If you read people’s opinions about proportional representation in Ontario then you will very quickly find people arguing about whether it is democratic to vote blindly for a list of people, not knowing who or how many will get into power. They say that the list people will be beholden only to the party, and will not be accountable.

People in this debate are ignoring that we have a party system in Parliament in Ontario, and all the nitpicking about details is missing the big point. The party system will NOT change here, and once any MPP gets to Queen’s Park they will vote with their party almost always.

In our current “First Past the Post” (FPTP) system, the truth is that the “list” concept is here already. It’s called “who the parties are running in each riding”. Once people are elected they have to do what the party tells them to. The vast majority of people are casting a vote for the party, not the candidate. And even those who cast a vote for the candidate are truly casting a vote for the party in terms of where government decision making comes from once if they get to Queen’s Park. Once elected, all MPs VOTE WITH THEIR PARTY.

The proposed “Mixed Member Proportional” (MMP) system doesn’t stop you from considering a local person, you still do that, but it puts control of the party system into the people’s hands, whereas before the party was this murky thing that hijacked power in Parliament. It does this by putting in more MPs from a pre-defined, pre-ordered list, who then VOTE WITH THEIR PARTY.

Anyone who believes they are being disenfranchised by losing local candidates to list candidates is ignoring the fact that individual MPPs do not make decisions in parliament based on their local constituency. They ignore the fact that FPTP is the artificial reason that 40% of the public can elect a premier who makes all the decisions, and if that is not disenfranchisement then I don’t know what is.

A large number of ordinary people studied this to death and found MMP is better. I think it is too, so MMP has my vote.

Pledge to vote and learn more:

 › political     2007-09-15 10:42   ...1 comment

Should you wish to comment on what should be in the budget you can contact the ministry of finance before February 28.

 › political     2007-02-21 09:14   ...0 comments

Here’s an article about the stalemate in Afghanistan that I both buy and roughly agree with.

I don’t believe in the Team America: World Police mentality that says western troops can drop into a country, pop off a few assholes and leave rainbows behind. I am concerned that once again western troops, including Canadians this time, believe that a semi-permanent occupation is enough to right wrongs.

What is the objective of this war? Is it to eliminate the Taliban to a man? If so, it is doomed to fail. I am not a student of history, but in this war torn region I believe few, if any, foreign armies have ever prevailed.

More importantly, though, a “might makes right” attitude is not a crowd pleaser with the local population. Without the widespread support of the Afghani people, the project cannot succeed. As long as the Taliban (if that really is a single group… is there an organization chart out there?) have a stronger claim on local government than the central Afghan government, then that support will not occur. Even if the Taliban do threaten and abuse local people, they also pay some of them and most importantly protect their cash crop. The Taliban may not be friends of ordinary Afghans but the situation is far too complicated to say that the Taliban are the enemies of ordinary Afghans.

The only reason foreign troops are in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban and not in Colombia fighting the FARC is that George Bush wanted to kick some people after September 11th. And then there’s that nasty question of religion, which I’m steering away from.

The only reason that we are in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban is because we were sold a reconstruction mission in a country that was growing more stable by the day. I am not happy with the devolution of that mission into random melées and open war.

It looks like the West keeps trying to salvage the old Afghanistan plan through a few more choppers, or another load of tanks and troops. This is not going to work. We need to chuck the old plan, and start a new one.

A new plan needs to consider specifically what a foreign military presence can do on the ground to support the afghan government in its internal struggle against extremists and poppies. We can’t just be their army for them, and certainly not their generals. President Karzai has criticized the “reconstruction team” for its focus on dealing death: “It is not acceptable for us that in all this fighting, Afghans are dying. In the last three to four weeks, 500 to 600 Afghans were killed. [Even] if they are Taleban, they are sons of this land.” This remark was widely panned in the west, but if Karzai sees another way, shouldn’t that be reason enough to question what we’re doing?

