A referendum on electoral reform would likely prevent changes to Canada’s electoral system, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told students at the University of Ottawa late Tuesday afternoon.

In a question and answer session that followed a speech Trudeau gave at an event hosted by iVote, a student-run initiative based out of the university’s Jean-Luc Pépin Research Chair, the prime minister was asked to explain why a referendum was unnecessary.

Provincial referendums, the questioner noted, have all stuck with the first-past-the-post voting system, suggesting that’s ultimately what Canadians prefer.

An EKOS poll published Tuesday by iPolitics show Canadians evenly split on the referendum question.

“We put forward a very clear platform that said this would be the last election held under the first-past-the-post system,” Trudeau began.

“Many of the people, and I’m not accusing you directly, sir, who propose…we need a referendum, well they know that the fact is that referendums are a pretty good way of not getting any electoral reform.”

Previously, Trudeau has left the door open to a referendum. It now seems all but closed.

Given the results of last October’s election, Trudeau said even some supporters of his government have lost interest in reform.

But he hasn’t.

“I think we can see that there’s a fairly clear desire out there to improve our electoral system, and I’m very aware that the current electoral system worked out pretty good for me this time,” he said.

“And a lot people I’ve talked to have said, ‘Oh yes, we really, really wanted electoral reform because we had to get rid of Stephen Harper, but now we have a government that we sort of like, so electoral reform just doesn’t seem as much of a priority anymore.’ Well, it’s a priority to me. It’s a priority to a lot of Canadians.”

Last week, Democratic Reform Minister Maryam Monsef laid out eight principles that will guide the electoral reform process, but didn’t get into the specific options that will likely be considered.

Trudeau was similarly broad Tuesday.

“I’m looking forward to robust debates on this type versus that type. I’m looking forward to digging into the values underpinning the different choices and the different positions,” he said.

There are a few clear questions that can be asked, he added.

“Is it better to create diversity of voices by making as many different political parties as possible, so that in the House of Commons there are all sorts of different perspectives reflected? That’s one way of having diversity in the House of Commons,” he said.

“Another way of doing it is to make sure that parties that reach out to fold in a broad diversity of voices and perspectives within their party get rewarded as well.”