I know that I really shouldn’t give bad columns more coverage, but I can’t help myself, because this is just the first of many that we are doubtlessly going to see in the coming months – that a Doug Ford win on Thursday could get the ball rolling on electoral reform, at least in Ontario. It’s a specious argument, but it’s attractive to a certain class of voter and wonk, so brace yourselves, because this red herring will be coming at you hard in the coming month.

Part of the problem with this particular column is that it doesn’t really make the argument why electoral reform is the logical follow-through for a Ford-led government, because most of the complaints have to do with how Ford won the leadership instead of Christine Elliott. This is not the fault of the electoral system – it’s the fault of our very broken leadership selection system and would largely be corrected if we returned to the system of caucus selection of leaders that our system is designed for. If we had that in place, Elliott would likely have been chosen because she was in caucus at the time that Patrick Brown challenged for the post (while he was still a federal MP, in case you’d forgotten). That would be two dark chapters in the Ontario PC party that could have been avoided, but I digress. The argument here should be that the Ford gong show should be an object lesson in how we need to restore proper leadership processes, where caucus can select and remove leaders in order to ensure that there is proper accountability and more importantly that leaders can’t throw their weight around, that caucus has more power to keep the leader in check. Sadly, that’s not the argument we got.

The balance of the column is a bunch of whinging that parties got majority mandates with less than 40 percent of the popular vote – never mind that the popular vote is a logical fallacy. It’s not a real thing – it’s an extrapolation that magnifies the sense of unfairness by those whose parties did not win, but it’s not a real thing because general elections are not a single event, they’re a series of simultaneous but separate elections for individual seats, and yes, that matters greatly in how the system works, how parliaments are formed, and in the agency afforded to individual MPs.

The other implicit argument being made in pieces like these, though this pieces doesn’t come out and say it, is that proportional representation will likely deliver us a series of coalition governments by nice leftist parties, and we’ll get solar panels on roofs, and great social programs, and no divisive politics because they’ll be forced to cooperate. Won’t it be great? Err, except that’s not what happens, and if anyone thinks it’ll be nice leftist coalitions in perpetuity, they should perhaps look at what’s going on in Europe right now, and how the populist mood there and in North America would have consequences in our own elections that wouldn’t be mitigated like our current brokerage system does, and that could be an even bigger problem. But that’s not the established electoral reform/PR narrative, even though it should be.

Good reads:

• Justin Trudeau met with a BC First Nation who is championing the Trans Mountain expansion. Trudeau says he’s not concerned if the pipeline costs him seats.
• Trudeau also says that Donald Trump will face very frank questions about his tariff imposition if he shows up at the G7. There may not be a joint communique this time.
• Trump’s economic advisor was pitching bilateral deals instead of NAFTA – Canada said no thanks. Trump was also warned against imposing tariffs on Canada.
• The MMIW Inquiry got a six-month extension instead of the two years they asked for, but also funds for different recommended programmes.
• There was a blow-up between Catherine McKenna and the Conservatives on the environment committee yesterday. Yay silly season!
• Mélanie Joly launched an expert panel to review all broadcasting rules for the digital era, but it’s got an 18-month timeline, taking it past the next election.
• It looks like negotiations with Davie shipyard over medium icebreakers are reaching a deal, with the exception of the question of Davie’s bid for a heavy icebreaker.
• The costs of building new Joint Support Ships has also climbed by another $1.1 billion as the timelines for construction continue to extend.
• The government plans to expand biometric data collection of visitors to Canada, raising privacy concerns.
• The Canadian Forces is not meeting its target for recruiting women, but more women who sign up are looking to become officers.
• The US government is ramping up its “white hat” hacker programme to help find security vulnerabilities, but Canada won’t say if we do the same.
• While opposition shenanigans continue to thwart the government agenda, the Speaker ruled on the complaint raised by the May 25^thmeltdown.
• The Senate adopted another amendment to the cannabis legislation, this time around revealing the identities of investors to keep organized crime out.
• Former FBI Director James Comey says that our 2019 federal election will likely be a target of Russian meddling. (That’s why they are pushing this elections bill).
• There is new research out about how women premiers have shorter tenures and get pushed out of leadership faster than male counterparts.
• David Reevely talks to Philippe Lagassé about the politics of government formation if there’s no clear winner in Thursday’s Ontario election.
• Susan Delacourt thinks that Kathleen Wynne needs to start answering more “hypothetical” questions now that she’s conceded the election.
• My column calls for MPs to re-think how they’re debating in the Commons, lest they risk things like programming motions, or fall further out of touch with Canadians.

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