It’s about time we chucked the paternalistic crap that we are in Afghanistan saving the day and faced up to the fact that what we’re doing — if well intentioned — isn’t helping.

 › political     2006-09-16 11:02   ...0 comments

I know this blog has been trending toward the political issues lately, and I’m loath to continue the trend, but I’ve got something I think is good.

It’s the upcoming report on the media from the senate. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: a healthy democracy depends on a large and healthy media that features several points of view. That means that you need independent editorial boards and independent news gathering.

Happily, the senate agrees with me and will say we need independent news sources in every market. Yeah. Go senate!

Of course, we’ve ignored royal commission reports in the past, so I won’t hold my breath. Still, it’s nice to see that someone up there is thinking about these issues…

 › political     2006-06-20 23:37   ...3 comments

The impending test launch of a missile that can hit the U.S. from North Korea kind of makes Bush look dumb for having focused exclusively on the non-existent threat in Iraq, no?

 › political     2006-06-19 13:26   ...1 comment

I’ve had several discussions with people recently on the topic of equalization in the Canadian federation. Here is an excellent resource on equalization. The historical information is interesting, but the three sections on how it works, current issues and myths are excellent.

 › political     2006-05-30 17:50   ...0 comments

I’m going to be Stephen Harper’s worst enemy
    — David Emerson 2006-01-23¹.

I think the fact that Mr. Harper has reached out to someone like me is an indication that they are becoming a middle-of-the-road party, and I think I can be helpful in moving in that direction.
    — David Emerson 2006-02-07².

—

It’s not that I believe that MPs should be prohibited from crossing the floor. And it’s not that it’s bad for the NDP who will have the balance of power now (as long as Milliken stays the speaker). But I just think that crossing two weeks after you could have very well run for the Conservatives, after having beaten the Conservative candidate by 12 000 votes, and with no “issue of principle” prompting the move: this stinks.

 › political     2006-02-07 02:58   ...4 comments

Well, a very long election campaign has come to a close. And I think that it is in many ways a bittersweet ending.

In some ways I feel this is the best possible outcome. It was time for the Liberals to leave. They, like any other venerable organization (in all senses of venerable), can only carry forward so long without a break to regroup, re-equip and regain focus on the values that matter. They also needed to escape the albatross of Gomery.

The most important coverage on election nights is of the speeches. Only in the speeches do you get the true measure of the leaders.

I think that Paul Martin gave an extremely gracious speech. One that will be remembered. I think he’ll join Joe Clark in our hearts as a man who had a lot to give, but for whom the circumstances were not propitious. Not a smooth political operator, but one who was — like Joe, and perhaps unusually — genuine in office.

I was disappointed that the CBC did not play all of Duceppe’s speech. His 51 seats sound like a victory, but the popular vote tells a different story. With 42% of the popular vote in Quebec (only 6% more than Harper’s minority across the country) he did not gain the support of what many expected would be a majority of Quebeckers for his separatist agenda.

The greens, whom I dislike, did OK for themselves with a small increase in national support. Our local candidate, who is an honourable man, did extremely well for himself, doubling his support.

On to my party of choice: Jack Layton and his NDP are the second success story of the night. With 10 new members (as I write this) coming to Ottawa, and an increase of many votes across the country, the NDP is riding a wave of energy. Still, they again narrowly missed the balance of power. That’s a bit of a disappointment, but 10 more seats is great. What’s interesting, though, is that they garnered 10 more seats with only a small increase in the popular vote, suggesting that they edged into seats that they were edged out of last time. I hope the NDP is able to work hard and honourably in the next parliament to solidify those tenuous gains by continuing to set the example for the other parties; it will be tough work this time around.

The NDP under Jack Layton is finally more than the angel on Canada’s shoulder. It has proven to have fresh new ideas, a spirit of compromise and that it is worthy of trust. And millions of Canadians have shown their agreement and support.

