OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is "planning on pushing through a (electoral reform) plan that will benefit his Liberal party, making it virtually impossible to remove them from power." — Scott Reid, Conservative MP, in fundraising appeal to party members. ——— The Liberals promised during last year's election campaign to introduce a series of democratic reforms, including changing the way that Canadians elect their federal representatives. Trudeau has said that the 2015 election would be the last time Canadians would vote in a "first-past-the-post" system, where the candidate with the most votes wins a seat in the House of Commons.

Neither Trudeau nor the Liberal government have ever specified how they would want a preferential ballot system to work. (The Canadian Press) The new government has said an all-party committee would study the issue and consult with Canadians, but it has refused to commit to a referendum. Are the Liberals indeed planning to make it "virtually impossible" to remove them from power? Spoiler alert: The Canadian Press Baloney Meter is a dispassionate examination of political statements culminating in a ranking of accuracy on a scale of "no baloney" to "full of baloney" (complete methodology below). This one earns a rating of "a lot of baloney" — the statement is mostly inaccurate but contains elements of truth. Here's why. THE FACTS In the past, Trudeau has expressed his support for a preferential ballot system, where voters in a particular riding rank the candidates in their order of preference. In that system, if nobody has an absolute majority after the first count, the candidate with the least number of votes is eliminated. The second-place choices on the ballots cast for that unsuccessful candidate are redistributed to the other candidates. This process goes on until one person has a majority. The government has said that other forms of voting would be studied as well, including proportional representation. "The government has no intention of prejudicing that debate and we have every interest in ensuring that all voices and perspectives are heard," said Paul Duchesne, spokesman for Democratic Institutions Minister Maryam Monsef. WHAT THE EXPERTS SAY: Reid said that if the Liberals, who will likely have a majority on the all-party committee, go with a "full" preferential ballot system, the Liberals would be assured victory. A full preferential ballot means that voters must rank all of the candidates, otherwise their ballot is considered spoiled. Such a system exists in certain Australian jurisdictions. A Nanos Research survey conducted right before the October 2015 vote showed 46 per cent of Conservative respondents said they had no second choice for support. As a result, Reid argues, Conservative voters would be most likely to have their ballots declared invalid in a full preferential system.