Roundup: Laying the groundwork for deadlock

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Over the past couple of days, we’ve seen the markers being placed, and the groundwork is now being laid for the likely deadlock that will be the committee report on electoral reform. With the last of the cross-country consultations taking place this week, the parties started marking their turf this week – the NDP with their vacant report showing “overwhelming” support for proportional voting – along with demands for local representation, which means that they’re going to demand Mixed-Member Proportional, which was their intention all along. The Conservatives, meanwhile, have no position other than they demand a referendum, and yesterday they released the results of their surveys which came back “overwhelmingly” in favour of such a thing. (Never mind that both the Conservatives and the NDP had pretty much zero rigour when it comes to how they achieved those results, and the selection bias was pretty evident, they’re only interested in shock-and-awe headline results). Oh, and the Conservatives insist that they’re willing to find a consensus on a system – really! – but without a referendum, it’s no way no how.

In the middle of this, the Liberals are all going to start turning in the reports from their town hall meetings, all of which focused on “values” rather than specific systems, in the likely hopes that they too will have enough loose data that they can fudge into justifying whatever system they want – or, in the likely event of a deadlock, to justify that the current system already reflects those values (except of course for proportionality, but we all know that demand is based on a logical fallacy, and it would be great if they would actually admit that), so they can wiggle out of their commitment to reforming said system wholesale. Kady O’Malley thinks that this will really come down to the NDP deciding on whether to stick to their guns on proportionality or if they’ll put some water in their wine and accept ranked ballots, but given their completely specious rhetoric on the subject to date (“First-past-the-post on steroids!”), I think that’ll be too hard of a pill for them to swallow.

So, with any luck, this whole thing will blow up in everyone’s faces, and the government will have to swallow their pride, admit defeat, and move onto other, more important issues. One can always hope, anyway.

Good reads:

  • Former Conservative cabinet minister and Alberta premier Jim Prentice was killed in a plane crash. A round-up of tributes can be found here.
  • More on Prentice from Paul Wells, John Ivison, Danielle Smith, Paula Simons, and Jason Markusoff.
  • Justin Trudeau says that carbon price naysayers are using scare tactics, and that he’s confident that the Canada-EU trade deal will pass.
  • The Belgian region of Wallonia may be blocking ratification of CETA owing to that country’s byzantine constitutional guarantees.
  • Jody Wilson-Raybould insists more judicial appointments will happen “in the near future,” like she hasn’t been saying that all summer.
  • Apparently only one company met the criteria to manage the Centre Block rehabilitation project…but they may not win the contract.
  • Justin Trudeau visited Medicine Hat to help campaign in the by-election there, and was the first PM to visit the town in 23 years.
  • Erin O’Toole is now officially in the Conservative leadership race with 10 members of caucus in support, while Lisa Raitt has quit her critic post to contemplate her own bid.
  • Tony Clement insists he’s not retiring from politics, in case you were worried.
  • Susan Delacourt contends that the Conservatives are doing better a year into opposition than the 2006 Liberals were, but I have some doubts.

Odds and ends:

A portrait of the Queen for the British Red Cross was painted in Canada.

Plans to not put Prince Charles on the $20 bill if he becomes king were quashed because come on, our monarch is still our monarch.