Trudeau, and the Liberal Party on Electoral Reform, May 10 2023

 

On May 10, 2023 in Parliament:
See this video at 15:21:30

Mike Morrice: “Mr. Speaker Canadians overwhelming support creating a Citizens Assembly on Electoral Reform. This past weekend, Liberal Party members strongly voted in support of it, too. Yet the Prime Minister won’t make electoral reform a priority. So, if not Canadians, and if not his own party, who else does the Prime Minister need to hear from before he’s ready to act?”

Justin Trudeau: “Mr. Speaker, as Members of this House know, I’m committed and continue to be hopeful about replacing the First Past the Post system with a preferential ballot. I moved forward in 2015 to live up to that promise and to find consensus in this House of Commons because when you change something as fundamental as the way we elect this House it has to be done with consensus. Unfortunately there was no consensus on moving forward with a ranked ballot therefore we chose not to do it. I continue to be open. If anyone wants to move forward with a preferential ballot I’m happy to talk with them but we will not impose a change on Canadians.”

Fact check (See source below): 

First, Trudeau speaks of "replacing the First Past the Post system with a preferential ballot." In the next sentence he refers to "[moving] forward in 2015 to live up to that promise."

What exactly was "that" 2015 promise? Was it, as he said, to "[replace] the First Past the Post system with a preferential ballot?"

No.

Instead, the Liberal 2015 platform promised an all-party committee to (quote) "review a wide variety of reforms, such as ranked ballots, proportional representation, mandatory voting . . ."
Notice the words “ranked ballots” are separated by a comma before the words “proportional representation.”
See pg 27 in this document (download PDF): Click Here or copy and paste the below link into your browser:
https://liberal.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/292/2020/09/New-plan-for-a-strong-middle-class.pdf?