IN TOUCH WITH MP EARL DREESHEN

December 08, 2016

Democratic Reform

On December 1, the Special Committee on Electoral Reform tabled their report to Parliament. Among the recommendations is that a) The Government hold a referendum, in which the current system is on the ballot and b) That the referendum propose a proportional electoral system.

These recommendations were agreed upon by the all party committee tasked with studying the issue. As many of you know, the Trudeau Government has dismissed the results of the study because it didn’t match up with what they wanted to hear. The Minister of Democratic Institutions has instead launched a new online consultation process with the aim of achieving their goals.

There have been many problems that have surfaced with the online consultations. First, the formatting of the questions is greatly misleading. Survey participants are forced into answering loaded questions that advocate for change without having the option of defending the status quo. Secondly, not once does the survey include reference to a referendum, giving Canadians the ultimate choice into deciding whether or not the government should change Canada’s electoral system.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the online survey can be filled out multiple times from the same computer of device. The same person could fill out the survey dozens or hundreds of times, skewing the results. In addition, there is no mechanism in place to stop our American friends and neighbors from answering the survey and having their thoughts count on what the Canadian system should look like. Then, when you get to the end of the survey, you are asked personal questions like gender, age, household income and postal code. While the Liberals contend these are optional to fill in – if you don’t complete the personal information, your submission will not count in their survey!

This file has been a comedy of errors, all brought on by the Prime Minister’s offhand comment about how 2015 would be the last election done in Canada under the current system.

This online survey is another example that demonstrates that the Liberals already have an outcome in mind, and it’s one that will only benefit Liberal Party politicians. Canadians are smart – they are seeing through this obvious attempt to manipulate.          

Conservatives have been clear from the beginning: if you want to change the rules of Canada’s democracy, every Canadian must have a say. The only way for every Canadian to be heard is through a Referendum.

Sincerely your Member of Parliament,

Earl Dreeshen