"A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself." — playwright Arthur Miller, 1961
The Guelph Mercury, which died last week at age 149, was a good newspaper. Sister paper to the Waterloo Region Record, the Mercury may not have had the reach of the Globe and Mail or the Toronto Star, but in its best days the "Merc" was the information lifeblood of Guelph and environs.
Luck is a precious thing in politics.
To take a couple of examples among Canadian leaders, Justin Trudeau has had good luck, oodles of it, in his short career, while Robert Stanfield had none when he needed it most.
Let's start with Bob Stanfield, the man they called the "best prime minister Canada never had." Stanfield was the immensely popular Progressive Conservative premier of Nova Scotia. Folks in his province contended he could keep getting re-elected as long as he lived — and maybe for one election posthumously.
There's an old saying in Canada that if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
According to Prime Minister Trudeau and many others, however, our electoral system is broken.
The fact that a political party can win 100 per cent of the power with less than 50 per cent of the vote is a huge problem for those who worry about the tyranny of majority governments and wasted votes.
But does this mean our electoral system is broken and needs to be replaced?
The answer is no.
It is a fair observation that the federal Liberals' discussion of a ranked preferential ballot to replace the current plurality electoral system, popularly known as first-past-the-post, is a proposal that likely favours their party. What should also be acknowledged is that the other parties are also pushing proposals that favour their interests, too.
If you are looking to place a small wager on which election promises the new Liberal government in Ottawa will or will not be able to keep, consider this possibility. You might place a toonie on the proposition that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will NOT be able to keep his promise to make 2015 the last federal election to be fought using our traditional first-past-the-post (FPTP) voting system.
