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By the time the federal Liberals made it official this week that they were abandoning their promise to change the way Canadians vote, it was hardly a surprise. Even before the mandate letter of the new minister for democratic institutions, Karina Gould, was published Wednesday, the government had already been backpedalling at full speed away from Justin Trudeau’s campaign promise that the 2015 election would be the last held under the current system. Clearly, changes that looked enticing in opposition lost their allure once the status quo produced a Liberal majority government.

Now, the Liberals are deservedly taking their lumps. Not only are they breaking an election promise — not just breaking it, but stomping on the pieces — they botched the process from start to finish. In the end, it was all just a waste of Canadians’ time and energy. Many people worked hard to devise and weigh alternatives to the current system, not least the members of a House of Commons committee that, late last year, issued a report calling for a referendum on a form of proportional representation.