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Kayriss

Canadian Republicanism

Should Canada Seek Complete Legal Independance From Britain?  

35 members have voted

  1. 1. Should Canada Seek Complete Legal Independance From Britain?

    • Yes
      15
    • No
      16
    • Don't Care
      1


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You're only describing one form a republic could take, and it wouldn't necessariy work that way. The US system has worked for 220+ years, even when different parties control the Congress and White House.

What about when the Republicans controlled congress during Bill Clinton's reign? Remember all the stalling that occured over the budget, all because Newt Gingrich was angry at Clinton over having to exit Air Force One through the rear exist, instead of the front one? That's not working, that's being a baby, regardless what party Gingrich was a member of.

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To lose the crown, would we not have to change our "Charter"? Do you think people would support that when some do not support the idea of politicians being able to use the "Not With Standing Clause". Wouldn't people be scared that if someone can change one or two portions of the charter that anything else in it is fair game too?

Edited by Matt
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Any change would still scare people would it not? But to make the Charter legal, the Queen had to sign it so it would have to be affected too. Doing away with the Royals are not as easy as it sounds. The Consitution Act was originally the British North America Act, which was originally made legal by Queen Victoria, bills are made legal by the Governor General (the Queen's representive for Canada). Changing one or two things around, still makes the rest of the documents fair game for being tampered with some more as well. It's not as easy as just doing away with the royalty in Canada as it might sound.

Edited by Matt
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The Governor General is entirely symbolic. She has no power whatsoever to reject bills. If we did away with that, we'd be saving money on ink.

 

Eliminating the crown is really just as easy as pie.

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Also the PM is to tell the Governor General when it is time for a new election.Once the Governor General complies,the new election is announced.It is an unwritten law(since the King/Byng affair) that the Governor General must agree to the PM's demand for a new election. ;)

 

But yeah,I like the fact that we have such a rich tradition(somewhat),so I would hate to see us cut ties with what gave us our history(even if it is a short one).

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I believe we should keep the crown. How can we have a Canadian culture without having a past? How can we have a Canadian identity without having a past? It does not hold us back, Canadians have continued to evolve over time anyways. There are benefits to being in the Commonwealth too, not so much with trade anymore. But, I do not think it is worth dropping out of.

So the US, France, Germany, Russia, and all the other countries that have rid themselves of monarchy have no culture? Get a clue. Furthermore, the history of the British Empire is really nothing to be proud of being associated with. Yeah, we should know and understand it, but Canada, like most industrialized countries, should be apologizing for its history and looking to build a future. Specifically, a future without institutions that symbolize privilege, autarchy and imperialism.

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The Governor General is entirely symbolic. She has no power whatsoever to reject bills. If we did away with that, we'd be saving money on ink.

 

Eliminating the crown is really just as easy as pie.

not to mention saving thousands on Clarkson's lush spending on all things elegant.

 

Bitch!

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I believe we should keep the crown. How can we have a Canadian culture without having a past? How can we have a Canadian identity without having a past? It does not hold us back, Canadians have continued to evolve over time anyways. There are benefits to being in the Commonwealth too, not so much with trade anymore. But, I do not think it is worth dropping out of.

So the US, France, Germany, Russia, and all the other countries that have rid themselves of monarchy have no culture? Get a clue. Furthermore, the history of the British Empire is really nothing to be proud of being associated with. Yeah, we should know and understand it, but Canada, like most industrialized countries, should be apologizing for its history and looking to build a future. Specifically, a future without institutions that symbolize privilege, autarchy and imperialism.

France doesn't have a monarchy because of a revolution, but their culture was always a strong one. But, you missed the point, we come from the British, we are British, we are also Canadian too. Canadians are different than Europe, and the U.S. worked hard by removing everything British to make a unique culture. But, hiding one side or another does little good either. Look at the U.S. system, it's not very progressive, and a government system needs to be progressive. It has to allow democracy to happen, but issues need to be resolved. Sometimes an issue cannot wait too long, and it has to be resolved sooner than later. The idea that the minority has a voice in the U.S. system is wrong too because the minority would either have to have a significant minority in the Congress or Senate there to be heard, or have a majority. However, the minority cannot have any voice beyond denying bills. Look at the Canadian Same Sex Marriage bill the "Liberals" have tried to please both the minority and the majority. For one side they are trying to have the bill pass, and for the other side they added in a portion that declares that religous institutions do not have to perform same sex marriages if they do not want to. If anything, I would say our system works better, because a candidate needs plenty of votes in his riding to be elected anyways.

