per cent of the power) in the House of Commons.
#BrokenPromises
