Banff-Airdrie MP Blake Richards is advocating for a referendum before the Liberals make any changes to the federal electoral system.

Richards said that the Liberals have not fully unveiled the scope of what changes they would implement to the current system but that the party has no intentions of holding a referendum.

"We just can't understand why they would want to make such a fundamental change without consulting with the Canadian people in that direct kind of way, unless their looking to make changes for their own benefit, and if that's the case, that's clearly wrong."

With no clear indication as what will be implemented, Richards says they have a small idea of what may be coming down the pipe.

"They've mentioned a couple of ideas that they might do, one that Prime Minister Trudeau indicated that he favours is the idea of ranked ballots where people vote for people in their order of preference."

"This is a very fundamental change, this isn't a simple housekeeping amendment, this isn't a typical type of change to a piece of legislation, this is a change to the very way that Canadians vote and the way they chose their government."

In the past, British Columbia, Prince Edward Island, and Ontario have all held referendums on proposed electoral reforms provincially while other members of the Commonwealth including New Zealand and the United Kingdom have also held referendums.

"We're going to keep the pressure on, we're going to continue to press very hard on behalf of Canadians who are growing in their calls for the need for this to be looked at through a referendum."

Richards said that he wants to hear from Banff-Airdrie residents on what they believe is the best plan of action by visiting his MP website.

"There's an opportunity there to register your opinion on whether the government needs to hold a referendum before any changes to the federal electoral system, and certainly then what we would do is follow up with some information on how they can get more involved - what they can do to register their say."

The House of Commons will be back in session on Monday, January 25th.

Bradley Jones - airdrienews@goldenwestradio.com