Justin Trudeau’s decision to step down as leader of the Liberal Party puts in relief one of his earliest broken promises: his abandonment of electoral reform. The about-face revealed him as a leader of limited ambitions, a transactional rather than a transformational leader.

Like every other Canadian politician who had ever campaigned on a promise to change our electoral system, once he was elected and confronted with the reality that keeping his promise would make it impossible for him to ever win another false majority, he backed away from it. In this, he was no different from premiers in Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Quebec, and British Columbia, who had all played the same greasy trick but usually had an administrative reason for giving up, blaming a failed referendum or unclear public opinion.

But Trudeau’s rationale was special. He had promised hundreds of times that he would deliver a change to the electoral system, leaving the door open to proportional representation and luring in voters who wanted change. After he won, he became so enraptured with his own success that he dropped the idea. He encouraged Canadians to travel to hotel meeting rooms and church halls to discuss the matter—and then threw away their input because he had already replaced Stephen Harper, and Canadians were so delighted to have........

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