Dissecting the Lies and Spin in the Liberal MP Apology Letters

Today, many of the PR-open-minded Liberal MPs started sending out letters to constituents and posting those letters on social media, explaining why the government chose to break its promise on electoral reform. Now don't misunderstand. They're not apologizing for breaking the promise you voted for. They're not acknowledging what a huge ethical problem the government's decision was - to lie and give hope of electoral reform to millions of people, some of whom have cast wasted votes in every election for 50 years and really thought they would live to see the day their vote mattered. A lie repeated 1813 times since they were elected. They're not apologizing for breaking our trust in order to keep a distorted, dysfunctional, unfair system in place for their own partisan advantage. And they're not saying they're personally going to try to do anything about it. They're saying that as your MP, they are sorry that some of us feel badly. They truly empathize. Their door is open anytime if we need to talk. That open door is even better than calling your sister or the Mental Health Hotline to talk out your frustrations, because with the personal MP contact, you might even become convinced that the MP is such a good person who really couldn't help it that you will vote for them again anyway. That's not called accountability. That's called damage control. The overriding themes of these letters are: It's not our fault. It's somebody else's fault. It's the fault of the other parties. It's the fault of Canadians. Did I mention Donald Trump? We can't possibly deliver on voter equality in these uncertain times. But we are so personally principled that we will write these letters to constituents to restate what you all just saw on the news - that we're dumping this promise. But don't worry, it's all for the best, really. Because most people didn't really care anyway. And look at the shiny thing over here! Some unrelated things we are doing - copied and pasted from government issued talking points - in case that builds the case for our overall competence and scores us another point towards damage control. A few MPs who are genuinely sympathetic to PR in theory or on another planet are actually CALLING the constituents they know care about this issue, to deliver the same bullshit over the phone. The ones who don't support PR period - even in Narnia - are issuing letters with just the excuses, minus the sympathy factor. My blood was starting to boil all day reading these letters as they passed by me on social media. I thought, "I should blog about this - pick the lies out of this mealy mouthed soup in case anybody really believes this stuff." But what got me furious enough to do it right now was MP Mike Bossio's letter. Two individuals had shared it on social media with their comment "Good explanation." Bossio actually went beyond the party-issued talking points - which some people are eating up - and delivered a personal zinger. In his letter Bossio states: "Yesterday, our government announced that it will not be moving forward on changing our electoral system. This will come as a disappointment to those in my riding who have been pushing for this, and I include myself among them. I have stated several times, including in my town halls on electoral reform, that my personal preference was for a form of mixed member proportional." Let's put this preference in a real life context. With Mixed Member Proportional representation as usually recommended for Canada, we keep about 60% of the seats elected first-past-the-post and 40% elected on a regional list. Over 1/3 of the local ridings existing now willl disappear. For every three ridings now, in 2019 there would be two bigger ones. To make room for the regional seats. Each riding gets an average of 66% bigger. (The only other way to get moderate proportionality with MMP without redistricting ridings is to add about 125-150 MPs to the House for the regional seats - you can see that is not going to fly). Hang in with me and I'll explain how this relates to Mike Bossio's letter. The two challenges for MPs (note I said "for MPs", not voters) with this much redistribution with MMP are: 1) A lot of Liberal MPs in areas where it's all Liberal MPs (think Toronto, Atlantic Canada) will be fighting their colleagues in the House for a local nomination because their riding just disappeared and suddenly 2 MPs both want to run in the same local seat. This is a HUGE issue. It's the elephant in the living room the public never sees, and Fair Vote Canada worked extremely hard to design proportional systems that address this issue for incumbents, avoiding nomination battles and allowing them all to run again. 2) Proposing that ridings like Nathan Cullen's - the size of Poland - or Long Range Mountains - getting 66% bigger tends to elicit a reaction from rural Liberal MPs something like - "Sure - when hell freezes over." Mike Bossio knows this problem of larger local ridings and PR very well. The day Fair Vote Canada testified to the Electoral Reform Committee, Mike Bossio was there. Fair Vote Canada was presenting on two models - Mixed Member Proportional and Rural-Urban Proportional. Rural-Urban PR was designed to meet the concerns of MPs just like Mike Bossio. Rural ridings with RU-PR would only have to get 15-18% bigger, not 66% bigger. Let me highlight Mike Bossio's reaction to this: He was clear that even 15% bigger was utterly unacceptable. The transcript doesn't quite capture the emotion behind his objection as well as the video. Following this, at least a month later, I received an email that Bossio was even calling constituents who supported PR and telling them PR was bad for rural ridings. So yes, he is in favour of Mixed Member Proportional, just like he says in his letter. He is a real fan of PR - in a textbook, or on the moon. And very sad to see it go, no doubt. But most of his constituents don't follow this closely enough to understand this. Other Lies and Dubious Logic in the Liberal MP Letters

