The electoral reform committee returns next week, and so far I see a lot of proponents of proportional representation on the witness list, not that this surprises me in any way, as well as an academic proponent of a referendum on electoral reform – also not a surprise. So look forward to plenty of glowing recommendations about how electoral reform will solve all of our political ills.

In the meantime, if you’re looking for some background reading the Library of Parliament has some updated publications in store – one on the history and evolution of our electoral laws, and another that provides an overview of our current electoral system and those employed elsewhere. That one I found particularly lacking, especially in the language it used to describe the current First-Past-the-Post system, adopting wholesale the arguments about “disproportionate” seat counts (logical fallacy), the supposed advantages of “regional parties” or “regional strongholds” with no discussion of brokerage parties, and buying into the arguments about voter turnout without being critical about them (this is a broad problem across all western democracies no matter the electoral system). The rest was an overview of other electoral systems, examples of their use in other countries, the history of electoral reform initiatives in Canada, and some adjacent issues like mandatory voting, online voting (with zero mention about the concerns of the secrecy of the ballot), and lowering the voting age.

What was missing from this tepid report was any discussion on the impact of these electoral systems, such as government formation or accountability, which boggles my mind. It’s literally taking a piece of a complex ecosystem and treating it in isolation with no regard for how it will affect all other aspects of it, which is a huge part of the electoral reform discussion. What kind of government you get after you vote in that system is kind of a big deal. And even bigger deal is how you get rid of that government in a subsequent election, which is not easy to do in most systems other than FPTP because the tendency is for a big central party to just shuffle around their coalition partners, and that can be an even bigger headache, delivering policies that only a tiny fraction of the population voted for. You’d think this would be relevant to an examination of electoral reform proposals, but apparently not according to the analysts at the Library. You’ll excuse me if my faith in this government’s process has just sunk even lower.

(Hat tip to blog reader PierreB for pointing these reports out)

Good reads:

• There was a major shake-up in diplomatic postings, with more career diplomats and civil servants and more women in the mix.
• More complaints about the Shared Services Canada tire fire, which has enraged Statistics Canada for their inability to deliver needed services. The minister is working to resolve it and says SSC can work out…eventually.
• The Phoenix pay system fiasco has not only screwed up the pay of 80,000 civil servants, it also caused internal privacy breaches of all employees. Oh boy.
• Yazidi survivors told a parliamentary committee that the government must do more to help them.
• PMO has issued formal guidance on what costs get picked up by the government during the PM’s international travel, including personal trips.
• A retired army colonel who was removed from a mission on false charges of an improper affair says the independent grievance process is broken.
• Kevin O’Leary says he wouldn’t need to raise money as a leadership candidate, but elections laws say otherwise.
• John Ivison says that Liberals are planning legislation to turn the PBO into a full-fledged Officer of Parliament.
• Susan Delacourt evaluates Justin Trudeau’s social media risk-taking with this online engagement about his planned Youth Council.
• My Loonie Politics column looks at the upcoming gong show in the Senate as 19 new appointments are due to be made with no caucuses to guide them.

Odds and ends:

Here’s a look at some of the members of the panel studying marijuana legalization legislation.