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Canada would not be a country without Great Britain.

I think this line sums up most of the arguments made for staying with Britain. But that's like saying Russia would not be a coutry without the Eastern Slav tribes.

 

Of course! History is full of nations populating other nations and taking over other nations. This doesn't mean it should stay that way forever. Arguing to stay with Britain because it's tradition of that's the way it started is silly. I can't see any reason to stay linked.

 

If someone has a better reason than tradition, please explain.

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I believe we should keep the crown. How can we have a Canadian culture without having a past? How can we have a Canadian identity without having a past? It does not hold us back, Canadians have continued to evolve over time anyways. There are benefits to being in the Commonwealth too, not so much with trade anymore. But, I do not think it is worth dropping out of.

So the US, France, Germany, Russia, and all the other countries that have rid themselves of monarchy have no culture? Get a clue. Furthermore, the history of the British Empire is really nothing to be proud of being associated with. Yeah, we should know and understand it, but Canada, like most industrialized countries, should be apologizing for its history and looking to build a future. Specifically, a future without institutions that symbolize privilege, autarchy and imperialism.

pwn3d...

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I think it's a bit of a stretch to suggest the U.S. has any discernible culture.

 

Furthermore, the French revolution was to revolt against an oppressive tryant, hardly the situation Canada finds itself in today.

 

And as far as Russia is concerned, I'm not sure they've really gained a lot for all the Russian revolution fought for.

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I believe we should keep the crown. How can we have a Canadian culture without having a past? How can we have a Canadian identity without having a past? It does not hold us back, Canadians have continued to evolve over time anyways. There are benefits to being in the Commonwealth too, not so much with trade anymore. But, I do not think it is worth dropping out of.

So the US, France, Germany, Russia, and all the other countries that have rid themselves of monarchy have no culture? Get a clue. Furthermore, the history of the British Empire is really nothing to be proud of being associated with. Yeah, we should know and understand it, but Canada, like most industrialized countries, should be apologizing for its history and looking to build a future. Specifically, a future without institutions that symbolize privilege, autarchy and imperialism.

France doesn't have a monarchy because of a revolution, but their culture was always a strong one. But, you missed the point, we come from the British, we are British, we are also Canadian too. Canadians are different than Europe, and the U.S. worked hard by removing everything British to make a unique culture. But, hiding one side or another does little good either. Look at the U.S. system, it's not very progressive, and a government system needs to be progressive. It has to allow democracy to happen, but issues need to be resolved. Sometimes an issue cannot wait too long, and it has to be resolved sooner than later. The idea that the minority has a voice in the U.S. system is wrong too because the minority would either have to have a significant minority in the Congress or Senate there to be heard, or have a majority. However, the minority cannot have any voice beyond denying bills. Look at the Canadian Same Sex Marriage bill the "Liberals" have tried to please both the minority and the majority. For one side they are trying to have the bill pass, and for the other side they added in a portion that declares that religous institutions do not have to perform same sex marriages if they do not want to. If anything, I would say our system works better, because a candidate needs plenty of votes in his riding to be elected anyways.

Funny, if I didn't know better I'd say that last part was an indictment of proportional representation.

 

And, what role does the "minority" (not even sure what sense you're using this word in) play in US politics that it doesn't in Canadian politics?

 

Canada is actually one of the least progressive developed nations. Always has been, by virtue of proximity to you-know-who. The health care system we're so proud of was established in most western European countries decades before it was here, and it's much more comprehensive, the welfare state in general is in better shape over there, people aren't as instinctively anti-union, labour and socialist parties regularly form governments, etc. Nearly all of them have proportional representation systems of one kind or another, too.

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Proportional government doesn't work either, in fact, our system works the best because it allows democracy to happen. But, proportional government would slow it down because nothing would ever get done.

Just like it does in Germany, New Zealand, Ireland, the Netherlands, and in fact most other democracies. Oh wait. manic.gif

 

The general argument is that proportional representation creates frequent minority governments, and that in a minority situation, nothing gets done. Too bad there's not a shred of evidence to support this. Many of Canada's most important achievements (such as universal health care) were achieved under Pearson and Trudeau minority governments, and Paul Martin's done more with his minority thus far than Chretien did in ten years with a solid majority.

