Apparently, those adorable westerners are reforming their electoral system - all by themselves!
Actually, hopefully this will be the beginning of a nationwide push towards electoral reform. I've got my own preferences, but the simple fact that any of the usually recommended systems would be better than our current system, so any impulse towards reform is a good thing.
Our own liberals in Ontario have said they want to bring in something like Instant-Runoff (last I heard), so here's hoping this impulse takes off. I really hope this influences our perennial demand to reform the Senate. After all, if you want to reduce the power of the Prime Minister, the best thing to do is make a strong Senate. Any reforms to the Commons are likely to be circumvented by any ambitious PM, after all.
Might write more about this later.
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Meaningful Senate reform is an incredibly unlikely prospect since it would require a constitutional amendment. And we all know how arduous that is (2/3 of the provinces,and must include over 1/2 the population). Furthermore, any constitutional reform would open up the Québec thing again and a replay of Meech & Charlottetown would be horrible.
Also, perhaps the most popular model for Senate reform (Alberta's Triple-E model) would be an absolute disaster, plus politicaly unfeasible. There's no way Ontario and Québec are going to voluntarily go from ~25% of Senate seats to only 10%.
Also, also, Senate reform would probably be a really bad idea in a Westminster Parliament. How can Cabinet be responsible to two different houses?
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