Elaine Hughes
The Council of Canadians Quill Plains (Wynyard) chapter has had a letter to the editor on electoral reform published in the Wadena News.
Chapter activist Elaine Hughes writes, “According to a Statistics Canada survey commissioned after the Liberal Party’s win in the October 2015 election, more than a million additional young Canadians cast a ballot in this election when compared to the previous election held in 2011 and that the number of voters aged 18 to 24 increased from 55 per cent to 67 per cent.”
She highlights, “Many of those young people were first-time voters; they believed that Mr. Trudeau was different from previous politicians; and that, according to his election campaign promise, Canada would (like 100 or more other countries on the Planet) finally abandon the archaic and unfair first-past-the-post (FPTP) voting system – that 2015 would be the last time FPTP would ever be used to elect Canada’s decision-makers and a more fair, ‘make-every-vote-count’ system would be adopted.”
She notes, “However, on February 1, 2017, Mr. Trudeau did a ‘backward’ flip on this promise, abandoned his believers and, after the millions of votes which won him the election and after all of the cross-country consultations, town halls, letters, phone calls and petitions, pulled the plug on reforming our voting system, fearing other systems would allow ‘radical’ parties to join in future elections. What a terrible missed opportunity! What a disincentive for young people to vote – will they ever believe any future politician or participate in any future elections?”
Hughes concludes, “Can we convince Prime Minister Trudeau that he needs re-establish our faith in him, stand behind his promise for Electoral Reform and reverse this decision before the government’s self-imposed deadline in May 2017?”
The Wadena News has a circulation of more than 2,600 readers.
The Council of Canadians calls on the Liberal government to keep their promise and introduce legislation next month to ensure that a new voting system can be in place in time for the October 2019 federal election. We encourage our supporters across the country to contact their Liberal MP to convey your support for electoral reform.