And Harper was a Dictator??

Actually Teen, things like the niqab ban was shot down because it violated the charter. But that aside, there are countries that use other electoral systems, and they work well for those countries. wouldn't it more arrogant to refuse change, even while admitting that the current system doesn't work, before adequately studying other options? Right now, many Canadians do not vote because they feel that their vote will not count, like many liberal/NDP/Green supporters living in the Prairies, or conservatives living in the Maritimes. But under these other formats, every vote counts, because even though they might only get 10% of the votes, they will still get representation.

Nope! You still make the decision to vote. And if you don't like what you see in leaders you can spoil your ballot.

Australia keeps track of spoiled votes.

So if Canada does this first and keeps track of spoiled votes then it's time to have a referendum where you give the citizens a "choice" of what kind of voting system is best. Read the article again there is two choices, actually 3 if you keep the current system, I'd like to vote on which one in a referendum.

Popular choice made by Canadian citizens not a politician.

Like in Australia it is against the law NOT to vote. Why can't this be done first? Then wouldn't we be living in a dictatorship if we are obligated to go out and vote by law?

Nope sorry Rex but Trudeau is changing what Harper did, just like Harper changed what Chretien did. It's what they do. The lawsuits had nothing to do with what Harper changed. They were not Charter violations just plain old 'this is wrong lawsuits'.

This change Trudeau wants to do is pure arrogance. Three provinces wanted to change their electoral system and each premier without hesitation held a referendum and lost. Because of this Trudeau is going to change the very basic democratic process without approval by it's citizens.

Do I want to see a change in our electoral system? Absolutely. It's a shame that only 39% of the voting population voted in the last 2 elections. It's shameful. But there is better options to do first to improve voter turnout. Like in Australia it is against the law NOT to vote. Why can't this be done first?

So democaratic values mean nothing to you as long as the dictator takes care of veterans? No sorry not my cup of tea and I'm willing to bet there is a lot vets on CSAT and who come to CSAT don't agree with you.

I'm not trolling here people I'm pointing out that this man, regardless of how he treats veterans, is going down a path that is going to cause problems for ALL Canadians.

We all know power corrupts, hell how many countries have we gone to with dictators, but this is a whole new level of showing that.

Teen, Harper made changes to our constitution as well without asking permission from Canadians. He even brought in legislation that directly clashed with the charter of rights and freedoms. His government spent more time in court, and losing, because many of the changes he wanted were illegal. So if Trudeau wants to change the electoral system, his opponents can challenge the change in court. If the courts decide that there needs to be a referendum, or can't be done at all, then so be it. But a lot of Canadians have argued that the current system is broken, so why not at least try to fix it. They have a couple of years to study the best way to do. Honestly, Tories are upset because the political landscape right now is loaded in favor of the Tories, under the first past the post system, because there is only one party on the right, while the center and left wing split their votes among four parties.

Teen we voted for veterans! not a political party! but for veterans! the rest of Canada can step up to the plate on the other crap! we already done more than our share for this country! and all we want is what is fair for veterans! lib,cons,ndp,bloc,green don't mean nothing! we voted for veterans! and will always vote for veterans! So what ever party does right by veterans! will get the votes of veterans!!!

Regardless of what you think of the reporter's political position Rex is not relevant. Same with rhetoric on the campaign trail Navrat, rhetoric that has been part of elections for the last 25/30 years.

Sorry but your comments did not address the fact that Trudeau will change the electoral process of Canada without allowing all Canadians to say yes or no by a referendum.

Trudeau doing this equivalent to being a 100%, bona-fide dictator. Period!

You can't brush it aside by calling the reporter politically partisan or commenting about campaign rhetoric. Trudeau does not have the right to change the political process.

If we allow him to do this what will he do next that is beyond his power as PM?

