The only thing that really compares is the BC NDP's.
Campbell might be a shitmonger but really there's no competition. Hell, Dix had to resign as NDP chief of staff over back-dating a memo to protect Clark from conflict-of-interest charges.
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Canada Poligaf - The Wrath of Harperland
- Thread starter DreamMachine
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The only thing that really compares is the BC NDP's.
Campbell might be a shitmonger but really there's no competition. Hell, Dix had to resign as NDP chief of staff over back-dating a memo to protect Clark from conflict-of-interest charges.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
lol, true.
Blue Submarine No. 6
Member
Yep, we voted him in and we deserve what we get, but...
I still think it would be a great idea to reform the Senate to proportional representation. Rather than push for a directly elected Senate, we should push for reform where we let the parties appoint their assorted cronies and hangers-on, but with proportional representation and terms limited by the Federal Election period. Because parties would have proportional representation, even the Green Party would have Senators (cool!), and with no single party ever able to claim a majority of Senate seats, the Senate would truly be able to act in its role as "a house of sober second thought" as no party would be able to ram though legislation with their house majority...
CitizenVectron
Member
The downside is that you want a Senate which can sit for longer periods and has stability. You want them to have the time to look at things properly. If they are only there for as long (and in the same proportion) as the House, then why even have the second chamber?
Simon Belmont
Banned
If you really wanted to fix the Senate you'd have the law society appoint senators the same way they do judges. If it stops being a partisan chamber it could actually do it's job.
CitizenVectron
Member
I would be 100% behind the idea of a chamber of experts. Have the various professional organizations appoint members in the same way judges are appointed, and I think the result would be far better for Canada.
MyAbsolution
Member
But until recently... Quebec and Ontario already decided the winner. Hell for decades, even before the polls closed in BC, the elections were called.
Harper in recent years simply supplanted Quebec with Western Canada, and did the same concept.
Sorry if I wasn't clear, but I did mean to get rid of ridings entirely. I think the concept is great but the party line gets in the way of what the region wants... its now what the party on whole wants
I mean look at Canada overall as a whole. Most people voted for a party in the center or left of centre? The conservatives won a majority of the seats but don't have a popular vote majority, not even close.
And yet, we have a majority government that is right of center making all the calls for a country that really isn't that way at all... HOW is that more democratic in any sense? Thats undemocratic because it doesn't reflect the overall desires of the people in the country.
IMO, a government only deserves a majority when it has a majority of the people's vote. That's why I think this system is completely broken from top to bottom. Easily exploited too when you factor in split voting and how things go down when you have 4 left of center parties and one right of center party.
PR is best imo, because it forces parties to work together (like they are supposed to do) in coalitions or minority governments. There is some check and balance and some bi-partisan work being done if the "governing" party wants to stay in power. This is what you are supposed to do, work together. Its a concept long gone to this country im afraid.
Currently, when a government has a majority under this system I feel like we are in for a four year ride where the government gets to do whatever they want essentially because they had most seats. As I said the only time a majority in PR would take place is under a real majority of votes.
So I never replied to the start of this conversation, but obviously he 'legally won a majority.' Advocates of PR are advocating changing the law. What's currently law is moot to that issue. What is legal is not necessarily what is right, and what is right is not necessarily what is legal. We should aspire to better than the status quo, because the status quo is pretty fucking stupid.
Harper has effectively absolute power off the votes of approximately 2/5ths of the country. I find that unacceptable no matter how you slice it, and I find it unacceptable that Chretien had the same as well. It's unacceptable because there is no incentive in our system for the winner of the majority to represent the interests of the 3/5ths of the country that didn't vote for them.
Proportionality is one way to change this. There are others. But something should change because, honestly, the system as it stands is horribly broken. Not as broken as the US with its duopoly on political power, but it's still very broken.
MyAbsolution
Member
Thankyou for saying what I was trying to say, in much fewer and more elegant words
This is ultimately a problem of the PMO and party power consolidation though. PR hurts far more than it helps.
I'd be down for this.
Like I said, there are many ways to mitigate this issue. I'm not sure why you think PR hurts this particular thing, though. PR in practice almost always results in it becoming extremely unlikely to obtain a parliamentary majority.
MyAbsolution
Member
And thus government and the opposition both have a say in what goes. As it should be, this way the voice of all people are heard. Right now its just one way or highway.
Parliamentary majorities wouldn't even matter if MPs had more leeway to vote in the interests of their constituents rather than their party.
CitizenVectron
Member
You can't allow split decisions on most issues however, because then it becomes like the US where nothing can ever get done in any situation. Our system sucks if you have more than 2 or 3 major parties, but it's far more efficient than the US system.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
No, much of the roadblock comes from the whole filibuster thing in the Senate, where you need a "super majority" to pass a bill. The gun legislation bill had more than 50 votes, but less than 60, so it "failed".
The government in Canada gets around Senate delays by simply creating more positions and stuffing the Senate with party loyalists. As much as I like the Senate, the fact that it's basically the PMO's tool is kind of stupid. That and having the PMO write 90k cheques to Senators. lol
The US system is elegant because the House represents the "democratic" position, the Senate represents the "regional" position, the Executive represents the "national" position, and the Judicial branch represents the final point of sober thought. We sort of have the same process, minus the executive, but since the Senate is stuffed with party loyalists (presumably if the NDP actually get into power, they're going to have to give up their abolitionist position and stuff the Senate just like Harper), the Senate really just represents the government.
I wonder if there was ever a time in Canada where the Senate actually existed as a body that allowed for real debate against the interests of the House. Probably not.
