Liberals failed to educate voters on electoral reform, says prof

A University of Waterloo political science professor who studies comparative and electoral politics says the federal Liberals did the country a disservice when it scrapped plans for electoral reform.

MariamMufti said the Liberals were wrong in making a decision on the future of the country's democracy without consulting with Canadiansor teaching them about their options.

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"I donot think that the Liberal party educated the citizens," Mufti told The Morning Edition host Craig Norris Wednesday.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ran on a platform that included a promise that the 2015 federal election would be the last using Canada's first-past-the-post system and that changes to the way Canadians vote would be in place in time for the 2019 election.

However, the Liberal government abandoned their plans earlier this month, saying nationwide consultations on the issue didn't producea clear enough consensus on whether to change the current voting system or what should replace it.

'Very complicated system'

"I don't think they talked about what kind of proportional representation they were thinking of," Mufti said.

"Proportional representation is a very complicated system that can be fined tuned for the needs of the specific country," she said.

"There are all sorts of different ways in which it can be modified and I don't think the Liberal party did that."

The full conversation can be listened to below, where Mufti explains how proportional representation works in different parts of the world.