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Opposition Leader Rona Ambrose is demanding that every Canadian be given the opportunity to vote on the issue. Part of her motivation is the worry that Trudeau may try to tweak the rules for his own party’s advantage. Former finance minister Joe Oliver recently argued in these pages that such a strategic manoeuvre is “just not right.” This is a case of the pot calling the kettle black, if I ever saw one. (Oliver was a cabinet minister in the Conservative government that unilaterally did away with party subsidies and introduced the Fair Elections Act.)

Luckily, Trudeau’s previously stated reform choice, the preferential ballot, has repeatedly and thoroughly been criticized as a system that would work almost entirely to the Liberal party’s benefit. As such, it seems unlikely that this option will prevail over a system of proportional representation.

A wave of editorials in recent weeks gives the impression that it is merely common wisdom that the people, rather than the parties, should get to choose how they vote. However, referendums can easily be just another way of rigging the game for partisan interests by setting reforms up to fail. The current system benefits the Conservative party and their calls for a referendum seem to be designed to protect Canada’s long history of Liberal-Conservative alternation.

A referendum would probably have killed reform efforts, not on their merits, but on the difficulty in having a discussion about a process that most Canadians don’t think much about. Electoral reform wasn’t a major election issue and Oliver suggests that most people don’t know that much about it. His hunch is supported by a recent Broadbent Institute poll, which suggests that 43 per cent of Canadians do not have a strong opinion about electoral reform. Many of these voters would likely be risk averse, choosing the devil they know rather than risking the unknown.