Mark Carney needs to depolarize our politics

In the span of just over two months, Mark Carney won the Liberal leadership race, governed briefly as prime minister, and won an election his party seemed destined to lose badly. It might be the most auspicious start to a political career in Canadian history. And now, the real work begins. 

That’s because, for all of his party’s success last night, it didn’t win the sort of majority government that would buy it four years of political security. Even if he can entice some NDP or CPC MPs to cross the floor and join the Liberal caucus, Carney will have to govern with conspicuous care and caution. He acknowledged that imperative in his victory speech by highlighting the importance of humility, a virtue Liberals have tended to struggle with in the past. “Over my long career,” Carney said, “I have made many mistakes, and I will make more. But I commit to admitting them openly, correcting them quickly and always learning from them.”

That alone will represent a decisive break from the previous Liberal government, which seemed more interested in apologizing for the mistakes made by other Canadians than for its own. But Carney should go one step further here and rectify one of the biggest mistakes made by his predecessor: walking away from electoral reform. 

I know, I know. At a time when Donald Trump is openly threatening our independence and sovereignty, electoral reform probably seems like a weird thing to prioritize. We need to knock down interprovincial trade barriers, build more housing — like, way more housing — and support the economic sectors most directly impacted by Trump’s trade war. But we also need to fortify our country against the ongoing threat of foreign influence campaigns, disinformation and other instruments of political polarization. Now, more than ever, Canadians can either hang together or we will hang separately. 

Part of that push against political polarization should include the funding increase to the CBC that Carney promised during the campaign. Part of it should include a more deliberate effort to improve civics education in Canada and our shared understanding of how our institutions are supposed to work. And part of it should include regulation aimed at suffocating the foreign-funded online bot farms that tried to influence our recent election, and will surely try again whenever we have the next one. 

But part of this push against political polarization — a key part of it — has to include implementing a more proportional electoral system. Whether it’s a ranked ballot system like proportional ranked choice or a more conventional proportional system like mixed-member proportional, we need a system that encourages participation and inclusion as much as possible. Instead, we have one that often does the opposite, encouraging things like strategic voting rather than genuine political participation.  

Alberta offers a perfect example of why our first-past-the-post system is doing more harm than good. Despite winning 28.3 per cent of the vote, and far more than that in urban settings like Calgary and Edmonton, the Liberals will have just 5.4 per cent of the seats. A similar dynamic is at play for the Conservatives in cities like Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal, where they routinely win upwards of 30 per cent of the vote and come away with zero per cent of the seats. Under a more proportional system, both parties would be incentivized to compete more aggressively in all parts of the country, and rewarded for efforts to build bridges rather than burn them.

This was important before Trump got elected a second time, even if our political class wasn’t willing to treat it that way. But it is downright existential now, as the Trump administration and its proxies in the right-wing online universe look to divide Canadians and undermine our sovereignty. They will find willing partners for this in some quarters of our country, from Danielle Smith and her separatist-curious government to Ezra Levant and other online purveyors of far-right fear porn. Time will tell whether that list of partners also includes Pierre Poilievre and his Conservative Party of Canada. 

Either way, Carney’s government must find a way to protect Canadians from further political polarization and those who would try to weaponize it. That means improving media literacy, strengthening our collective immune response against online mischief and helping Canadians access reliable sources of information. But it also has to mean changing the way in which we elect our representatives, and improving the incentive structure that system creates. 

Yes, it would mean fewer (false) majority governments for whoever is lucky enough to win them. But if there was ever a time to put country over party, it’s now.