2019 Canadian Federal Election
raydan @ Tue Oct 22, 2019 5:03 pm
Saskanna Saskanna:
I feel your pain because I'm there too. I think I'm done with politics. This country sucks. It isn't a country it is a mix of small tribes all out to get what they can for themselves.
Is that why we elect people who are all out to get what they can for themselves?
And welcome to the club... I think that the last time politics really interested me was in the mid 70s.
raydan raydan:
And welcome to the club... I think that the last time politics really interested me was in the mid 70s.
What gets me is the smugness this country has towards the United States, yet Canada is so dysfunctional that it might as well not exist.

No we have a hypocritical sanctimonious arrogant elitist fuck-wit with delusion of grandeur in power. With the Dementia President you know what your in for. With fuck-wit the wonder Prime Minister you don't know what special interest group he'll grovel to next.
Public_Domain Public_Domain:
same shit in a different pile, our situation is not much better than America's, they just unfortunately have a guy with late stage dementia at the helm. other than that, it's the same shit
and, Canada has just re-elected a moron who conducts himself like a thirteen-year-old girl.
The Conservatives missed an opportunity to take the ground in the centre that Trudeau ceded. They should have been more like Mulroney’s PCs. Instead they worried about Bernier to their right and waited for JT to trip himself up which didn’t happen. They need a serious image and policy makeover if they want to appeal to younger, urban voters in Central Canada.

