Saturday, January 01, 2005
New Year in Canadian Politics
2005 could see a lot happen. A federal election is first among them. Secondly, and maybe more importantly, both BC and Quebec could implement their electoral reform packages.
Of course, electoral and democratic reform will be the most important elements of the Canadian political landscape. Hopefully, BC and Quebec will push the envelope sufficiently to get things moving on the federal level.
I am not a fan of proportional representation, but it is better than what we have now. The US system of the House and Senate would likely work fairly well in Canada, but only if we had more provinces (don't just write that off, I will cover it later).
PR creates the atrocious one-issue candidate. A geographical area could have one no-abortions-ever candidate and another abortions-for-everyone candidate, and have them both get elected. What will be their respective positions on the environment, on national defense? Who knows! They don't have a real platform, so unless their issue is on the table they are a shell of an MP. Andrew Coyne likes PR, and that is a good reason to be suspicious.
Here's the plan for the next election:
Of course, electoral and democratic reform will be the most important elements of the Canadian political landscape. Hopefully, BC and Quebec will push the envelope sufficiently to get things moving on the federal level.
I am not a fan of proportional representation, but it is better than what we have now. The US system of the House and Senate would likely work fairly well in Canada, but only if we had more provinces (don't just write that off, I will cover it later).
PR creates the atrocious one-issue candidate. A geographical area could have one no-abortions-ever candidate and another abortions-for-everyone candidate, and have them both get elected. What will be their respective positions on the environment, on national defense? Who knows! They don't have a real platform, so unless their issue is on the table they are a shell of an MP. Andrew Coyne likes PR, and that is a good reason to be suspicious.
Here's the plan for the next election:
- The next election should take place on June 9th, 2008. (The one after that should be the 2nd monday of June in 2012)
- Every province will elect 5 senators
- Every riding will elect one MP
- Every province will elect another 50% (minimum of 1) members to parliament. How they are selected will be entirely up to the province. If they want to appoint...... appoint, if they want an election with PR, go right ahead. This creates 10 labratories to help all of us figure out the best way to do this. If a province gets it wrong, they will have to answer in their own election for the bad choice.