Harper was the Ted Cruz of Canada! Thank God he's history! Just look at those dirty campaign ads the Cons made, truly a very low point in Con history, who cared about someone's hair do and what bearing did that have on anyone's ability to govern? Great things are happening , it's just taking a little longer to clean house , 8 years is a lot of dirty laundry to get rid of!

Regardless of what type of electoral system they had used, the Tories would not have won the last election, because the majority of Canadians were simply sick of Harper and his dirty style of politics. But that said, the last two elections were a bit of an anomaly in modern Canadian politics, with the Bloc failing to win enough seats in Quebec, to keep both the Harper Tories and current Liberals from a majority.

I have no problem with the author not agreeing with the Liberal plan, but he lost his journalistic credibility when he made it so hyper partisan, by calling them greedy and such. After all, the new electoral format could just as easily put the Tories back in power next time, both having won majorities with less than 40% of the votes.

Just read this and thought how the hell is this a sunny way government???

http://www.torontosun.com/2016/01/06/the-electoral-treachery-of-justin-trudeau

OTTAWA – As the year unfolds, it would appear the Trudeau Liberals will be stubbornly sticking to their slapdash plan to celebrate 150 years of Confederation next year by ripping apart our democracy’s very foundation.

This is not spin; this is fact.

Despite outcry from the opposition, threats of a Senate blockade, and constitutional experts and editorialists urging them to reboot their thought process, the Liberals will change our electoral system essentially by coup, using their majority as a truncheon and locking out the public as if inconsequential to the outcome of their unilateral treachery.

This is inherently dictatorial.

Now, even the most progressive of progressives will surely have to admit that Canada’s first-past-the-post system of plurality voting has served them particularly well.

The Liberal Party of Canada, after all, did not simply stumble upon the nickname of “Canada’s natural governing party,” but achieved it through an electoral dominance that saw the moniker achieve adhesion.

Most recently, they wanted the Harperites gone and, on Oct. 19, the public voted them out to a Halleluiah chorus.

But the selfish always want more.

The Liberals of Justin Trudeau have made it abundantly clear – repeatedly -- that they have absolutely no intention of holding a referendum to ask the public directly if it wants to abandon the voting system that has elected its governments since the days of John A. Macdonald.

They are just going to do it on their own.

This arrogance, in fact, was reflected when Trudeau asked a CTV interviewer if a government was supposed to hold a referendum on everything that matters to the future of our country, as if tearing apart our electoral system was no more important than, say, having a trade deal with Mongolia.

“You have to make choices at some point,” he said.

So out the window goes first-past-the-post and, in its place, the Liberals alone will decide whether the next federal election is a ranked ballot or proportional representation.

During the election campaign, Trudeau admitted to preferring a ranked ballot but, as Mandy Rice-Davies famously said long ago during Britain’s Profumo sex scandal, “Well (giggle) he would, wouldn’t he?”

After all, it would rig the game in the Liberals’ favour.

According to Abacus Data, a ranked ballot would have given the Trudeau Liberals, who achieved their October majority with only 39.47% of the popular vote, approximately 40 more seats in the House of Commons, while a proportional representational ballot would have knocked them out of enough ridings to reduce them to a minority.

Between 2005 and 2009, three provincial referendums – in Prince Edward Island, Ontario, and British Columbia – turned down electoral reform proposals and, in 2011, so did Great Britain, the birthplace of Canada’s Westminster model.

Yet Trudeau still thinks the system is broken or, at the very least, still not kind enough to the Liberals that they occasionally find themselves losing an election.

What chuffs Trudeau in this episode of the pot calling the kettle black is that the Harper Conservatives won 54% of the seats in the Commons in the previous election with just 39.62% of the popular vote, and that declining voter turnout is the direct result of dissatisfaction with a system where the candidate who gets the most votes gets to go to Ottawa and the loser, even if only by a single vote, gets to sit at home watching Question Period on CPAC and cursing the neighbour who voted against him.

It ain’t fair, but it’s fairer than anything else.