Why Trudeau Abandoned Electoral Reform

It was incontestably part of the Liberal platform in 2015. Liberal leader Justin Trudeau solemnly pledged to change the electoral system so that the next election, presumably in 2019, would be decided by a new way to count votes. The Special Committee on Electoral Reform was created in the spring of 2016, and it delivered its report in December. It proposed two things. The first was that Canada replace its traditional system of voting (the ­single-member plurality system known widely as the first-past-the-post model) with a proportional system of representation (where seats in the House of Commons would be allocated according to the proportion of votes each party received). Second, it recommended that the idea be put to a referendum.

Both notions were poisonous to the Liberals, and Trudeau abandoned the commitment. For one, he had consistently said that he did not want to go to the people. That position was surprising, since British Columbia had done it twice, as...