Edited by Bizud
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That's why Germany had nothing get done under minority/proportional government, and that's why Germany has actually switched to a mix between our system of proportional government. In all the examples people give, they are all mixed systems. Proportional government in a true form has never worked. Austrailia does not even have a proportional house, that's elected the same way ours is. What they have is a proportionally elected senate. The current proposal by the N.D.P. is nothing more than trying to grab more votes and power and not actually about what is good people.

 

Personally I do not support proportional government period, but let's be honest all the other examples people use are not true examples in the sense that it is being proposed to Canada right now. We should stick with our system though because it works, it's a democratic system that actually works. Everything Paul Martin has been doing is actually akin to what Jean Chretien started before he was on his way out as well.

Edited by Matt
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Actually, it's not a "mix" in the sense of being less proportional. The system ensures 100% proportionality. It's called "mixed member proportional" because half the seats are list seats and half are single-member constituency seats like ours, but it's 100% proportional. A party that gets 40% of the votes gets 40% of the seats, and they rarely (in fact, I'm pretty sure it's never) have majority governments, always minorities or coalitions. Do some reading before you shoot off at the mouth. As for all the examples being mixed, the Netherlands uses a "pure PR" system where the entire country is one constituency. Fool.

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But Australia uses a mix system, are you disagreeing with the CBC now? A respected news source? They reported this not to long ago that only the sentate is elected by proportional representation. However, once 18 everyone must vote in Australia, so people might not be complaining because of the forced vote people might have less interest in politics. The House of Commons there is still elected through our system though. And Proportional Government doesn't work on any controversial issues is my point, it does not, unless everyone is in agreement. Look at Israel, thanks to coalitions, they take some pretty hard stances, when the majority does not quite agree with that. That is great for the minority, but what about the rest of the country? Well they are out of luck.

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But Australia uses a mix system, are you disagreeing with the CBC now? A respected news source? They reported this not to long ago that only the sentate is elected by proportional representation. However, once 18 everyone must vote in Australia, so people might not be complaining because of the forced vote people might have less interest in politics. The House of Commons there is still elected through our system though.

 

I never mentioned Australia at all, in any post, so no idea what you're talking about there. Germany's "mixed" system is actually "mixed member proportional," which is a 100% proportional system. In the lower house. New Zealand's about the same. Ireland uses a different system, but it's still a proportional system that has produced 2 majority governments out of the past 11 elections. Again, PR systems are more common than first-past-the-post systems, which are pretty rare outside of former British colonies.

 

And Proportional Government doesn't work on any controversial issues is my point, it does not, unless everyone is in agreement. Look at Israel, thanks to coalitions, they take some pretty hard stances, when the majority does not quite agree with that. That is great for the minority, but what about the rest of the country? Well they are out of luck.

 

Actually, the majority does agree. That's the beauty of proportional representation - the legislature will only vote yes to proposals that are backed by parties representing the votes of the majority of the population. Issue by issue.

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It does not work though because the minority parties can try to take the majority parties hostage, and they can try to push through their agenda. Much like Jack Layton tried after the last election. Layton even asked Paul Martin for a cabinet position, which Martin refused because this is not a coalition government right now. Having proportional representation would only better suit extremem parties such as the N.D.P. Not because it is a "better system of government", but because it destables the government. This allows extremists to take over. But, take a look at Germany from post World War I to 1934, nothing ever was accomplished, they had elections practically every year as the years became closer to 1934. People turned to the extremes in hopes of accomplishing anything. This would only help the N.D.P., as everything fell apart they would be looked to, to solve the problem. The Conservatives, and the Bloc would also benefit as everything fell apart though because they are more extreme parties, but people who vote for them already, for the most part, feel they are not having a fair deal. The Conservatives also have some people vote for them because some people still think that they are the Progressive Conservatives like in the old days. The proposal of proportional representation though is not about better government, it is about trying to take more power, unfairly. We have a system that works, and the majority can pass through which ever bills they like during their term, but if the people disagree with those bills, they will vote against them the next time anyways.

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People turned to the extremist parties because of the desperate economic situation.

 

And I don't consider the NDP to be extremist. They don't even hold a balance of power in parliament, they're really irrelevant if all members of parties vote the party line in the Commons.

 

Proportional representation is better system of government because it's more democratic, it better reflects the will of the people.

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