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As a result, you can find a seemingly endless array of proposals for how to reform our electoral system. But here’s the thing: The reason there are so many electoral options is because people don’t agree on what an election is for in the first place. Is it to send local representatives to Ottawa? To make sure all voices from all corners of the country have a say? To ensure that the demographic makeup of Parliament mirrors that of the country?

Here’s what elections are for: They exist to throw the old bums out and bring a new gang of bums-in-waiting into office. At the process of flushing out and renewing the elite political class in this country, first past the post does a pretty good job.

It happened twice in 2015 — politically exhausted governments, one in Alberta and one in Ottawa, were booted, decisively, with seats changing hands like bills in a casino.

Now that Justin Trudeau has promised that the 2015 election would be the last one held under first past the post, the chattering classes have started obsessing over the question how the Liberal government should change the electoral system — should it take it to the people via referendum, or should the Liberals go through Parliament, using their majority to simply legislate the way we elect our representatives?

That, really, is beside the point, because the question we really should be asking is, do we need a new electoral system at all?

What proponents of electoral reform don’t accept is that what they see as flaws in first past the post are actually the traits that make it a pretty good setup. What produces the satisfying tossing of the bums when their time is due also produces governments that appear to have inflated mandates. But that’s not a bug in the system, it’s a feature.

Canada is an enormously diverse country — geographically, ethnically, politically. One of the great virtues of first past the post is that it allows a stable government to be formed by substantial and coherent plurality of voters.

Under first past the post, our governments are elected with wide — if perhaps not always deep — mandates to govern as they see fit. This allows us to get things done on a national scale, while providing clean lines of accountability.

Which means if we don’t like it…we can always toss them in four years.