Bc Will Have Second Referendum On Stv

[Bizud]

Yeah.

 

Regarding Matt's other bullshit statements about the 60% threshold having always been the standard, here's Fair Vote Canada's statement on this announcement:

 

"Governments routinely make far-reaching legislative decisions based on simple majority rule," said Fair Vote Canada President Wayne Smith. "Last May, far more people voted for electoral reform than for the government. Incredibly, that government is still saying the rules for citizens and the rules for politicians are different. Another way of looking at it: under Premier Campbell

[Matt]

I am talking about B.C. referendums now, and most of them are decided by at least 60 percent which is fair for a life changing event. Also you seem to routinely forget the different social factors in Europe, which are not so strong here. There is a huge Conservatism movement right now (and not everyone involved is involved because of religous reasons), which can halt any progress that could be made. Also Canada's neighbour has an even bigger Conservative movement in which Canadians have to work with so slowing down progress instead of keeping it at a good pace will harm us even further.

[TheKwas]

If there's a conservative movement, then that movement should get fair representation in the government. Are you saying you oppose PR because it favours the centre-left over the centre-right?

[Matt]

They get fair representation now, everyone has a voice in the current system, however, in an effort to keep order we have a system which actually works to our advantage that way as well.

[TheKwas]

Fair = Proportional.

 

We don't have proportional representation.

 

And how exactly does the current system play to our advantage? What good does it do that couldn't be done under PR?

[Matt]

Fair actually does not equal proportional, having bills moving at a good speed while still allowing discussion works better than slow moving ones that take forever to be passed.

[TheKwas]

So... have you made the case that PR = ineffective government yet? Because this is going nowhere until you can back up that claim.

[Bizud]

I am talking about B.C. referendums now, and most of them are decided by at least 60 percent which is fair for a life changing event. Also you seem to routinely forget the different social factors in Europe, which are not so strong here. There is a huge Conservatism movement right now (and not everyone involved is involved because of religous reasons), which can halt any progress that could be made. Also Canada's neighbour has an even bigger Conservative movement in which Canadians have to work with so slowing down progress instead of keeping it at a good pace will harm us even further.

That article was talking about BC referendums too. No, they don't usually need a supermajority. Name one that has in the past.

 

I don't really get what the conservative movement has to do with anything.

[Matt]

The Conservative movement has to do with everything, if they the Tories get elected (and that's more of a possibility than the N.D.P. ever getting elected) they have promised to re-look over somethings. Also it's the fact that people are reverting more towards traditionalism than these new representational systems which are less effective and slower than our current one.

[Bizud]

The Conservative movement has to do with everything, if they the Tories get elected (and that's more of a possibility than the N.D.P. ever getting elected) they have promised to re-look over somethings. Also it's the fact that people are reverting more towards traditionalism than these new representational systems which are less effective and slower than our current one.

 

I completely disagree, I think there's a much larger progressive movement, in part associated with the Green movement, and things like the PR movement are a part of it too. The PR movement has reached the stage where governments basically can't ignore it, that's why there's all this electoral reform in Canada.

 

Matt, come back and talk about how much slower PR systems are once you've studied them, thanks.

[Matt]

You're probably a Political Sciences student so that's why you think you know so much. Quite frankly there is a much larger Conservative movement, in fact that's one of the first places people turned to once the sponsorship scandal was found out. They are also more likely to make the government before the N.D.P. or the Greens as well. But under the new system that is in place, the Greens received a nice sum of money for how many votes they had in the last election so they can better advertise themselves and maybe one day become a bigger party.

[Bizud]

We're still waiting for you to demonstrate how bills don't move at a fast enough pace in PR systems.

[Matt]

Look, the only reason they move realitively well in Europe is because they are more socialist than Canada is, however, Canada is reverting more towards Conservatism, bills will struggle to pass more and more like the same sex marriage bill under PR, the minority government demonstrated that.

[Bizud]

Under PR, the Conservatives and Bloc would have had fewer seats but the New Democrats would have had many more, and the Greens would have a few. I think the SSM bill would definitely have passed had we conducted the 2004 election using MMP. That also would have allowed for a stable Liberal/NDP majority coalition government and we wouldn't have had (some of) this instability. You might not like that idea, but I do. I believe coalition governments can be just as stable as single-party majorities, I think Britain's (another country with our electoral system) limited experience with coalition governments proves they can work just fine if all parties are committed (which they would have to be under PR), and certainly the experiences of other countries with regular coalition governments prove this. Also, I believe coalition governments are inherently more accountable. Finally, I don't understand what Europe's supposed "socialism" has to do with which electoral system is more democratic.

[Matt]

People are less socialist in Canada these days is what it has to do with it. Also the N.D.P. pushed the Liberals around despite the fact that the Liberals have more seats that's not fair at all. That's the minority pushing people around.

[ecnarf]

People are less socialist in Canada these days is what it has to do with it. Also the N.D.P. pushed the Liberals around despite the fact that the Liberals have more seats that's not fair at all. That's the minority pushing people around.

Nope, that's the minority using the balance of power.

 

In today's parliament, the majority doesn't rule, the largest minority does.

 

The NDP has enough seats to swing a little bit of power around. They represent enough people to hold that power, and the people they are representing deserve their fair say.

 

Now, the NDP didn't entirely revamp the budget to fit their platform, they made some changes to it so they would be doing their job for the people that voted for them. They weren't pushing the liberals around by any means. They were using the political power that had been granted to them by a portion of the Canadian population.

[Matt]

They were pushing the Liberals around. The Liberals would probably not even considered their proposal had there not been the threat of a non-confidence vote.

[Bizud]

You can say that the NDP were "pushing the Liberals around," but they're not obligated to give confidence to the Liberals. They did exactly what they should have done, they cooperated with the Liberals to reach an agreement that, by definition, represented a majority of voters.

