To the editor,
Canada’s election law has measures that fix the next election date for October 2023, four years after the last election, unless the government loses an important vote in Parliament (like a vote on its budget or another major issue). Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s minority government has not lost such a vote.
We are starting into the fourth wave of COVID-19.
The only reason for a snap election is Trudeau is hoping our outdated first-past-the-post electoral system will give him a phoney majority. In 2015, Trudeau promised to make every vote count by making 2015 the last first-past-the-post election, but promptly forgot that promise when he got a phoney majority. If he knew that every vote would count and that a 40 per cent vote for the Liberals would only get them 40 per cent of the seats and no phoney majority, he wouldn’t be trying to call an election. Instead, he is hoping that 40 per cent of the vote will give him over 50 per cent of the seats and 100 per cent control of the Parliament for four years.
We need governments that work for the majority of Canadians year in, year out. We need a proportional system where everyone’s vote counts in each election. It is costly in cancelled programs and reversed directions when we flip/flop phoney majority Conservative and Liberal governments. It also means that when governments have 100 per cent control of Parliament for four years, they listen more to lobbyists on behalf of the rich and powerful than ordinary Canadians.
We don’t need an election – we need a proportional electoral system.
Yours sincerely,
Tony McQuail
Lucknow
