Bait and Switch: Democracy Democratically rejected in Ontario

You probably know by now that Ontario's referendum on MMP failed yesterday. The truth is it never really stood a chance. The Liberals, referring to page 1 in the Liberal play book, gave the appearance of supporting progress without actually giving it a snowballs chance in hell of happening.

While it was the LIberal government that originally formed the Citizens' Assembly - once the Citizen's Assembly made it's recommendation the McGuinty Liberals stacked the deck to make it virtually impossible for those recommendations to come into being - all while giving the appearance of a democratic process.

The Liberals

Set up a referendum that required 60% of Ontario voters to support the plan and had to have majority support in 64 ridings

Spend virtually no money on educating the public on a very complicated plan.

Based most of the public education campaign that did exist on driving people to a website - even in areas where internet coverage is sparse.

and

Never actually leant the party's support to the recommendations of the committee they created.

Now it should be the first priority of the new McGuinty government to pass electoral reform - and this time, don't believe a word of it until it becomes law.

It should also be noted that there was a record low turnout for yesterday's referendum.