No Time to Get it Done "While it may have been a bridge too far to realize electoral reform so quickly..." Joyce Murray (Note: As a long time supporter of PR, hers was one of the better ones) FACT: The Liberals campaigned on the timeline of legislation for electoral reform at 18 months. This gave them lots of time to introduce any kind of system - including those like MMP that require more redistribution. Both former Chief Electoral Officers - Marc Mayrand and Jean-Pierre Kingsley - told them that, repeatedly. Some systems (STV) and designs of systems (including some designs of MMP) involve much easier redistribution. When Scotland adopted PR-STV, the time between the decision and the first election was one year. Citizens in Scotland use four different electoral systems and as the Electoral Commission explained to the ERRE, can handle 1,2,3, one X, or two X's with no problem. Their Electoral Commission sent out educational materials, and voters caught on quickly by doing. No Consensus

"After the extensive public consultations, it became evident that the broad support needed among Canadians for a change of this magnitude does not exist, and it would not have been responsible to proceed." Arif Virani "With regard to Canada`s major political parties, a significant attempt was made by parliamentarians of all political stripes to find a basis for consensus. The Parliamentary Committee in particular worked extremely hard. However, the bottom line is that even after an enormous amount of work and consultation across the country, there was no consensus on which electoral system Canada should adopt. The NDP supported a particular form of proportional representation.... The lack of any reasonable consensus – even as between two of the major political parties – was absolutely debilitating on an issue like this." Jonathan Wilkinson This is the biggest load of bull, and it's being repeated by the Prime Minister and every Liberal MP. FACT: 88% of the experts to ERRE recommended PR. 87% of the public who testified supported PR. 71% of the 22,000 who answered their online survey supported PR (and said yes to specific models/ballots). 13 previous commissions supported PR. 14 years of polls show Canadians support PR. Even the screwed-up Mydemocracy.ca survey couldn't disguise the fact that results showed that asked five different ways, 70% of Canadians want governments where legislation is developed and agreed upon by more than one party. It's pretty safe to say that if three parties (including Trudeau) came forward with a proportional model and said to Canadians "We agree on this. It's a good thing and this is how we're going to deliver on our promise. We're bringing historic change to democracy to make your vote count", the reaction of most Canadians would range from "Sure, whatever" to very pleased to see this moving ahead. But that would require the leadership we voted for. Instead, one MP claiming to support PR went so far as to suggest it was up to the small non-profit, grassroots groups like Fair Vote Canada to educate 35 million Canadians on the mechanics of multiple electoral systems, have them find a consensus, and then we can proceed. But what about the parties? Was no consensus possible? Must be the NDP's fault? That's the story. The Greens, NDP and Bloc all support PR. While the NDP has a preference for MMP, none of those parties are married to any one model. As evidenced in the NDP/Green report, which suggests two possible models with lots of flexibility. When the Liberal MPs try to paint "no consensus" as a multi-party problem, understand this: The Greens and NDP twisted themselves in knots trying to get the Liberals to show interest in ANY kind of PR, any reasonable degree of proportional representation, or any combination of features. They would have compromised on pretty much anything to open a dialogue and help fulfill this promise - a dialogue the Liberals, despite their own campaign promise, refused to have. That's still the case today. The only place the "lack of consensus" preventing a multi-party agreement really exists is within the Liberal Party. It's been the same since 1921, when the first all-party committee was formed, on the basis of a Liberal promise to implement PR. Except in that case, MacKenzie King voted yes, but couldn't bring his caucus along. Same with Pierre Trudeau, who proposed PR to his caucus in 1979 - got a "no way" - and gave up. With the current Prime Minister, we get only excuses. Time and again, you have incumbent MPs invested in nurturing their best personal chances of re-election as their top priority - an objective they see as dependent upon a winner-take-all system using the current riding configurations that elected them. Then you have the party strategists who don't seem to give a rat's ass whether your vote counts or or whether an "extremist" can win 100% of the power with the support of only 25% of eligible voters - as long as their party can, too. And then you have a minority of MPs who see the fairness of PR but certainly aren't going to risk their short term careers to help bring it in. PR - yes. Just not in my term. "Let's keep the conversation going. My door is always open."