Why is the MSM Trying to Bury Electoral Reform?

The other day I warned that although the Con's hysterical demands for a referendum on electoral reform, were a product of desperation.

And clearly over the top.

The Con media is on their side beating the same hollow drum.

And sure enough here's the latest example.




The Globe and Mail editorial board declaring that the first-past-the-post system isn't broken.

Canada’s democratic system is not broken, and the Liberal campaign language, treating our existing electoral system as a kind of cancer, was rash. This country is, relatively speaking, extremely well-governed, and our democracy is healthy and successful. First-past-the-post works.

And that if it is to be changed there must be a referendum. 

Fundamentally changing who gets political power, and how, cannot be left up to politicians. It’s an inherent conflict of interest. A change going to the roots of our democracy should only be made with the clear approval of the people, through a referendum.

Even though the FPTP system is horribly flawed. It can produce governments that do not properly represent the views of most Canadians. 

And a referendum would almost certainly ensure that the next election would be fought using the same system as the last one.

And while it's easy to dismiss the point of view of the Globe's editorial board, after the way David Walmsley and his idiot gang endorsed the Cons in the last election...



As did Paul Godfrey's ghastly Postmedia gang.

As Rick Salutin pointed out recently, it doesn't explain why so many other journalists also seem so determined to bury electoral reform. 

What’s behind these sour responses to a sunnier democratic future? Have journalists learned to cover elections as they now are and don’t want to retool? That’d be mean-spirited to suggest though if the shoe fits, etc. 

Or perhaps they see themselves as surrogates for the benighted, politically deprived masses who they stand in for, holding the elites to account since ordinary people can’t, due to the current political math? That’s convoluted but sounds more like it.

Or are journalists embarrassed at having ignored this rotting system for so long? We all should be but they’re the watchdogs who’ve blithely treated a democratic atrocity as if it’s a virtue or at least something normal, like the weather. Anyone would rather not have such dereliction pointed out.

Or why those hapless stooges all seem to be singing from the same songbook...



But the worst part is their bleeting chorus is so deafening, that even the Liberals now say that they are willing to keep the FPTP system if that's what Canadians want. 

Canadians will get what they want when it comes to electoral reform, even if it's the current first-past-the-post system the Liberals campaigned against, the minister in charge says. 

 "Look, if an overwhelming majority of Canadians tell us that they want system X, we will deliver on that need and listen to what they've said," Democratic Institutions Minister Maryam Monsef told Chris Hall in an interview on CBC Radio's The House.

Which as I wrote the other day, makes our challenge only too obvious and urgent.

All of us need to help educate Canadians why we need to change our electoral system to make it fairer and more democratic.

For if or when Canadians understand that, they won't want a referendum either.

So we can get rid the antiquated FPTP system.

And bury the hideous Harperite cult once and for all...



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