Roundup: Real problems with Monsef’s committee

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After a day of Twitter fights about the announcement on the electoral reform committee, let me say a couple of things. First of all, the moment anyone says they want to “make every vote count,” they immediately have lost the argument, and this includes the Prime Minister and minister saying this. Why? Because every vote already counts. No, it doesn’t mean that the person you voted for is going to win every time, but they’re not supposed to. If you believe otherwise, then you’re a sore loser. Whenever anyone brings up that the popular vote doesn’t match the proportion of the seats in the Commons, they are relying on a logical fallacy. The popular vote is not a real number because a general election is not a single event. It’s 338 separate but simultaneous events to elect members to fill each of the 338 seats, and together they form a parliament which determines who will form the government. We do not elect governments. If someone says we do, smack them. If someone gives a plaintive wail that the system isn’t fair, then they’re a sore loser trying to play on emotion, which isn’t actually how we should be making decisions. The fact that Maryam Monsef’s “five principles” for choosing a new system doesn’t mention accountability once is a giant problem, because that’s one of the key features of the current system – that we can punish incumbents and vote them out. Other systems can’t say the same, and we have European countries where parties just shuffle coalition partners and stay in power for decades. This is a problem. That the minister doesn’t seem to recognise that while she deals in emotion-laden words and saccharine emotion appeals is a problem. And it’s a problem that media outlets, in talking about other electoral systems, say nothing about the current system of its strengths. And after all of today’s Twitter fights, and appallingly ignorant statements made by the minister and other MPs on this issue, I’m going to reiterate a very important point that nobody is addressing – that the problem we’re facing is not that the current system doesn’t work, it’s that we have a crisis of civic literacy in Canada and people don’t know how the system works so they assume it’s broken because they buy into emotional arguments and sore loserism. That’s the problem that the minister should be tackling, not trying to upend a system that actually does work very well.

https://twitter.com/emmmacfarlane/status/730463384735514629

Good reads:

  • Liberal MP Rob Oliphant, who chaired the special committee on assisted dying legislation, won’t support the bill in its current form.
  • Senators are also sounding like they’re going to push back on the bill, and aren’t going to be intimidated by the June 6th deadline.
  • After another Liberal MP agreed to swap spots, Mauril Bélanger’s national anthem bill returns for second hour debate on May 30th.
  • Yes, the Liberals have started using time allocation, but there are legitimate uses for it.
  • Justin Trudeau created an ad hoc cabinet committee to deal with the Fort McMurray reconstruction to bring a whole-of-government approach to it.
  • The government says a broad-strokes proposal for national childcare will be ready by summer.
  • The Senate Internal Economy committee is considering reviewing Mike Duffy’s other $124,000 in travel and contract expenses.
  • Thomas Mulcair is hinting he’ll only be interim leader for about a year.
  • VIA Rail says its very survival is at stake if it can’t get needed upgrades to cars and dedicated track.
  • More talk about “parental leave” for MPs, ignoring that these people make $170K/year and can afford other childcare options.

Odds and ends:

Here is a look at Paul Martin’s official portrait.

Apparently Sophie Grégoire Trudeau gets so much correspondence and requests to speak at events that she needs more staff to deal with it.