In a shadowy backroom deal that threatens to undermine Canadian democracy, Trudeau and Singh are secretly scheming to push through controversial electoral reform right before the next election.
Their proposed changes sound good on the surface, but peel back the layers and their true motivation becomes clear – rigging the system to cling to power and silence opposition voices.
With Trudeau’s approval ratings in freefall, he’s now shamelessly collaborating with Singh’s NDP to manipulate election rules to their advantage.
This 11th hour electoral power-grab demonstrates total contempt for fair elections and the democratic principles Canada holds dear.
Canadians won’t stand for these crooked politicians changing the rules to keep themselves in office against voters’ wishes.
Trudeau claims he wants to improve accessibility, but it’s just a facade for helping the flailing Liberals and NDP cheat their way to victory.
The timing and backroom nature reveal this is not about giving Canadians a voice, but silencing opposition.
Will Canadians tolerate such a brazen unraveling of our democratic foundations in service of one man’s ambitions?
As Trudeau tries to save his sinking Liberal ship at any cost, he is collaborating behind closed doors with one of his not-so-secret loyal supporters, Singh, to plan electoral reform legislation.
This comes after Trudeau once again broke his 2015 election promise to make the 2015 vote the last under the first-past-the-post system. Now, with his popularity declining, Trudeau is proposing minor tweaks to the electoral system that he claims will benefit Canadians. But will they really? Or are there ulterior motives?
Specifically, the reforms Trudeau is now proposing, developed through backroom dealings with the NDP, include allowing an expanded 3-day voting period, letting people vote at any polling station in their riding, and expanding mail-in ballots.
Trudeau claims these changes will increase accessibility and inclusivity. However, the timing right before an election Trudeau could lose, along with the internal negotiations behind these proposals, suggest electoral self-interest is the true motivation.
These changes seem reasonable at first glance, but a deeper look shows these reforms are designed to rig the system in favor of left-leaning parties like the Liberals and NDP, while undermining accountability and electoral integrity.
Allowing voting over multiple days and at any polling station is advertised as making voting more accessible. But it also opens up huge potential for voter fraud and ballot box stuffing as it becomes harder to properly monitor and validate voters over such an expanded system.
The usual controls needed to ensure eligible voters only cast one ballot will be diluted across three days and numerous locations. This leaves the voting process prone to abuse that benefits the Liberals and NDP.
Expanded mail-in balloting also sounds good for accessibility but is rife for coercion and errors. Mail-in ballots have consistently shown higher rejection rates compared to in-person voting due to irregularities like missing signatures.
This gives partisan election workers more chances to disproportionately disqualify votes for opposition parties. Mail-in voting also enables coercive vote harvesting practices where political organizers can improperly “assist” certain vulnerable demographics in filling out their ballots. There is good reason that many advanced democracies like France, Germany, and Switzerland have banned mail-in voting outright.
The timing of Trudeau’s proposal for electoral reforms is highly suspicious, coming right after he made a deal with the NDP to stay in power until 2025 and just before the next election. Recent polls paint a dire picture for Trudeau’s political fortunes.
A recent Abacus Data poll shows the Trudeau Liberals trailing Poilievre’s Conservatives by a whopping 15 points, with the Liberals supported by only 25% of committed voters.
Trudeau’s popularity has cratered to new lows. With the majority of Canadians wanting a change in government and Poilievre beating Trudeau by 8 points in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup, it is evident Trudeau is in political survival mode.
In light of his dismal polling and unpopularity, could Trudeau be making a desperate move to cling to power? Does he see rigging the system through these last-minute electoral reforms as the only path to redeem his standing with voters?
He sees rigging the system through these 11th hour electoral reforms as the only path to redeem his standing with voters.
After abandoning his promises for electoral reform previously, Trudeau now wants to manipulate the system to serve himself right before the next election.
With Canadians so unhappy with Trudeau’s leadership, pushing through these shady reforms immediately before an election is an obvious ploy for Trudeau to cling to power rather than face the voters’ judgment. This demonstrates a profound contempt for Canadian democracy and democratic norms.
A sitting government has no business enacting electoral changes to favor themselves immediately before an election.
Canadians deserve much better than these backroom dealing and gambits to unfairly tip the scales in the Liberals’ favor for partisan gain. Our democracy is not well served by failing parties rigging the system for themselves when they know they cannot win a fair vote.
The NDP’s participation in this undemocratic plot has completely undermined its credibility on democratic principles.
For years, the NDP has postured as defending electoral reform and proportional representation. Now they have sold out those supposed principles for a few political trinkets dangled by Trudeau’s increasingly corrupt government.
Canadians deserve better than this callow political opportunism from a party that was supposed to be above these self-serving games.
Trudeau is framing these reforms as a good faith effort to improve Canadian democracy. But the reality is he is just trying to score political points with modest tweaks that do not fix the underlying problems with first-past-the-post.
None of the proposed changes move the electoral system towards proportional representation, which is what the Liberals themselves claimed to support not long ago.
This exposes Trudeau’s lack of real commitment to meaningful democratic reform. He is avoiding substantive improvements that could hurt the Liberals like proportional representation.
Instead, he puts forward half-measures that he can spin as progress while mainly boosting his own party’s fortunes. It is politics at its most cynical.
Trudeau already betrayed Canadians before on substantive electoral reform. After campaigning in 2015 on making every vote count through proportional representation, he casually abandoned the promise when a committee recommended precisely such reforms.
Now he is going back on his word a second time by refusing to enact proportional representation and instead pushing superficial changes designed to benefit his party.
Trudeau’s rhetoric about the perils of electoral reform risking democracy are disingenuous excuses. Proportional systems incorporating diverse viewpoints function perfectly well in many major democratic countries. His fear mongering about the supposed dangers reveals his main concern is really the dangers to continued Liberal power that real democratic reforms pose.
The reforms Trudeau is proposing could very well undermine integrity of the system by expanding mail-in voting. He is being highly selective about which improvements to accessibility and inclusivity to pursue – only the ones that perturb the status quo as little as possible while giving Liberals an advantage.
Trudeau’s push for modest electoral tweaks rather than genuine reform demonstrates his priority is maintaining a system where the Liberals can win artificial majorities with just over a third of the vote.
If he truly cared about improving Canadian democracy, he would not have discarded his promise of electoral reform when the proposal for proportional representation came forward. His refusal proves his concern is holding power, not empowering voters.
Canadians should see through this cynical political manipulation. Instead of meager changes designed to keep the Liberals in power, we need real and fair electoral reform based on proportional representation. That would mean Liberals having to settle for their actual share of seats rather than inflated majorities. Trudeau was unwilling to relinquish that advantage before, making his current pretense of reform all the more disingenuous.
Trudeau’s proposed electoral reforms constitute a self-serving betrayal of his promises and of Canadian democracy itself. These measures rig the system to help the Liberals and NDP cling to power when Canadians are clearly fed up with their mismanagement.
Real electoral reform requires courage – courage Trudeau has proven he lacks. Canadians deserve a prime minister who respects democracy rather than tries to manipulate it. Trudeau has definitively demonstrated he is not capable of being the prime minister.
