Skip to content

OUR VIEW: It was a bad pledge, but that's no excuse for Trudeau's broken promise on electoral reform

Wise Canadian mothers tell their children not to make promises they can’t keep. Somebody should tell that to our prime minister.
67211surreynowjustintoon
Cartoon by Ingrid Rice.

Will the federal Liberal party’s broken 2015 election campaign promise to reform Canada’s electoral system come to haunt it next time voters go to the polls?

Likely not, seeing as that’s two years from now and the Canadian electorate can be forgetful if not forgiving.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Feb. 1 abandoned his pledge to reform Canada’s voting system from the first-past-the-post model, which has been the status quo for nearly 150 years. He made that vow in June 2015, while sitting at third spot in the polls.

Ken Hardie, Liberal MP for Fleetwood-Port Kells, gets credit for not attempting to put a spin on the broken pledge.

“Well, it’s very obvious that that’s exactly what happened,” he said. Randeep Sarai, Liberal MP for Surrey Centre, said the issue of electoral reform paled in comparison to crime and affordable housing when he was door-knocking during the 2015 campaign. “It was not a strong issue,” he said. “Wasn’t mine so much.”

John Aldag, Liberal MP for Cloverdale-Langley City, said there are “a lot of other pressing issues and that’s where we’re going to put our energy.”

Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal MP for Surrey-Newton, echoed Sarai.

“It wasn’t a big issue in my riding,” he said.

Is breaking a bad promise so bad? It should not have been made in the first place. Wise Canadian mothers tell their children not to make promises they can’t keep.

Somebody should tell Mr. Trudeau that.

The Now