‘Do you think Kellie Leitch should have her own party?’ Trudeau asks woman upset over electoral reform

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pointed to Conservative leadership candidate Kellie Leitch Thursday to argue that one of the reasons he abandoned his electoral reform promise was to prevent politicians with “fringe” views from gaining the balance of power in Parliament. 

“Do you think that Kellie Leitch should have her own party?” Trudeau said Thursday in Iqaluit. “Because if you have a party that represents the fringe voices … or the periphery of our perspectives and they hold 10, 15, 20 seats in the House, they end up holding the balance of power.”

The prime minister was walking through a crowd when a woman approached him to ask why he killed a campaign promise made during the 2015 election, when he said that vote would be the last decided by the first-past-the-post system.

“Proportional representation in any form would be bad for Canada,” Trudeau responded.

The woman, visibly taken aback, she said she “very respectfully” disagreed.

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Trudeau pointed to federal Conservative leadership candidate Kellie Leitch as an example of a “fringe voice” that could hold the balance of power in Parliament under proportional representation.

The Ontario MP has sparked debate across the country by arguing in her leadership platform that new immigrants should be screened for “Canadian values” at the border.

In making his argument, Trudeau told the woman: “The strength of our democracy is that we have to pull people into big parties that have all the diversity of Canada and we learn to get along.”

The woman told the prime minister she is not a strategic voter, and what she does care about is “voting for the person I want to vote for.”

NDP partly to blame?

Trudeau said he prefers the ranked ballot system, where voters list their choices in order of preference.

Ironically, this system is being used by the Conservative Party to choose its new leader from a field of 14 candidates.

Trudeau also laid some blame at the feet of the New Democrats for the death of his electoral reform plans.

“The fact that the NDP was absolutely locked into proportional representation, no matter what, at any cost, meant there was no give and take possible on that,” he said.

The conversation ended amicably, with the prime minister saying electoral reform was an issue “we just weren’t going to be able to move on.”

The woman told Trudeau she appreciated the one-on-one chat and acknowledged that the politics of electoral reform are challenging. 

Article source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/electoral-reform-trudeau-leitch-1.3975354?cmp=rss