Credit Where It Is Due

To the Globe And Mail for including this in their post-election editorial:

Mr. McGuinty, meanwhile, did not wait long to offer his assessment of Ontario's referendum on electoral reform. Voters' rejection of a proposed system of mixed-member proportional representation (MMP), he appeared to suggest, meant they had definitively endorsed the current first-past-the-post system. "No, we've had that debate," he said Thursday when asked if there would be further referendums on electoral reform. "I'm glad and proud we've presented an option to Ontario voters. They've rejected it."

But Ontarians were not given a fair chance to reform the system; nor was there the full "debate" that Mr. McGuinty claims. Rather, a flawed model was put forward in a referendum that was barely publicized until the campaign's final days. By claiming the result settled the matter once and for all, Mr. McGuinty lends credence to claims that the referendum was intended only to reinforce the status quo.

It certainly does. I will contend until the day I die that McGuinty could not sell electoral reform to his own party and so set up the process to fail. If Liberals think this is over, they can forget about it. This is just the beginning.

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