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The following might solve the issue, democracy vs republic.

I pledge allegiance to the Flag
of the United States of America,
and to the Republic for which it stands:
one Nation under God, indivisible,
With Liberty and Justice for all.


Pretty much says it all: republic, not democracy.

   

If you check out the direct democracy thread, most of this is gone over in detail there, particularly the stuff about the US. Vermont has town meetings, THAT is what I call democracy. At the state level that stops in Vermont. Almost next door is Maine, which has citizens initiatives, which means the government, or the people, can put state level decisions to the people. Like Vermont, there is a tradition of democracy though, ironically begun by a socialist in the late 1800's. So, for instance, liquified natural gas terminals are starting to spring up along the eastern coast. These can be quite dangerous and are certainly hazardous, so Maine doesn't legislate them at the state level. Each town along the coast has a vote on whether to allow them. One native village next to New Brunswick voted to allow the terminal, the rest voted against it. Of course in order to try to get a 'yes' vote, the oil company had to sweeten the deal as much as possible, guaranteeing jobs, wages, as well as a cut of the oil money.

Next door in New Brunswick, the exact opposite. THe Irving corporation went to the St. John council and said "we want to build an LNG terminal, but we won't unless you give us a property tax cut worth 500,000,000 dollars over the 25 years of the project. Thats it. No debates, no referenda, just a city council told by the mayor they had to approve it by midnight on the day it was announced. If you know anything about New Brunswick you know that Irving OWNS the province, particularly the government. Under provincial law a town can't simply offer such deals to companies, it's unfair and illegal, and may very well break international trade laws.

Didn't matter. The province immediately rewrote legislation setting tax laws back forty years giving a special break just for the Irvings. And so there it is. A gas terminal with no public debate, no referenda, and no voice for the people who will now be paying for it. The company didn't have to 'sweeten the deal', like Maine, where 80 jobs were guaranteed at 60 grand a year. Irvings own newspapers report that in all likelihood the terminal will only employ 8 people for the duration of its lifetime. More people are employed at a large restaurant than that.

Every province is essentially the same, although they don't all have Irving corporations RUNNING them, they certainly have business interests lobbying. Over the past dozen years its pretty hard to escape the fact that business interests have been pretty much running things with NO check or balance by the people. In fact, except for the struggles of the fifties and the people of saskatchewan, that's pretty much the history of canada. The socialists of the fifties scared the hell out of them so much they adopted part of their platform to build national medicare.

Back to the states, and in Maine the votes there would boggle most canadians minds, even the people on here who sometimes think they are smarter than apathetic canadians because they read different things (or something). A vote in Maine at the state level can be much like a vermont town meeting, with sometimes quite detailed choices.

One example from 2000: "Do you favor amending the Constitution of Maine to allow the State to issue short-term debt in limited amounts that must be repaid with federal transportation funds within 12 months to facilitate the development of highways, bridges and other transportation projects?"

Now, many could argue that that isn't democratic ENOUGH. That the details could actually be spread thinner, perhaps letting the municipalities decide which bridges, etc. However, it is far more democratic than provincial mandates, which involve no impact from the citizens AT ALL, once a party gains power. And no party ever gets the majority of voter support, and no party ever gets support for each of its policies.

THAT is democratic. It isn't always nice and pretty, and people don't always agree. For example, in 2000 Mainers voted that those with mental disabilities under guardianship don't necessarily have the right to vote. I have no idea what the law is in canada. I don't 'have that information' for one simple reason-I've never BEEN ABLE to take part in a vote on it.

Typically people look at a vote and if it goes against what they want they disapprove of democracy (as long as their own government agrees). So last election saw 11 states with referenda on same sex marriage vote AGAINST it. In Canada, if you're all gung ho for same sex marriage rights you may think that makes Canada 'better'. It CERTAINLY doesn't make it more democratic. And even better can be debated because of course thats only one vote.

Voter turnout is a separate issue. Voter turnout isn't necessarily a mark of the effectiveness of a system. If our town council were to vote on whether one street in town's speed limit would be lowered from 50 to 30, most people wouldn't give a rats ass. Yet SOME people would (although like I said above, those who live in the area shouldn't be dictated to by others, the democratic thing would be for just that ward to vote). The same in Maine where many elections have 80% and over voting. Maine of course is only ONE example, there are 24 other states with similar referenda laws.

In the states, that practise stops with a thud at the federal level. And if you remember a lot of movies, local people were always real pissed off when 'the feds' became involved. Most people don't even know the civil war was primarily about the organization of federal powers. In the south they didn't want a central govenrment, just a loose 'confederacy' of states. How different the world would have been had THEY won! The north had slaves of their own of course, they were all irish and scottish! Even now most southern state legislatures went so far as to build their fronts facing away from Washington.

The ONLY country to have such voting at the federal level is Switzerland. And go research them and see the huge differences. Nothing is perfect, but let me tell you, take just about any piece of legislation and I'd take the vote of canadians over the House of Commons any day of the week. You think canadians would have voted to sign over our entire agricultural policy to Monsanto? Canadians were all saying they wanted MORE government spending in the late nineties, but what did we get? Tax cuts for the rich.

So you can see how dangerous it is to start altering to the 'new' definition of democracy which says that the very essence ISN"T the people of a country, it's their 'representatives'. Bullshit. That's not democracy and never has been. The entire notion of that was thought up by elitist british philosophy snobs who wanted to make sure their country never got 'too much democracy'.

So again, this isn't switzerland, or even half of the states. And in fact even our local councils run on the british system of making sure people play as little part as possible. In the states they elect almost all positions, here we think 'its politicized'. Although for some reason a bunch of guys, or even one guy hand picking them isn't political.

Most cities in the states have ballot initiatives, in other words, their governments WANT citizens input. In Canada, no way, you show up once every three years, vote in a guy to decide everything, then shut up and go home. Our local councillor got the vote of less than 10% of the voting population and now decides everything. Check that, I've checked and most of the votes that affect our ward were made by other councillors, 5 to 1. THATS our version of 'democracy'.

So people can gripe at the lazy, ignorant, foolish canadians who don't take part, but from my view, they are RIGHT to not take part. In fact, I'd join a group to simply stop voting so they HAD to change it. However, for all those who actually got this far, again, I urge you to go to the DIRECT DEMOCRACY thread and SEE what SOME canadians-and you, are actually doing and CAN do. And its a hell of a lot more than going online berating other canadians.

   

Sorry about the gruffness a few posting back

Bad day situation dealt with

Going to take a looksee at that link

back after I read and consider what it says

   

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