Wednesday, February 01, 2017
Trudeau Ditches Electoral Reform
Another betrayal. Trudeau has reneged on his promise of electoral reform for Canada.
He might not be much of a prime minister but he's a damned good liar. Just realize, as the people of coastal British Columbia have learned, that there's no solemn promise that crosses the Dauphin's lips that he can be trusted to keep.
Fortunately we have Andrew Coyne to inject some balance. He points out that it's not Mr. Trudeau's fault for lying. It's our fault for believing him.
For as the prime minister patiently explained — not to you, but to his minister — “without a clear preference or a clear question, a referendum would not be in Canada’s interest.” Perhaps you think framing a clear question is the government’s job. Perhaps you imagine that the point of a referendum is to find out what people prefer, that to object to a referendum on the grounds that there was no clear preference in advance is to object to ordering a meal on the grounds that the waiter should have already brought it to you.
But that is because you are still, even at this late date, investing some literal meaning in the prime minister’s words, as if what he said and what he intended bore any relationship to each other. But if there is anything that you should have learned by now, after the two deficits of $10 billion that turned into 40 years of deficits as high as $30 billion — and the non-combat mission against ISIS that turned into troops on the ground firing and being fired upon; and the open competition to replace the F-35 that turned into another sole source contract; and the Saudi arms deal and the “revenue neutral” tax cut and all the rest — that you have no business believing a word that comes out of this prime minister’s mouth; that the most solemn promises, however unequivocal and however often repeated, are to him and the people around him mere bait for the gullible; and that if you ever believe anything they tell you ever again, on any matter large or small, if you ever trust them to keep their word from this day forward, then you deserve everything you have coming to you.
It is not their fault for lying to you. It is your fault for believing them.
Now, remember kids. After you leave the barn, before you come into the house, be sure to scrape the Liberal off your boots. It makes a hell of a mess if you track that all over the house.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
10 comments:
The ongoing failures of the apparent 'progressives'
(Blair, Obama, Syriza, Holland, and now selfie-boy, etc etc)
who get into 'power' then accomplish zilch....
means people will turn to the tRumps of the world - or just maybe start a real insurrection.
Something has to give, NPoV. A charlatan with pretty hair is still just a charlatan.
Junior just made Kevin O'Leary Prime Minister. In 2019, Junior is going to get clobbered from the left and the right like Count Ignominious in 2011.
A united Conservative party is a powerhouse. Conservatives make up 40% of the electorate. A false majority occurs on 40%. Harper sucked but was essentially retired out of office (2nd longest-serving Con PM.) O'Leary is likable and speaks their language. Back to back majorities are a lock.
Dippers are more to blame. They sided with the Cons on a referendum after saying they were opposed to one. They said if Trudeau legislated rank ballot voting – simply requiring that MPs are elected with a majority – this would be the equivalent of waging political "nuclear war." (They make Forrest Gump look like a rocket scientist.)
Trudeau's big mistake was attempting to work with the other parties. He should've known how senseless they would act. Using the opportunity to grandstand instead of coming up with a compromise.
In 2027, Liberals should run on ranked ballots. Period. Let the few dozen PR fanatics in the country vote Dipper or Green. Just keep them OUT OF IT. Let the adults get to work on making Canada a democracy. No more infants mucking things up.
I think that anyone who really thought that Trudeau was going to institute electoral reform was foolish. It was an effort to undermine the NDP and the Greens pure and simple. And I suspect that Trudeau is so egotistical that he thinks he can break any promise and get reelected. Or maybe he doesn't really care one way or the other. After all he's already rich and famous. We have bred these politicians who can use the House of Commons to enrich themselves whether they win or lose. Once elected they are set for life one way or another. If I had had any faith left in the political system this morning it would all be gone tonight. Luckily I had no expectations so it's not really a let down. I wonder what Montreal Simon will have to say about his Wonder Boy now??? Anyone who thinks that they are even vaguely progressive who still supports Trudeau now is just lost. The only thing left to do is sit around an wonder if the NDP is saveable or not. It is amazing how effectively people like Trudeau have destroyed political institutions. I think we have to work outside the institutions now.
"I think that anyone who really thought that Trudeau was going to institute electoral reform was foolish."
Not a Trudeau fan but I think he was actually honest in his commitment to electoral form – otherwise he wouldn't have repeated it '1813 times.' He would've been much more coy about it if he planned on killing it all along.
Like how Liberal leaders in BC and Ontario orchestrated designed-to-fail PR referendums. They took neutral positions. Suppressed campaigning. Required a 60% super-majority for change. Etc.