And now to the victors. For the last time (well… except for special occasions) I’ll call them Reform Conservatives. The new Conservative party has re-established itself across the country in this election. It now can be called a national party, with seats from coast to coast. This is a good thing.

You may think the last paragraph strange for a socially liberal NDP supporter like myself. But that wouldn’t be considering the big picture.

We cannot continue to operate this country as a people who vote for the status quo to keep the lion at bay. We cannot have a one-party Liberal system that governs through fear and intimidation, belaboured under the weight of a stale vision and impractical, unconvincing and poorly orchestrated suggestions that languish from one prorogued parliament to the next. We cannot be Liberal forever. Kim Campbell appeared on CBC’s coverage and made this point forcefully, convincingly and in decidedly unpartisan tones. A national Conservative party has a chance, in future policy conventions, to broaden its narrow viewpoint. It is good for Canada to have a strong opposition, even if we have to take the bitter pill of enduring them in government to get it.

Harper’s speech was prime ministerial. Point final. It was worth waiting until 1:30am for. The exhilaration of victory even made him look human. For the first time, I saw a man who could be a leader.

You all know how much I disagree with Harper’s personal views and political positions. Many of you share my distaste at the prospect of a Conservative government running backwards in time with a regressive social conservatist, pro-war, pro-business, weak-Canada agenda; to say nothing of the separation of church and state. I fear all of those things. But I had started to fear the Liberal complacency too — it is impossible to overstate the danger of a stagnant political process for a country that wants to lead the world in innovation and peaceful influence. It’s a bittersweet election result, one that I view with great trepidation for the immediate future, but with great relief in the long term as we restore the vibrancy to our multi-party system.

We have unleashed Harper upon ourselves, but in a measured way with a minority mandate. (Thank God that the Liberals were not decimated like Kim Campbell’s Conservatives.) Minorities are good for Canada. They have brought us public health care, old age pensions and even a Canadian flag. I do not expect this parliament to achieve on this scale (but of course would be happy to be surprised). Harper’s government will have to keep its nose clean, and its social conservative elements in check if it hopes (as it must) to get a majority mandate the next time around. If it can do this, more power to it. I suspect that Canadians will see through Conservative vote buying and will be treated to some questionable foreign policy, I hope it will not be too painful.

We had to do this sometime; we had to give the Conservatives with their Reform foundation some rope; let’s watch to see what they do with it.

ETA: I cross-posted this to the LiveJournal political community I’ve been following. There’s more discussion over there.

 › political     2006-01-24 03:03   ...3 comments

Today in New Glasgow a guy tried to steal two ballot boxes. During the election. Then he ran over one of them with his car. Honestly, who thinks of that?

In 2000, a box was thrown into a lagoon not far away.

This is 5 km away from Jen’s grandparents’ place. What kind of place am I marrying into anyway?!

 › political     2006-01-23 15:37   ...2 comments

Last election, Moore got into trouble for “interfering” in the Canadian election.

Here’s this year’s edition.

 › political     2006-01-20 23:00   ...0 comments

A recent post on LiveJournal is eliciting some interesting discussion, and I thought it would make a cool Canadian election meme amongst friends:

Campaigners are starting to circulate door to door. One strategy for dealing with them is to have a list of questions ready for asking when they show up. What questions should be on the list?

My questions would be as follows:

1. What is your feasible plan to cut corporate pollution and greenhouse gas emissions while protecting the economy?
2. What are the top three issues you would tackle regarding foreign policy and Canada’s standing with other countries?
3. Where do you stand on proportional representation and electoral reform?
4. We live in a country where Alberta is rich while many other provinces are desperately poor. How can the federal government best address financial opportunities and inequalities in one part of the country without upsetting another?

Comment with your questions here, and post your list to your own journal if you like. Feel free to steal questions for your own list if you want.

Optional for Partisan hacks: answer the questions for your party’s position, but be ready to defend your answers…

 › political     2005-12-12 21:09   ...2 comments