(Ottawa) Justin Trudeau regrets not having used the majority he had from 2015 to 2019 to implement the voting method he personally favored – preferential voting.
With hindsight, the Prime Minister believes that he should have closed the door more categorically to the proportional voting system, which certain elected officials in his caucus cherished.
He expressed these disappointments during a nearly hour-long interview with his MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, who hosts a podcast called Uncommons.
The Prime Minister himself shared the extract of the conversation on the X network last Saturday.
“I would certainly have done things differently with regard to electoral reform, in order to avoid that the next electoral battle would still be under the first-past-the-post voting system,” he said.
His host, one of the most independent-minded elected officials in the Liberal caucus, replied that this broken promise for lack of consensus, the government was told, had a “cynical” feel.
“I made two big mistakes,” adds Justin Trudeau.
The first was to “leave the door open to proportional voting” by wanting to be receptive to the “very strong” voices of deputies who wanted to plead the cause of this system, he asserts.
According to him, some have therefore misinterpreted the commitment made in the 2015 electoral platform.
However, “I was never going to do that, and I was not clear enough on that,” insists the Prime Minister, pleading that he had expressed his opposition to this model, notably at the 2012 Liberal Congress.
Because it was preferential voting that was in favor. Hence the second “big mistake” mentioned in this long discussion.
“I did not use my majority to establish the model I wanted. Because I believe in the relevance of preferential voting,” he explains to his Toronto MP.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
The electoral dynamics that would result from this system would be preferable, in his opinion.
“By offering a first, a second, and a third choice to people, the parties will try to convince them to choose them second or third,” explains Justin Trudeau.
By promoting “more cooperation between parties”, this system makes it possible to “counter anyone who tries to polarize aggressively”, he also argues.
The 2015 Liberal promise was: “We are determined to ensure that the 2015 election is the last federal election held under a first-past-the-post system.”
It was officially abandoned in February 2017, after costing former minister Maryam Monsef her job.
The New Democratic Party (NDP) is among those who were outraged to see the Liberal Party break this electoral promise.
In the Conservative camp, we advocated the status quo – the fear that the Liberals would gain more from it was a factor at the time when the debate was held in parliamentary committee.
Break with the NDP: “It annoyed me”
Elected for the first time in 2015, Nathaniel Erskine-Smith has hosted a podcast since 2020 where he welcomes elected officials of all political stripes and from different levels of government.
PHOTO FROM NATHANIEL ERSKINE-SMITH’S WEBSITE
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith
At his microphone, his boss addresses a range of subjects, including the end of the support and confidence agreement with the New Democrats.
He emphasizes that he did not like the way the breakup was announced, that is to say by email.
“I know that if I had chosen to end it, I would have started by calling him,” Justin Trudeau explains of his former dance partner Jagmeet Singh.
“That he proceeded in this way, it annoyed me,” he says.
With the Liberals vulnerable since the agreement was torn up, a federal election could occur in the coming months, before the scheduled polling date of October 20, 2025.
Pierre Poilievre’s conservatives have held a clear lead over the liberals in opinion polls for several months.
If the elections were held today, Canadian voters would elect a Poilievre government with a large majority in Ottawa, according to the poll aggregation site 338Canada.