Fairvote Canada

You raise an excellent point about the value of difficult conversations in policy-making. It's refreshing to see some retirees willing to contribute solutions rather than politicians making assumptions about what people will or won't accept.

This approach of actually consulting citizens on tough choices is exactly what good governance should look like. The idea that wealthier retirees might voluntarily accept reduced benefits to help both poorer seniors and younger generations demonstrates the kind of intergenerational solidarity we need.

But you've identified exactly why this rarely happens - our electoral system creates perverse incentives. Under First-Past-The-Post, politicians focus on winning pluralities in individual ridings rather than building consensus. The result is exactly what you described: avoiding reasonable but potentially unpopular conversations at all costs.

In countries with proportional representation, we see more of these nuanced policy discussions because parties don't have to appeal to the mythical "middle voter" in every riding. They can be honest about trade-offs and still maintain representation.

The conversation about retirement benefits is precisely the kind that gets distorted when politicians are forced into binary positions by our winner-take-all system.