proportional representation is not on the table, and the media is being irresponsible in continuing to suggest that it is. the liberal party has been clear that it supports preferential voting.

nor is it the case the preferential voting will help the liberals everywhere. it will only help the liberals win in ridings where they poll second and the ndp poll third. similarly, it will help the ndp in ridings where they poll second and the liberals poll third.

functionally, for much of the country, what this actually does is convert elections into a race between the ndp and the liberals as to who can get first choice status, as conservatives cannot break 50% in most of the country. eliminating the fear of conservatives winning will allow voters to focus more on individual mps and less on parties, which is the way our system is meant to work.

nor am i convinced that the ndp would have been better off in the previous election under mmp than under preferential voting. they would have clearly increased their seat count - at the expense of the conservatives - in british columbia, alberta and saskatchewan. i'm not guessing about quebec. but, you're easily looking at 70 seats, which is actually where they would be at strict pr, which no sane person would even consider.

the loser in the preferential vote is the conservatives, who would have been reduced to around 50 seats - and no doubt third party status. this is what you can actually expect. it's really actually not at all clear that the liberals are better off than the ndp under the preferential ballot, but it's absolutely clear that it throws the conservatives into a crisis situation for the foreseeable future.

what it would do is convert *every* election into an "everybody except conservative" election.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/justin-trudeau-electoral-reform-first-past-the-post-1.3292694

enrgyblogwalter
it was in their released platform to the public during the election. 18 months after winning they are to supposedly form a committee to make suggestions then implement.

jessica murray
but, the reality is that the preferential voting system has been the party's official position since 2006. it was most recently voted on at the party convention in 2012.

this stuff about forming a committee to study it is really just a formality, and even partly a political thing. it's the correctly empirical way to go about it. but if you're aware of where the party stands on this, there's really no ambiguity and hasn't been in a very long time.

regarding reaction, i actually think that this is the most likely system to pass a referendum. advocates of proportional representation talk big, but the truth is that popular opinion is really not at all onside with the ramifications of any kind of proportional representation - things like party lists, and creating mps that really don't represent anybody. as pointed out in the article, any type of pr system will fail a referendum. it's actually one of the reasons i got a little queasy about the idea of the ndp forming a government, even though i've voted for them repeatedly when they were clearly the third party. pr, senate reform, 50%+1 and a few of these other structural changes that the ndp has held to for years may be popular in the core of their base, but they're well outside of the mainstream of the country. we're not going to see a movement to the ndp on this; it was a part of the reason (certainly not the only one...) that people moved away from the ndp this year.

here's the thing: stephen harper made a public issue out of his desire to destroy the liberal party. he failed. now, the conservatives have very little rhetorical space to stand in in arguing against something like this. is it explicitly designed to destroy them? absolutely. but, they made their bed.