Fact is, the Dippers fiercely opposed Trudeau's ER initiative every step of the way (which was supposed to be about coming up with some kind of compromise like his senate reform.) They finished it off with the 'nuclear option': i.e., stating that if Trudeau ensured that MPs were elected with a majority of the vote, it would be tantamount to waging political "nuclear war."
Not sure what the Dippers were trying to pull. I don't think they know themselves. But whatever the case, they were the only ones who stood to gain in terms of partisan self-interest from any form of ER. Now they have the boot of FPTP back on their throats.
Their actions virtually guarantee that O'Leary will win back-to-back 'majorities.' Some kind of self-immolating scorched-earth gambit. Would be funny if it didn't set everything on fire.
Not sure what the Dippers were trying to pull. I don't think they know themselves. But whatever the case, they were the only ones who stood to gain in terms of partisan self-interest from any form of ER.
Rank Ballots would entrench a majority no wonder the Libs wanted it. A others have pointed out Lib Governments have cynically manipulated this issue before, At least we don't have to put up with Referendum 2.0 - a Butts rerun.
Give the Dauphin some credit he has cleared the decks now all he has to do is manage the fallout. I hope the fallout campaign is as long as a PR debate and this issue has legs.
But in the end all I can say to the "NewLibs" welcome to the real world of the "OldLibs". Some things never change especially the Liberal Party of Canada.
"Rank Ballots would entrench a majority no wonder the Libs wanted it."
Hells ya! Wouldn't want to live in a single-party dictatorship like France and Australia. Those monstrous 'majoritarians'!
LOL.
If we had ranked ballots in 2011 we would've had a Jack Layton coalition government instead of a Harper majority.
If we had ranked ballots last election, there would've been no reason for the NDP to lose its center-left lead halfway through the campaign. What happened is that center-left voters lost confidence in the NDP (with a lot of help from the establishment media.)
So they looked the other way on Trudeau's neoliberal platform and threw in with him to 'Stop Harper!' FPTP polarizing politics work as well for the Liberals as the Cons. They are given the center-left vote on a silver platter without ever having to represent it or be held accountable. Because the other guy is always worse.
In any case, I guess it's not the Dippers' fault. Their amateur-hour politicians just got played by the establishment media. Shined them on with the whole 'eternal dictatorship' nonsense to achieve the result we see today.
Hebert started it. "Ranked ballots are DOA." The establishment and the Conservative party wanted to polarize the debate. PR vs. FPTP. Get ranked ballots off the table.
I have to wonder if Cullen got paid doing his "ranked ballots will bring political nuclear war" thing. Because that's what put paid to ER in Canada. (Kind of 'too perfect' if you ask me.) After that Trudeau said f*ck it. (He was screwed either way. So that decided the way.)
I did my part trying to warn snowflake Dippers over on babble. I wrote NDP and Liberal MPs. Ranted on blogs.
Long story short: I hope Dippers enjoy their FPTP. Before they didn't deserve it. Now they do.
And there we have it. As I feared, Trudeau's perfidy is tearing the progressive consensus, such as it was, to shreds. Liberals blame New Dems, New Dems blame (in my view correctly) the Liberals.
Trudeau, being the ever vacuous prime minister we now know so well, failed to grasp that his latest broken solemn promise will divide us and pave the way for a Tory return in the next election.
That consensus was built on his inspiring and, yes, solemn promises. People voted Liberal because they were voting "for" something only to see the guy they installed waste no time pulling the carpet out from under them.
This Trudeau bears scant resemblance to the earlier one, the Trudeau who served Canada so well. This Trudeau has none of the wisdom, the vision or the courage of his father. He's all Margaret and virtually no Pierre.
The erre committee were mandated to come to some form of consensus. That means that the NDP, Cons, Bloc & Greens did so by putting a bit of wine in coming to that.
As Nathan Cullen said, in the private meetings of the erre committee it was the Liberal members who kept on throwing up road blocks, and bringing up one problem after another, and which the committee addressed. Cullen said, from day one on the committee, Liberal members were doing everything to be obstructive. So take responsibility and quit blaming a failure on the NDP. That said, in the erre report, and in the NDP addendum, they said they would prefer not to go to referendum. The reality is Libs wanted a ranked ballot system of voting but nobody who spoke before the committee, recommended that. Why? Because the mandate of the committee was to address the democratic deficit and that to make the voting system more efficient. Ranked ballot makes it worse, and hence why even the Liberals on the committee could not recommend it, and said publicly: "nobody wants it."
You should really listen to this power panel in the fallout of Trudeau bunting his promise. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAau7wxtcdY
I watched the clip, Jan. Upsetting.
Post a Comment