As Liberal, NDP, Green, and Bloc MPs hold town halls on electoral reform across the country this summer and into the fall, their Conservative colleagues have found themselves in a tricky spot: do they boycott a process they’ve labelled illegitimate or engage in it, thereby conferring legitimacy?

In addition to creating the special committee on electoral reform, a motion passed by the House of Commons on June 7 urged MPs to hold a town hall in their constituencies and file a report on the outcomes with the clerk of the electoral reform committee by October 14.

Those reports, along with the committee’s report, are supposed to guide cabinet in deciding how to reform the way Canadians vote. The Conservative Party has demanded a referendum on electoral reform, an option the Liberals have all but ruled out.

Conservative MPs are free to hold town halls if they wish, according to a spokesperson from the office of official opposition leader Rona Ambrose, but that comes with a caveat.

“It’s for individual members of Parliament to decide whether they want to hold town halls on electoral reform. But it’s not up to the Liberal government to dictate to MPs how to engage with their constituents. Nor are town halls a substitute for a referendum,” spokesperson Saro Khatchadourian told iPolitics.

To date, only a handful of Tory MPs have exercised that option. And though they still have months to do so, some have already made it clear they don’t plan on it.

On Tuesday, B.C. Conservative MP Bob Zimmer told a local news website he wouldn’t be holding an electoral reform town hall.

“No, I hadn’t planned to,” he said. “Frankly the issue hasn’t really come up. I’ve heard a few people talk about referendums and if it is going to be changed, that’s what I’d like to see. But for me I just think it’s real simple, go to the people for the decision.”

Some others, including Alberta MP Chris Warkentin, have recently been circulating an op-ed that appeared in the Vancouver Sun about Liberal MP John Aldag’s town hall. The author, a Surrey, B.C. resident, dismissed it as a farce.

“The most effective way to consult Canadians on their preferred way of electing their representatives is through a referendum. Any other way will not cut it,” Warkentin weighed in on the piece on his Facebook page.

There is quite a bit more along those lines — in editorials and blog posts.

There are, however, some exceptions.

The government has a website that keeps track of electoral reform events across the country and allows anyone hosting an event to submit it.

An analysis of the website’s calendar and MPs’ online activity (their websites, social media, et cetera), which certainly might miss some events that have taken place or are going to take place, shows only three of the 98 Conservative MPs have held or have scheduled town halls: Bruce Stanton, Alex Nuttall, and Marilyn Gladu.

Stanton has already held one of two events and Nuttall is holding one in the fall — Gladu, the MP for Sarnia-Lambton — is hosting five events on five different days.

Reminder to constituents of Orillia, Severn, Oro-Medonte, Ramara; Town Hall Wed. Aug 17 – Electoral System Reform https://t.co/z4J5Yip3eI — Bruce Stanton, MP (@bruce_stanton) August 14, 2016

B.C. Tory MP Cathy McLeod could be counted as a fourth. She’s done a “riding-wide survey” and said she’d be speaking with her constituents at roundtables, forums and community events in late August, which would include the subject of electoral reform. But there doesn’t appear to be a town hall specifically for that purpose.

For Gladu, who like her fellow Conservatives is insistent on a referendum and has serious objections to the Liberals’ electoral reform process, the decision was simple: her constituents wanted them.

“I heard from a lot of my constituents. I have a lot of them requesting town halls, which got me thinking about trying to get a venue together. And because there was a lot of interest, and we don’t have a lot venues in Sarnia-Lambton that will hold a huge number of people, we thought we would spread it out to the different areas of the riding and make sure that we have something that was accessible for everybody,” she said.

In addition to that, Gladu has sent out householders asking for comments, and she’ll be putting all that feedback together in her report.

Though not a Conservative MP, NDP MP Kennedy Stewart has already used a telephone town hall.

“I had a fantastic electoral reform telephone town hall call with folks in Burnanby North Seymour tonight. It was unanimous – folks in Burnaby and North Vancouver want a Mixed Member Proportional Electoral System and no referendum. They also what Trudeau to Stop Kinder Morgan. Great discussion!” he wrote on his Facebook page.

At least 56 Liberal MPs and 16 NDP MPs have already conducted a town hall or have scheduled one. Green Party Leader Elizabeth May has four scheduled, beginning in September.

Only one Bloc MP, Xavier Barsalou-Duval, appears to have a town hall scheduled.

In June, the party said that since it doesn’t have official party status, it doesn’t have the resources to conduct town halls.

Mark Holland, parliamentary secretary to Minister of Democratic Institutions Maryam Monsef, clarified in June that the town halls weren’t mandatory — and that there’d be no punishment for not holding one — but MPs who didn’t would have to “answer to their constituents”.

According to one of the committee clerks, a few town hall reports have already started to come in and will be translated and shared with members of the committee before being posted on the committee website.

If MPs choose not to produce them, that decision will be on display for anyone interested. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it will serve as an incentive.

“The vision that we have is 338 reports from 338 town halls,” Monsef said in May.

For the time being, that vision looks exceedingly optimistic.