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OTTAWA — Ramping up his rhetoric after axing his campaign promise to change Canada’s voting system, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attacked the very idea of proportional representation Thursday.

At an event in Iqaluit, a member of the public asked Trudeau a question about electoral reform. He suggested parties with ideas such as Conservative leadership candidate Kellie Leitch’s — an apparent reference to her proposal to test immigrants for “Canadian values” — could be encouraged under a proportional representation system, which would align vote counts to seat counts, thus giving smaller parties an opportunity to have more say in parliament.

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Those “fringe voices,” he said, would “end up holding the balance of power.” The current system works well, he added, because people “learn to get along” and don’t “amplify small voices.”

“Do you think that Kellie Leitch should have her own party?” Trudeau said. “Proportional representation in any form would be bad for Canada.”