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MORE: Why did Trudeau really abandon electoral reform? Fears over rise of Leitch, fringe voices

If he did (tell me you didn’t see this coming), here’s how that soliloquy might go:

Mr. Speaker, through you, to Canadians, let me start out with two simple words: I’m sorry.

While I don’t totally agree with the tone of this particular motion, mostly because I maintain (and will explain why further on) that I never intended to “mislead” anyone on electoral reform, I can’t deny that’s exactly what I wound up doing by pledging – repeatedly, if increasingly nervously – to make the 2015 election the last to be conducted under first-past-the-post.

Just to be clear, at first – and for a while after that, even — I absolutely did mean it: when I made the commitment while on the campaign trail and repeated it during my very first post-victory press conference, when I made sure it was included in our first Speech from the Throne and when I put it at the very top of the list of priorities included in the letter setting out the mandate for my first minister for democratic institutions.

The problem was that up until then, I just hadn’t really thought it through beyond the basic premise – I mean, who wouldn’t agree that the distribution of House seats should reflect – or at least not actively contradict – how Canadians cast their ballots?

Although my own party had come out in favour of moving to a ranked ballot in 2012, I was fully prepared to start the conversation on moving beyond first-past-the-post without a fixed idea on what the eventual conclusions should be, although I fully admit that I did have a preferred outcome. (No pun intended.)