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Well, that’s one way to lay down a line in the sand in advance of what was always going to be a high-stakes cross-aisle negotiation over electoral reform.

If it hadn’t already become pretty clear that the Liberals have no appetite to unilaterally change how Canadians elect their MPs, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau just upgraded that subtext to 18 point bold.

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In an electoral anniversary interview with Le Devoir, he suggested that any major revamp of the first-past-the-post ballot would require similarly significant support to go forward.

That, in itself, wasn’t an entirely new position for the Liberals. Democratic Institutions Minister Maryam Monsef has made much the same point, repeatedly, in the House and on the road during her now-concluded cross-country consultation tour.

Trudeau, however, apparently felt the need to take that logic even further, and mused to the reporter that support for rewriting the math for counting votes might actually have dropped since the Liberals took over. Canadians are, in his view, more satisfied with the current government, and, as such, less eager to upend the system that brought it to power.