Justin Trudeau's Campaign Promise Analysis

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In the world of politics, it is not uncommon for politicians to break significant campaign promises. In 2015, one of Justin Trudeau’s campaign promises included reforming Canada’s election system in time for the 2019 federal election (Justin Trudeau abandons campaign promise to reform voting system, 2017, para. 3). The Trudeau government has decided to dismiss the implementation of a new electoral system within Canada, and in doing so has broken a key promise (para. 1). This paper will examine the Trudeau government’s decision to abandon their promise to reform Canada’s election system. The focus will be on the reasons why the Trudeau government abandoned electoral reform and the reactions stimulated by this decision.
One of the reasons the …show more content…

19). This type of system would put more emphasis on individuals rather than all Canadians (Geddes, 2017, para. 15). Trudeau mentions that the ideas of extremists and activists would be more present within the election system (para, 15). Unlike the three major parties, these voices would not focus on what is beneficial for Canada as a whole (Kupfer, 2017, para. 21). Trudeau reveals that the implementation of proportional representation will lead Canada to become unstable and threaten the benefits of living in Canada (paras. 21-22). Overall, Trudeau justifies his broken promise by conveying that he wants to maintain the unity in Canada and refrain from creating a divided country (Geddes, 2017, para. …show more content…

Following Trudeau’s plan to not pursue electoral reform, he received disapproving comments from the opposition members of Parliament (Minsky, 2017, para. 1). A member of the NDP Nathan Cullen believes Trudeau is acting based on self-interest by abandoning electoral reform (para. 2). He also reveals that the Liberals do not want to reform Canada’s electoral system because they want to remain in power (Stone, 2017, para. 18). Cullen also conveys that Trudeau has betrayed Canadians that voted for him and trusted him to reform the electoral system (Minsky, 2017, para. 4). The Interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose commented on this issue by implying that Trudeau cannot be trusted (Stone, 2017, para. 19). The Green Party Leader Elizabeth May expressed that many people had voted for the Trudeau government based on the promise of electoral reform (para. 20). May criticized the prime minister by revealing the implementation of electoral reform was not dependent on the findings that the Liberals would discover (Minsky, 2017, para. 8). As a member of the special committee for electoral reform, she felt the government was disloyal in breaking the promise (Stone, 2017, para.

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