Fair Vote Canada just announced that a motion for a Citizen’s Assembly on electoral reform will be voted on in Parliament.
You have to scroll down a bit to see the announcement, which then contains links to details.
In summary, Fair Vote has worked with a few MPs to create and submit a motion to get their asses in gear on electoral reform. This will be voted on in Parliament, so pester your MP and anyone else who can help. And, obviously, spread the word.
What drove me most crazy about Trudeau’s rapid betrayal on this one is that the frigging liberals really would become Canada’s “natural ruling party” on a PR system. Even at their weakest they’ve always held enough votes to have remained strong and relevant if we used PR. However they know they’d lose the majority, and they’d rather lose entirely almost half the time than have an almost unassailably strong hold on the country that requires them to work with others.
It’s the only game the Liberal and Tory strategists know; swapping majorities with periods of hung parliament instability in between. It is possible that the CAS agreement with the NDP suggests a change in direction for the Liberals, but it’s one thing to exchange some goodies in return for maintaining confidence, and quite another to move to a PR voting system that would make formal coalitions all but inevitable (as happened in New Zealand).