Electoral reform, we hardly knew ye. As the fall session of Parliament slouches toward Christmas break, it appears that one of the Liberals’ more ambitious campaign promises — that the 2015 election would be the last held under the first-past-the-post voting system — is headed for the dustbin.

This weekend, Democratic Institutions Minister Maryam Monsef told CTV’s Question Period: “We’re committed to this initiative, but we’re not going to move forward unless we have the broad support of the people of this country for whom we’re making this change.”

Translation: We didn’t get the support we needed for the system we prefer — the preferential ballot — and now we’re looking for the exit.

This climbdown doesn’t quite come as a surprise. The Liberals have been paving the way for it for a month now, starting with the PM’s wistful musing in a late October Le Devoir interview: “Under Mr. Harper, there were so many people dissatisfied with the government and its approach that they were saying, ‘We need an electoral reform so that we can no longer have a government we don’t like …’ However, under the current system, they now have a government they are more satisfied with. And the motivation to want to change the electoral system is less urgent.”

Two weeks later, Monsef wrote the special committee studying electoral reform a letter in which she claimed that “Canadians who attended our meetings have passionately championed various systems. While I heard the most passion from proportional representation and first-past-the-post advocates, I have not yet heard a consensus around one particular system over another.”

No consensus? Not exactly. There was a consensus — at least among those who showed up to the meetings. It was for proportional representation. After the consultations were completed, Fair Vote Canada, an organization that has advocated in favour of PR since 2001, sent out a press release with some hefty numbers. Eighty-eight per cent of expert witnesses with a position on voting systems supported PR. Only 4 per cent supported the PM and Minister Monsef’s preferred choice, the Alternative Vote or ranked ballot. Eighty-eight per cent of the 428 open mic participants called for PR.

For the Liberals, this poses a major problem. Of all the systems on offer, proportional representation is the one that would seriously weaken, if not destroy, the party’s ability to form majority governments. Under first-past-the-post or a ranked ballot system, the Liberals would still have a shot at forming majorities; in fact, a ranked ballot system would have given them a bigger majority than they won in 2015.

The Liberals probably feel they’re able to break their promise and get away with it. Monsef has become the sacrificial lamb, gamely repeating her lines about the need to get ‘consensus’ when she knows none exists. The Liberals probably feel they’re able to break their promise and get away with it. Monsef has become the sacrificial lamb, gamely repeating her lines about the need to get ‘consensus’ when she knows none exists.

But proportional representation would produce the opposite result. Unless a party got 50 per cent plus one of the electorate — a tall order, even for Trudeau — it could only form government by forming coalitions … in the Liberals’ case, most likely with the NDP and the Greens.

Which is one reason why those parties love proportional representation: It represents their ticket to power. The supporters’ page of Fair Vote Canada, which advocates in favour of PR, features Elizabeth May and Tom Mulcair and is dominated by friends of both their parties, including David Suzuki, Greenpeace, the Council of Canadians and half a dozen labour unions.

Most Conservative supporters on the Fair Vote page, such as Nancy Ruth and Patrick Boyer, sit on the “progressive” side of their party’s ledger. Featured Liberal voices are those of former Ontario NDP leader Bob Rae, Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion (who proposes not pure PR but “a combination of moderate proportional representation and preferential ballot”) and former PM Pierre Elliott Trudeau, who is cited as having advocated for “a more proportional voting system” without specifying how that would actually look.

To its credit, Fair Vote has been advocating for PR since 2001. There is no comparable organization advocating for ranked ballots or the status quo. So it should come as no surprise that proportional representation won the day at the public consultations. Folks who want it have been mobilizing for years, waiting for this moment. People who are passionate about electoral reform — those who would bother to take the time to make the case for change — are more likely to be disproportionately represented in the consultations.

Even among less-involved Canadians, proportional representation has another advantage: It’s the only system that is digestible in a ten-second sound bite. Get 20 per cent of the votes? You get 20 per cent of the seats. Try explaining FPTP or STV or MMP in an elevator pitch, and you won’t even be able to get through the acronym before the doors slam in your face.

All this helps explain why the NDP, previously downright dismissive of the idea of a referendum on electoral reform, suddenly did an about-face two weeks ago and said it would now support one. The party also was doubtless buoyed by the results of a P.E.I. plebiscite that narrowly approved junking FPTP for a mixed-member proportional representation system.

But it shouldn’t have been. Only 36 per cent of Islanders bothered to vote, and the provincial government has already said it won’t recognize the result, which was non-binding, because, as Premier Wade McLaughlin put it, “the combination of the (low) voter turnout and the level of support (for change) means that just under one in five registered voters has supported mixed member proportional representation … That’s why there should be more debate.”

Which sounds a lot like what Maryam Monsef said this past weekend. And polling would seem to back her up. An Abacus Data survey found voters equally split between PR and FPTP, at 44 per cent each.

Worse yet, only 12 per cent of respondents said they were extremely concerned about electoral reform. And another earlier survey by Ipsos Reid found that only 19 per cent of respondents were even aware the government was consulting on changing the electoral system.

In other words, when it comes to electoral reform, the Liberals probably feel they’re able to break their promise and get away with it. Monsef has become the sacrificial lamb, gamely repeating her lines about the need to get “consensus” when she knows none exists.

PR champions may howl, but with the number of other issues clogging the government’s calendar, their voices will be disproportionately — and dispassionately — drowned out.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.