So we’re just about ready to restart play after halftime here in World War II. As always, the teams remain the same, but now they’re playing for the other goal. The Allies are now playing for racist authoritarianism while Germany will be defending liberal democracy. As always, Russia remains the wild card.
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Ottawa was a very Orange town, as you know very well, I’m sure. My riding, Ottawa Centre, would normally be a very safe NDP riding. It isn’t anymore. I rather wish that Justin Trudeau was less neo-liberal. Any neo-liberalism is problematical these days - the philosophy doesn’t work, and has proved that rather thoroughly.
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+1 on electoral reform. Unfortunately, the Liberals are unlikely to change the system that gave them a majority with < 40% of the vote.
Kellie Leitch is the one who really scares me. I don’t know if she really believes the hateful things she says, or if she’s doing whatever she can to make her voice heard in a crowded race. And the worst thing is that she seems to be rising high. Maxime Bernier is another scary one, who is also quite popular. He’s a run of the mill libertarian that wants to dismantle everything the government does.
Not all of the Conservative leadership contenders are bad, though. Michael Chong is actually pretty strong on the environment (for a Conservative). He seems to want some sort of electoral reform. And he appears to be quite welcoming to immigrants. He’s a bit of a long shot, but if he did win the Conservative party would be headed in the right direction (in my opinion, as a lefty).
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And the non-fascist parts of NATO are suddenly finding themselves in the uncomfortable role of Finland.
I very much hope that America sorts its shit out before the rest of us are obliged to shoot y’all. I like Americans, but I cannot allow my country to remain allied with a fascist state.
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We need that there electoral reform.
I mean, I want to comfort myself with my own strong opinion that physical appearances ought not matter one bit, not one iota, in these matters…
…but part of my brain is shouting a warning over the notion it has, that Kellie Leitch physically looks like what could result were Trump and Harper to somehow mate.
It’s a wierd conflation of hair, eyes, smirk, that when gven the audio overlay she herself has selected, really wierds me the fuck out, in kind of a Prince of Darkness unsettlling way.
Is that just me? Nevermind. I’ll quell my own damn self because I know I’m wrong.
edit - I cn’t spell wierd when I’m wierded the fuck out.
double edit - I just realized that my unsettling thoughts only want me to refer to Leitch as “Thumper” I think that’s what my braisn was driving at.
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Apparently, you aren’t supposed to use the A-word. The PC term these days is telling it like it is.
If we link these two terms, maybe, just maybe, the people who like telling it like it is but hate political correctness may pause before speaking. Not much chance of that, I know, but in the immortal words of the dog in the Larsen “cat fud” cartoon “oh, please… oh, please…”.
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I’m sorry. I can’t hear you over the irony of people who don’t like political correctness insisting on a politically correct term for not being politically correct.
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Thatcher and her heirs have sold off everything in the country including ethics (which they thought was an Eastern county that wasn’t needed), fair play and politeness.
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We need electoral reform, but the committee the Liberals have charged with listening to people’s ideas only seems interested in a ranked ballot. While that might quell fears of a Trump Lite in Canada, it is far from democratic when it comes to electing our House of Commons. The reform needs to involve a proportional system to truly make every vote count. __
Wow. What a shocking coincidence that a ranked ballot is the form of voting that is most likely to secure a Liberal majority for the long term! I wonder why the Liberals support it.
I completely agree that proportional is way better. However, I still would rather see ranked ballots instead of keeping first past the post. At least with ranked, you will no longer need to do strategic voting.
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I’m totally happy with ranked ballot and I’ll explain why (oh internet forums, where you explain yourself).
First of all, I like it because it’s minimally disruptive to people who will have trouble understanding a new system. I know that learning how to vote seems like a duty everyone should get on board with, but I do worry about leaving people behind when things change, and with a ranked ballot you can have someone who doesn’t even know the change happened go and vote and it works fine. Just count the one they marked as their first choice and they didn’t make a second choice.
Second, I don’t think it’s really that much different than proportional representation in the long run. It would give the Liberals a free ride for a couple of elections and let Trudeau match his father’s three terms, but it would force the Conservative and NDP to stop allowing themselves to be defined by being on the right and the left of the “Natural Governing Party.” (People already underestimate how many people there are who choose between the Conservatives and the NDP with the Liberals in third). The way we talked about politics and the way parties campaigned would change, the Green party’s share of the house would grow, the Bloc’s share would be permanently relegated to low numbers, and in the end I think we’d get something closer to Proportional Representation than most people think.
Third, and most importantly, the Liberals will accept it because it is thought to benefit them. I’m more concerned about getting away from what’s wrong with our current system than I am with getting something perfect to replace it. Whenever people talk about electoral reform it’s always like, “Oh, but this new system has problems.” As if our current system wasn’t transparently the worst non-corrupt democratic voting system anyone has ever implemented. I’d much rather have a baby step that can happen than a great solution that gets scrapped.
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Nicely said! No voting system is perfect and it is hard to say definitively how any changes will affect things in the long run. You’re probably right that we are going to see a rush to the center for the Cons and the Dippers. My concern is that this would crowd out even reasonable ideas that are outside of mainstream. Though, this is not an argument against change.
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But curling originated in Scotland.
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Someone should study the effects of global warming on human intellect and reason. We seem to be approaching a global runaway stupidity crisis.
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Yes, but no one there actually likes it.
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My issue is that the main thrust of many people’s argument is that it will prevent Conservatives from forming a government (or relegate the Bloc and pump up the Greens). While there might be other good arguments, the main one shouldn’t be “it ensures that someone I don’t want doesn’t get elected”.[quote=“anon50609448, post:31, topic:90056”]
The way we talked about politics and the way parties campaigned would change
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How? Seems to me that it would create indistinguishable platforms, everyone striving to be the “Natural Governing Party”, that elections would become further about personality as opposed to ideas. Everyone would be striving for the political middle ground.[quote=“anon50609448, post:31, topic:90056”]
I’d much rather have a baby step that can happen than a great solution that gets scrapped.
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As you pointed out, this system will benefit the Liberals, at least in the medium term (~10 years) so what incentive would they have to make further changes? The optics of a party facing re-election pushing for further changes to the voting/representation system just. aren’t. good. Especially if they stand to lose otherwise. It could be decades before voting reform is seriously visited again.
There are a number of countries that all use some form of proportional representation. It’s not rocket science, as its opponents tend to portray it. Fears of mass confusion are blown out of proportion. It results in a wider range of perspectives being heard and it encourages coalition building.
Voter turnout in Canada has been plummeting. Ranked ballot reinforces that by making one’s vote mean less.
There is hope in Canada. PEI just approved mixed member proportional representation for their provincial leg (ironically they used a ranked ballot plebiscite to do it though).
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I think the difference is academic. Ranked ballots just formalize strategic voting. Personally, I don’t see a problem with strategic voting within the current system. If you’re more worried that a particular party might form the government, you can vote for the candidate in your riding with the best chance to beat them, even if it’s not your first choice. Ranked ballot is essentially the same - it basically asks who you would least like to form a government.
I don’t know about that. He invoked the War Measures Act after all.
He was also the one who brought in the constitution, and said that the government has no business in the bedrooms of the nation and meant it. C-51 is the government in our bedrooms writ large.
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Yes, I’m not saying he couldn’t be trusted with the power provided by C-51, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t want that power at his disposal. Problem is when the next guy comes along…
