OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is fixing the rules to ensure only a new electoral system that benefits the Liberal party will be chosen, opposition MPs say. On Tuesday, Trudeau suggested he will not hold a referendum on changing the voting method because he believes Canadians would likely choose the status quo. “Many of the people...who propose that absolutely we need a referendum, well, they know that the fact is that referendum are a pretty good way of not getting any electoral reform,” he told students at University of Ottawa.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks at an event at a university in Ottawa, Tuesday, April 19, 2016. (Photo: Adrian Wyld/CP) The prime minister said his party had put forward “a very clear platform” pledging that the Oct. 19 election would be the last under the current first-past-the-post system and Canadians responded “positively and massively” to it and to other parties who wanted change. “So I think we can see that there is a fairly clear desire out there to improve our electoral system.” The current system worked “pretty good for me this time,” Trudeau told the students, and it could be tempting to claim it is too complicated to change it now, but, he told them it remains “a priority to me.” “Quite frankly, political parties shouldn’t be able to appeal to narrow constituencies and suddenly wield enough power to run the entire country,” he said.

Canadians should have an electoral system that values their voices, that creates good governments, that ensures people feel involved in the political process, and that they don’t have to make “impossible choices” between options they don’t like, he said. The Conservatives say the Liberals have a mandate to propose change but not one to dictate it. They fear the Grits will propose a system that naturally gives them the biggest partisan advantage, democratic institutions critic Scott Reid said. “This is a blatantly, nakedly opportunistic attempt to change the rules in a way that will help them to win election 2019 or do better at it by systematically disenfranchising certain Canadians,” he told The Huffington Post Canada. “The Canadian people must get the last word on this,” he added.

Conservative MP Scott Reid rises in the House of Commons Thursday February 18, 2016 in Ottawa. (Photo: Adrian Wyld/CP) “A government which says that first-past-the-post produces artificial mandates can hardly argue that 39 per cent in an election is a mandate for electoral reform.” The Liberals won 39.5 per cent of the popular vote last fall. For the past several months, the Conservatives have argued Trudeau should put any new electoral system to Canadians in a referendum. In 2005, a majority of British Columbians, 57.7 per cent, voted in favour of adopting a new system suggested by the B.C. Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform. But the measure failed because the referendum required 60 per cent approval. Those results mirror other referendums held in Ontario in 2007 and Prince Edward Island in 2005 where two thirds of voters rejected the proposed mixed-member proportional systems. "A government which says that first-past-the-post produces artificial mandates can hardly argue that 39 per cent in an election is a mandate for electoral reform." — Scott Reid Nathan Cullen, the NDP’s democratic reform critic, told HuffPost he believes Trudeau is showing a “worrying lack of faith” in Canadians by refusing to put a proposed new voting system to the public. But, Cullen said, his personal opinion is the government should adopt a new system and then take it out for a “test drive.” Give the new selection process at least two election cycles, and then ask Canadians in a referendum whether they like the new method or would prefer going back to first-past-the-post. “That way people would be voting with a clear knowledge of what it means,” he said. At the moment, though, Cullen said he is primarily concerned that the Liberals are stacking the deck in their favour and inexplicably delaying the process. During the campaign, the Liberals pledged to “make every vote count.” They promised to convene an all-party parliamentary committee to review various reform options, such as ranked ballots, proportional representation, mandatory voting and online voting, and to table legislation within 18 months of forming government.