In trying to justify their decision to drop the electoral reform promise the Liberal Party made in the last election, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asked if someone really wanted Kelly Leitch to have her own party.
On the face of it, the response is a bit odd, since Leitch does have her own party – specifically, the Conservative party, she’s trying to become the leader of it right now – but his logic is that proportional representation gives a voice to weird fringe parties, and he doesn’t want to risk that system becoming how Canadians elect their government as a result.
He has a point, proportional representation does lead to fringe, one-issue parties getting in parliaments. But, if a fringe party gets enough support, that works in any system – see the one issue, one province Bloc Quebecois becoming a prominent voice in Canadian politics in the 1990s. I want to tackle the other part of his question, do we want the Kelly Leitch party to exist?
As someone who has been openly hostile to Leitch in the past, as well as the present – this column will have no kind words for her – I actually would like her to have her own party. It would be a way to make her current party more reasonable.
Canada tends to trend towards the center when it comes to our politics. One could argue this is why we have a Liberal government right now. The NDP is a bit too left wing for a lot of people in the country, while the Conservative party started to drift uncomfortably far to the right. Gambits like the Leitch-led “barbaric cultural practices hotline” – a kind of 911 for racists – are what killed their chances of forming government. Canada likes our political parties to hew close to the center line, and the Conservative party went too far from it to form government.
Split off the lunatic line that Leitch represents, however, and you’ve got a party Canadians can feel comfortable voting for, a party that sits on the center line and can humble the Liberals. Political parties tend to need a bit of humility after they’ve been in power for a while, and without a strong opposition you get some bone-headed policy moves.
You also would get a party for crazed, right-wing nut jobs that might get a few votes but won’t form government. The outright disaster happening south of the border proves what happens when you let a fringe element take control of a mainstream political party, and it would be to our advantage if we managed to avoid this outcome.
Naturally, Trudeau wouldn’t want this, a Conservative party that isn’t pulled in two opposing directions would be a potential threat to his government, while keeping Leitch prominent in the current iteration of the government allows the Conservative party to frighten a large number of Canadians. Still, as someone who is a proponent of a strong opposition party, whoever that party might be, it might be for the best if Leitch and those similar are kicked into a fringe party and we have two political parties in the middle made up of reasonable adults making our policy decisions.