MyAbsolution
Member
I really refuse to believe that. Since we got our medicare bill passed through a minority government. I'd rather there is a bit of give and take then a ham-fisted one sided bill getting passed.
Zombie James
Banned
gutter_trash
Banned
quit Caucus? does it mean he quits as a senator or is he just gonna sit as an independant?
Holy shit, video of Rob Ford smoking crack (recently) is on sale.
http://gawker.com/for-sale-a-video-of-toronto-mayor-rob-ford-smoking-cra-507736569
http://gawker.com/for-sale-a-video-of-toronto-mayor-rob-ford-smoking-cra-507736569
BigJonsson
Member
I met Mike Duffy when he was a reporter, I have a picture with him, but I'm disgusted with what he has done as a Senator
BigJonsson
Member
Holy shit......my BS detector is going off but you never know.......and lol @ CNN fucking it up.....which CNN Canadian was it I wonder
After Glen Clark, I don't want the NDP to be in ever again. Not even Gordo's tenure was that bad.
Latter since that's what brazman did.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Independent. The Liberal senator also quit his caucus earlier this week.
Ether_Snake
å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®
lol, and Don Cherry?
Complex Shadow
Cudi Lame
i highly doubt this is real. but the bias in me hopes it is.
What's up with all these scandals?
http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/mike...e-crtc-decision-on-sun-media-source-1.1285555
(Only source I could find atm.)
http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/mike...e-crtc-decision-on-sun-media-source-1.1285555
(Only source I could find atm.)
CitizenVectron
Member
Bob Fife is breaking some pretty big stories.
Ether_Snake
å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®
Rob Ford to be mayor in GTA V?
And am I the only one who feels that the reference to the dead person by the lawyer is some sort of threat?
And am I the only one who feels that the reference to the dead person by the lawyer is some sort of threat?
Yes, you are.
Throwing himself under the bus so the PMO member gets the spotlight taken off him for a while.
BigJonsson
Member
I work fast.
This is what irritates me about the idea that Harper somehow has a stolen majority. He doesn't- that economically illiterate little shit has a legit majority and bastardizing the process with proportional rep won't fix anything.
Those are awesome, good work
Too boring for a scandal.
This will never happen because it would be open to the same kind of cronyism that occurs today. Hell, even the selection of Supreme Court justices isn't bulletproof.
Elected senates, on the other hand, wouldn't work either; you'd get the same carnival that's happening in the states.
There's no good solution simply because there's no culture of responsibility on Parliament hill anymore. Until our politicians grow up, our government will always be dysfunctional.
CitizenVectron
Member
I guess we can only hope that a super-intelligence like Khan Noonien Singh arises to rule us benevolently as a philosopher king.
True, but Doug Ford's (while municipal) ties to the Ontario PCs could yield something.
Be great if that were actually true. The current US house is pretty much completely unrepresentative thanks to powerful state legislatures gerrymandering it to hell and back.
Sometimes when you set too many checks against each other you end up with a lot of unwanted consequences.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Yeah. The problem there is allowing the politicians to be responsible for their own redistricting. lol
Well they aren't exactly, though. The state legislatures control the districting for the federal house. In an ideal world the state legislatures would be part of keeping things accountable, but in the end it all falls apart when you have power structures cross the check and balance boundaries, which is where it all went wrong in the US. Everything wound up geared towards ensuring that people were given only two choices at pretty much every level, and that those two choices would never change. And the system they have made this outcome possible and even perhaps encouraged it.
Simon Belmont
Banned
There really haven't been any "dud" Supreme Court justices in Canada. The process isn't perfect but it avoids the partisan appointments that have become problematic for the senate in Canada, or the Supreme Court in the U.S.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Well, I would almost argue that it's a problem when the provincial and national parties don't really work together well. Even if the end result is partisan politics. Of course, the thing is, you probably shouldn't give politicians the power to influence their own success in the first place. At least in Canada redistricting is handled by an independent body (iirc).
I mean, the CBC said that the federal NDP tried to help/run the BC campaign. There's no reason they shouldn't either, since it's in both party's interests that the NDP brand is strong.
Yep. One of those lovely things in Canada that came out of a minority government forced to actually account for the actual will of the majority, iirc.
CitizenVectron
Member
There should be no interaction between local/provincial/federal parties since there are no checks in place to prevent favors going in any direction over that avenue. Look at what happens in the US.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Hah, yeah. If only we could go back to those times!
I find it impossible to believe that the PC party of Alberta has nothing to do with the CPC though. Or the various Liberal provincial governments and the federal Liberals. At the very least, they would share the same resources.
They're pretty disenfranchised from the federal party- even their core strategist is moving towards the federal grits.
In Alberta the federal and provincial NDP are, as in every province but Quebec (where there is no provincial NDP), quite tightly associated.
The provincial Liberals are not associated at all with the federal. They would probably lose what seats they have if there was even a shred of a direct connection.
The PC party is somewhat in the wilderness right now, with most of the federal CPC support having been thrown behind the Wildrose (but unofficially). Officially the CPC is supportive of both those parties but considers their split an internal matter, more or less.
The Green party equivalent in Alberta has, afaik, no direct association with the federal greens.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Well, I look at Ontario, when McGuinty was premier and his brother was an MP. I *have* to imagine that they spoke, even off the record, about their parties and any possible synergies between the two. It just seems to make sense to work together, even if it's just private meetings with usb drives being handed around under the table.
Anyway, I suppose we should be glad that party lines don't disseminate to local/civic elections, like they do in the US. lol
Anyway, I suppose we should be glad that party lines don't disseminate to local/civic elections, like they do in the US. lol
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