Congrats NDP, you had a big win last Thursday. You stopped a massive political power over-reach.

Last Thursday evening, the Liberals voted for your motion to allocate seats on the Commons electoral reform committee in proportion to support earned last election. No party would control it. As it should be.

It’s an incredible climb-down. The Liberals had planned to give themselves control of the committee, reflecting the majority they earned last fall with just 39% support.

False majorities are just one of the problems of our current electoral system. It also promotes strategic voting, wasted votes, bastions and battlegrounds, cynical micro-targeting and other unhealthy practices.

Electoral reformers have debated whether Canadians should create a variation of the system used in most of the democratic world, proportional representation. That was the recommendation of the landmark 2004 Law Reform Commission report.

The idea has considerable support. The NDP and Green Party adopted the report’s recommendations as party policy.

The Liberals wanted to get in on the momentum – but played it cute. They opposed the first-past-the-post system. And remained silent on a replacement.

Left unsaid was that Trudeau personally favoured a ranked ballot system which many political analysts believe would be grossly self-serving system and amplify Liberal false majorities.

Once elected, it looked like the Liberals were actually going to unilaterally implement Trudeau’s torqued electoral system. They moved to give themselves majority control of the election reform committee. They made it clear they intended to use it.

Thursday’s climb-down came as the government was losing control on several fronts – all self-inflicted damage with a common root cause: the Prime Minister’s pathological inability to admit the NDP could ever be right about anything, anytime or anywhere.

The fact is, the NDP has been right about quite a lot recently.

On the assisted dying bill, Mulcair raised substantive concerns that C-14 infringes on Charter rights. But the Liberals pressed on, leading to the current mess. And this isn’t just politics – real Canadians will endure real pain and suffering because of it.

Trudeau wouldn’t consider NDP suggestions that marijuana be decriminalized until it is legalized. And the consequences are real – Canadians continue to be criminally charged and convicted for doing something that will soon be legal.

And Trudeau initially refused to listen when NDP MPs suggested no party get a majority on the electoral reform committee, and that the smaller parties – the Greens and Bloc – should also have a say.

These were all excellent points raised by an opposition party doing exactly what they’re supposed to do – scrutinize the government and challenge them to be better. But the Liberals wouldn’t take warnings.

And it’s not because the Liberals are dispassionate about the NDP. On the contrary, they greatly fear – and therefore loathe – the NDP. To them, every NDP idea and MP must be completely delegitimized. We saw it in these issues. We saw it in the name-calling attacks on Tom Mulcair and Ruth Ellen Brosseau.

The problem for Trudeau is that on assisted dying, marijuana and electoral reform, the NDP has been making sense. But because Liberals can’t agree with any NDP idea or MP, they stupidly put themselves in untenable positions.

Thursday was the climb-down. They swallowed hard and admitted the NDP had it right on the electoral reform committee. Perhaps decriminalization is next.