Saskanna Saskanna:
Public_Domain Public_Domain:
same shit in a different pile, our situation is not much better than America's, they just unfortunately have a guy with late stage dementia at the helm. other than that, it's the same shit
and, Canada has just re-elected a moron who conducts himself like a thirteen-year-old girl.
All of North American right now:
fire.jpg [ 21.48 KiB | Viewed 227 times ]
-J.
Public_Domain Public_Domain:
llama66 llama66:
No we have a hypocritical sanctimonious arrogant elitist fuck-wit with delusion of grandeur in power. With the Dementia President you know what your in for. With fuck-wit the wonder Prime Minister you don't know what special interest group he'll grovel to next.
sure i know.
the rich get rich, the poor get poor.
all the same...
Absolutely, Comrade.
bootlegga bootlegga:
DrCaleb DrCaleb:
I was talking Proportional Representation. You are talking ranked ballots. You made my point for me.
If the CPC got 45% of the popular vote in PR, they would have 45% of the seats. They don't.
I thought ranked ballots/STV were a form of PR.
![huh? [huh]](./images/smilies/icon_scratch.gif)
Single Transferable vote is one form of Proportional Representation. I was thinking more the Mixed Memeber system of PR, where everyone votes, and parties are made up of the percentage of popular votes cast for those parties.
eg: CPC gets 45% of the vote, CPC takes 45% of the seats in Parliament.
$1:
Rex Murphy: Western anger was hot before Monday's election. Now it's molten
Ontario and Quebec have once again determined who holds the levers of power, and who is left standing in line, or out in the cold altogether
Among the most ludicrous of campaign pitches, and there were so many to choose from, was the latter-day lunacy that if you, the voter, wanted to save the planet, you had to vote Liberal. The hubris in that claim was equal to its idiocy.
Canadian elections are not about the world. It is not ours to save, or (all deference to Greta the Grinch) to destroy. Canadian elections are about Canada, how to make it better, stronger, more healthful and secure for its citizens. They are — or should be — exercises where party leaders refresh our sense of Canada’s aspirations and ideals as a country, a nation.
Above all they should be about making sure the arrangement we have with ourselves — the Confederation — goes through an ever-necessary renewal, answers to contemporary challenges, and continues to secure the peaceful, prosperous and highly successful country that Canada is.
Well … a person can dream, can’t he?
https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/ ... its-molten
DrCaleb DrCaleb:
bootlegga bootlegga:
DrCaleb DrCaleb:
I was talking Proportional Representation. You are talking ranked ballots. You made my point for me.
If the CPC got 45% of the popular vote in PR, they would have 45% of the seats. They don't.
I thought ranked ballots/STV were a form of PR.
![huh? [huh]](./images/smilies/icon_scratch.gif)
Single Transferable vote is one form of Proportional Representation. I was thinking more the Mixed Memeber system of PR, where everyone votes, and parties are made up of the percentage of popular votes cast for those parties.
eg: CPC gets 45% of the vote, CPC takes 45% of the seats in Parliament.
Major problems with this. This takes major problems we have with our current system and makes them worse.
The leader of the party used to be selected by caucus. In the 1920s, leadership conventions were introduced as a means to empower average party members. This has had several unexpected detrimental consequences. All party leaders now treat caucus as if they're accountable to him/her. That's not how representative government works. Voters elect an MP, not government. The government is accountable to Parliament, not the other way around. A few years ago when Jack Layton was leader of NDP, one MP for Churchill-blah voted on a motion according to how her voters demanded, not how Jack Layton demanded. That's how it's supposed to work. But Jack Layton kicked her out of caucus, and refused to allow her to run as the NDP candidate in the next election. In that next election, she did run for re-election, but there was also the official NDP nominated candidate. That split the vote, resulting in the Liberal candidate winning.
Members of the local riding association must select their own candidate, not the leader and certainly not some backroom boys. The leader must not have the power to veto a candidate's nomination. Members of caucus must have the ability to call a leadership convention at any time. All this ensures the leader is accountable to MPs, not the other way around. MPs are accountable to voters, not Herr Führer. What we have today is grossly corrupt!
PR ensures some backroom boys decided who gets to be Member of Parliament, not voters. This takes the problem and makes it much worse. There's no way any MP under such a system would do what voters told him/her. There would be no point to having MPs at all under such a system. Calling that "corrupt" is a gross understatement!
We also have a need for recall. When an MP does something horrible so he/she does not represent the voters, there must be a way to remove him/her. When he/she violates all his/her election promises, there must be a way to remove him/her. Under PR, who gets to vote in a recall vote? Voters never chose any of the candidates, so how could any voters recall him/her?
On a more practical level, when you have a problem with civil servants abusing their authority, who do you go to? When you have a problem, which MP do you ask for help? Under PR, none of them represent any particular voters.
DrCaleb @ Wed Oct 23, 2019 10:02 am
Winnipegger Winnipegger:
DrCaleb DrCaleb:
bootlegga bootlegga:
I thought ranked ballots/STV were a form of PR.
![huh? [huh]](./images/smilies/icon_scratch.gif)
Single Transferable vote is one form of Proportional Representation. I was thinking more the Mixed Memeber system of PR, where everyone votes, and parties are made up of the percentage of popular votes cast for those parties.
eg: CPC gets 45% of the vote, CPC takes 45% of the seats in Parliament.
Major problems with this. This takes major problems we have with our current system and makes them worse.
The leader of the party used to be selected by caucus. In the 1920s, leadership conventions were introduced as a means to empower average party members. This has had several unexpected detrimental consequences. All party leaders now treat caucus as if they're accountable to him/her. That's not how representative government works. Voters elect an MP, not government. The government is accountable to Parliament, not the other way around. A few years ago when Jack Layton was leader of NDP, one MP for Churchill-blah voted on a motion according to how her voters demanded, not how Jack Layton demanded. That's how it's supposed to work. But Jack Layton kicked her out of caucus, and refused to allow her to run as the NDP candidate in the next election. In that next election, she did run for re-election, but there was also the official NDP nominated candidate. That split the vote, resulting in the Liberal candidate winning.
Members of the local riding association must select their own candidate, not the leader and certainly not some backroom boys. The leader must not have the power to veto a candidate's nomination. Members of caucus must have the ability to call a leadership convention at any time. All this ensures the leader is accountable to MPs, not the other way around. MPs are accountable to voters, not Herr Führer. What we have today is grossly corrupt!
PR ensures some backroom boys decided who gets to be Member of Parliament, not voters. This takes the problem and makes it much worse. There's no way any MP under such a system would do what voters told him/her. There would be no point to having MPs at all under such a system. Calling that "corrupt" is a gross understatement!
We also have a need for recall. When an MP does something horrible so he/she does not represent the voters, there must be a way to remove him/her. When he/she violates all his/her election promises, there must be a way to remove him/her. Under PR, who gets to vote in a recall vote? Voters never chose any of the candidates, so how could any voters recall him/her?
On a more practical level, when you have a problem with civil servants abusing their authority, who do you go to? When you have a problem, which MP do you ask for help? Under PR, none of them represent any particular voters.
All systems have problems. PR candidates could be chosen from the ridings they run in. Then they would be accountable to someone.
And I love your optimism.

MPs will never pass recall legislation, any more than they are going to get rid of FPTP.
DrCaleb DrCaleb:
And I love your optimism.

MPs will never pass recall legislation, any more than they are going to get rid of FPTP.
Minority government would be the perfect time to do it.
BC passed provincial recall legislation in 1990. This demonstrates it can be done.
DrCaleb @ Wed Oct 23, 2019 10:41 am
The preachy, gauzy, meaningless aphorisms don't suffice, Justin Trudeau: Neil Macdonald
Good thing they bought all the news media, amirite?