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1. Parliamentary committee recommends Canadians choose their electoral system through referendum

   The Special Committee on Electoral Reform released its final report and recommendations today. The committee was established to study alternative voting methods after the Liberal government promised that the 2015 election would be the ...

2. Liberals own no mandate to change Canada’s electoral system without a referendum

   Appeared in the Ottawa Citizen, November 29, 2016 As a candidate, Justin Trudeau promised that the 2015 election would be the last under our first-past-the-post electoral system. On Dec. 1, a parliamentary committee released a report on electoral reform, ...

3. Canadians can soon share their views on electoral reform with Ottawa

   Sometime soon, Canadians will receive postcards encouraging them to visit a website and answer questions about their “democratic values.” According to a government official, the mail-out is an attempt to understand what values Canadians ...

4. The alternative vote—not a great option for Canadians or democracy

   Appeared in the Vancouver Sun, October 31, 2016 Despite recent musings by the prime minister, that electoral reform—a Liberal campaign promise—may no longer be a priority, the parliamentary Special Committee on Electoral Reform will deliver a report by ...

5. Counting Votes: Essays on Electoral Reform

     On June 7, 2016, the government formed the Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reform, as part of the Liberal government’s campaign promise that 2015 would be the last election held under first-past-the-post (FPTP). The committee’s task is to deliver ...

6. Electoral reform in Canada requires a referendum

   The issue of whether the new federal government requires explicit approval of the electorate via a referendum to change the method by which parliamentarians and our federal government is elected is gaining a surprising amount of ...

7. De-amalgamation in Ontario: Is it the answer?

   Appeared in the National Post Study after study has found that the benefits of municipal amalgamation have failed to materialize. Costs generally increase after amalgamation, largely due a harmonization of costs and wages, and increases in service ...

8. De-Amalgamation in Canada: Breaking Up is Hard to Do

   Although nearly every province in Canada has pursued some form of local restructuring over the past 25 years, municipal amalgamation remains a controversial subject. A vast amount of research has found that consolidation fails to produce promised cost ...

9. Municipal Amalgamation in Ontario

   The 1990s and 2000s were tumultuous decades for Ontario municipalities. Hundreds of municipalities across the provinces were amalgamated amid claims that restructuring would produce local governments that would be more efficient and less costly. Taxpayers ...

10. The Bizarre World of BC Politics

      Last week the newly elected Premier of British Columbia made two dramatic announcements. One regarding the selection of cabinet and the second regarding major reductions in personal income taxes. The divergence in the nature of the two announcements ...