“Leadership is not about sticking your finger up to see which way the wind is blowing.”
On July 23rd, the Watershed Sentinel had an opportunity to interview Nathan Cullen, the popular MP for the Skeena federal riding, former NDP House Leader, and current NDP Finance critic.
We asked him about the NDP’s election promise to bring in proportional representation as the way in which Canadians vote for their federal government. We noted that the platform plank is met with cynicism because of all the broken political promises which litter the Canadian landscape. Cullen replied that the Pro Rep promise is “set in stone,” and that it is a “bottom line” for the NDP caucus. Cullen said there was “No hedging,” and this commitment to Pro Rep was “foundational” and confirmed by leader Tom Mulcair.
We probed for more detail, and Cullen elaborated that the type of pro rep he preferred was “Mixed Member proportional.” In this system, voters vote twice, once for their member of parliament and once for the party they prefer, and the seats in the House of Commons are distributed in proportion to the popular vote.
The conversation ranged over several other issues, from day care to fish farms. None of the proposed pipelines were in great favour — Northern Gateway was dead in the water, the Kinder Morgan environmental assessment has been so inept as to need re-doing, and Energy East is morphing from a domestic supply pipeline to another resource export outlet.
We asked for the priorities of a new NDP government and the list was clear:
* Open the books
* Move to clean energy
* Revoke Bill C-51
* Restore the Navigable Waters Protection Act
* Give fisheries an overhaul, including co-management between DFO and First Nations
One major step would be to form a committee of Canadians and parliamentarians to work out the details of proportional representation so that, in the 2019 election, every vote counts. If the NDP have their way, 2015 will be the last election where the first-past-the-post system forces the discussion, now raging, about strategic voting.