Open letter to Stephen Fuhr:
I am writing to add my name to the growing list of Canadians and constituents of yours who are deeply disappointed by the Government of Canada’s decision to no longer pursue reform of the electoral process. Winner takes all may work well for the winners, but it leaves a majority of Canadians without effective representation in the House of Commons.
The reason that electoral reform is so important to me is that in a first-past-the-post democracy, if a person doesn’t vote for the candidate who eventually wins the riding, their vote counts about as much as if they had just stayed home. This leads to perversions of the electoral system where people vote strategically instead of for what they truly value, people decide not to vote in ridings where the outcome is pre-determined, and parties may even go so far as to not run a candidate in a certain riding so as to avoid splitting the vote.
I will remind you that you may not have the job you have today if it weren’t for the Green Party deciding not to run a candidate in Kelowna-Lake Country. I can imagine that Elizabeth May is likely re-analyzing that decision right now.
I find the justification of abandoning the electoral reform process to be a total cop-out. To point to a confusing survey (mydemocracy.ca) that delivered confusing results as justification for the abandonment is weak and disingenuous. To point to consultations that apparently were done and produced no clear consensus is equally weak.
More than anything, this decision worries me for the future. I am mostly happy with what the Liberals have done while in power and still believe that they are currently the best leaders for Canada. But this not only makes me question what other fundamental parts of the platform will be abandoned, it makes me question any past or future promise made by the government. In my opinion it also makes the Liberals very vulnerable come the 2019 election.
What good is a platform if we can’t have faith that it will be carried out?
David Kemp, Constituent - Kelowna-Lake Country