Letter: What happened to reform?
By Letter to the Editor on October 30, 2021.
Dear editor, With another round of elections over, new governments were sworn in across Alberta this week, and a new Parliament will be in session in November. This was the seventh federal election I’ve voted in, or about one every 900 days since my first, in 2004. Four of those elections rank in the bottom five all time for voter turnout. It’s clear the attitude among citizens that they aren’t heard and don’t matter plays a huge role in this, and who can argue? Once again it wasn’t the party with the most votes that “won,” yet we won’t even see a coalition. We’ll have a 100% Liberal cabinet and appointments to the Senate and Judiciary. The NDP will just prop up our broken ‘Trudeau constitution,’ that didn’t find resolution at Charlottetown or Meech-Lake, a little longer. I grew up here in the era of the Reform Party, reading editorials like this by Monte Solberg, so perhaps it’s a product of my birth, but I’ve always believed in that agenda. Older now, I’m not sure senate reform goes far enough: a narrow-sighted goal, as is “ending equalization.” The Green Party registered a 17-year low of 2.3% in this election, but 4.3, 4.5, 6.8, 3.9, 3.5 and 6.6% of the vote in ones before that. Still, they’ve only ever won 3/338 seats in the lower house – less than 1% (2019). The People’s Party just won 5%, 9% locally, but will have 0 representation. Senate reform would resolve none of this. Additionally, more people just cast votes for Amarjeet Sohi and Jyoti Gondek in their million citizen cities than ever were or will be cast directly for a Prime Minister in their ridings. The Liberals have no interest in altering our ‘Trudeau-constitution,’ his son has made that clear. It must come from the right. It’s time for the Conservative Party to pick up the Reform torch, for Neo-Federalism to take over from Neo-Liberalism as our leading ideology, for a constitution that works for Quebec, the West, First Nations, Métis and Inuit: for everyone. It’s time for regular elections, for proportional representation in the lower house, for a functional upper house, for a directly elected head of state. Time to look to ourselves and to the world – not just Great Britain – to find the constitution that works best for Canada. It is time for reform. Nicholas Martin Medicine Hat 10-9
