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After confusing us with how these various options might work, and failing to explain why any of them were better than what we do now, the professor parroted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s opinion that the issue is too complicated for a referendum, that people wouldn’t really understand what they would be voting on, and so leaving it to the politicians is the best approach. He didn’t explain how, if people aren’t smart enough to understand how these systems work in order to pass judgement on them in a referendum, they would be smart enough to actually use the system once it was in place.

Eventually, the audience was invited to ask questions. We were told we needed to limit our comments to two minutes. In other words, no referendum because we are going to consult, which we’ll do the night after the August long weekend, and the issue is too complex for you bozos to understand, but tell us everything you think about it in two minutes. Now, smile, you’ve been consulted!

Mr. Aldag was asked repeatedly by speakers if he would go back to the prime minister and tell him that the people of his riding think they should be consulted by referendum before our electoral system, which has served us well for centuries, is overturned and replaced by something that apparently works well in postage stamp-sized countries in Eastern Europe. We didn’t get an answer.

By the end of the night there had been 20 speakers. Of those, 11 were opposed to any change to the electoral system without a referendum, while seven were in favour of change without any consensus from them on which of the alternatives we should adopt. They were just in favour of changing to something or other without a referendum. I couldn’t quite make out what the final two meant to say. Interestingly, of the seven in favour of anything but what we do now, four were from outside of the riding. This leads me to believe the electoral change advocates are making the rounds, attending meetings in multiple ridings, to make it seem as if there are more of them than there actually are. Great, the “consultation” version of double voting.

I guess this is the open and transparent government that Prime Minister Trudeau promised. I think we are all about to get a collective elbow to the chest.

Dean Drysdale lives in Surrey.