 

People are less socialist in Canada these days is what it has to do with it.

 

I get it, I just don't see what that has to do with PR. PR is about democracy, not about leaning left or right.

[Matt]

What they should have done if they were not pushing the Liberals around was decide to either give the Liberals a vote of confidence or not, then vote the way they decided. Then after the fact try to work out some issues rather than force the Liberals to push forward what the N.D.P. wants.

 

Also it has plenty to do with it. The farther leaning people are to both sides means the less that can get done. This slows down democracy.

[Bizud]

What they should have done if they were not pushing the Liberals around was decide to either give the Liberals a vote of confidence or not, then vote the way they decided. Then after the fact try to work out some issues rather than force the Liberals to push forward what the N.D.P. wants.

 

You mean give away their support unconditionally? Sorry, that's not how minority governments work. The governing party in a minority has to earn support from the other parties, whether it's the Conservatives or the NDP. If the NDP had just propped up the Liberals they would have been committing political suicide, you know that. People are happy with what you've been calling the "NDP budget," because the NDP held the Liberals to account and gave people something closer to the platform they voted for when they voted Liberal - remember, if you have to simplify the budget in terms of left to right, the agreement with the NDP just swung a budget that was already leaning way to the right (back when the Liberals were leaning towards working with the Conservatives, remember?) slightly back towards the centre because the Cons didn't want to play anymore.

 

Minority government, even moreso than coalition government, is about compromise. There's nothing wrong with that - in a world where different people have different ideas about how to go about doing things, compromise is the essence of democracy.

 

I'm waiting for you and every other clown to bring out the editorials condemning MMP for the "bad" election results in New Zealand and Germany. ;)

Edited September 25, 2005 by Bizud

[Matt]

If they cannot have unconditional support than they should not hold the ruling party hostage. That's pushing them around. Comproising means many more people do not get what they wanted though, and the Liberal budget would have been probably a whole lot more what had been promised by the Liberals had they had a majority government.

Edited September 25, 2005 by Matt

[Bizud]

Because Liberals always keep their promises. ;)

 

If they cannot have unconditional support than they should not hold the ruling party hostage. That's pushing them around.

 

They shouldn't say "change the bill to this, which you'll still agree to, and we'll agree to it as well, and that way everybody wins?" What's wrong with that? That is the very essence of collaborative democracy. The elected Members of Parliament sit down and talk and argue and debate amongst themselves until they get something that a majority of them can agree to. How can that possibly be wrong? Nobody's abandoning any principles - if a majority can't agree to it then it simply won't be passed.

 

What you don't seem to get is that the Liberals are under no obligation to continue governing. The NDP can't force them to do anything. If the NDP's demands were ones that the Liberals would have to compromise principle on, the Liberals could simply say "no, we won't do it." The budget would be defeated and an election would have been called. You might well say that would have upset Canadians, and you'd be right - and they'd probably either punish the Liberals for being intransigent or, if they thought the Libs were in the right, give them a majority. So to say the NDP pushed the Liberals around is just absurd; the NDP acted to keep Canadians from going back to the polls when most of us didn't want to, they acted to eliminate a big corporate tax cut that most Canadians thought was unnecessary, and they helped to deliver a budget that most Canadians seem to like.

 

And there's no problem at all with that, it's how a parliamentary democracy works and is supposed to work. To say that the Cabinet must keep the confidence of the House is not just some old-fashioned notion, it's the proper way to govern in a parliamentary democracy. We need to take power out of the PMO and return it to the legislature, and the best way to do that is by ensuring that parties are actually given a fair share of seats that corresponds to their share of the vote, so that parties and politicians can actually be held accountable instead of coasting into the nigh-unlimited power of the executive on 35% of the votes because of a fractured opposition. or because of a voting system that is a relic of the past. And also, it is wrong that my vote for the NDP doesn't count unless the NDP candidate in my riding wins. That is wrong, and it's not democratic. We need to switch to a voting system where we can elect, indirectly, a government, not just a bunch of legislators. Our voting system is a relic from the days before political parties, when votes and representation were based on geography. You know, my MP represents my community in Parliament. That's all well and good - MPs should still represent distinct geographic areas, that's why I like MMP - but it's far from enough. When I vote for Mike Hansen or whoever, I'm not really voting for him, I'm voting for the NDP. Kamloops should still have a representative, and I should get to vote for who that is, but I should have my vote for "The New Democratic Party" count for something. That's the beauty of MMP. Read up on that model I linked to in a thread a while back, it's very interesting, elegant, and above all, democratic. Under our system, representation is still based on geography, but quite often votes are not. Quite often votes are based on ideology, as they should be - you have a certain idea about how things should be done, so you vote for the party that best approximates that. That is modern representative democracy, and we do not have it.

 

I'm pretty baked. 'Night.

Edited September 25, 2005 by Bizud

[Matt]

You can call it whatever you want but the N.D.P. still pushed the Liberals around, if they wanted to support the Liberals they should have just supported them. Also politicians can still speak their mind, people do leave their parties and switch. Chuck Cadman, the former Conservative, who sat as an independant up until he lost his fight with cancer, voted in favour of the budget, and he didn't demand anything. Scott Brison left the Progressive Conservatives after the merger, and Belinda Stronach left the Conservatives as well. People can switch parties, sit as independants if they don't like what their party is doing. We don't need this new representational systems, because it will result in petty politics that do not work. Like when the Conservatives didn't go to the House of Commons so nothing could get done. We don't need a dysfunctional government, we need good government and under a current system we usually get that.

[Bizud]

You still don't get it. Making demands on legislation for your vote is not "pushing someone around," it is proper and correct. That is what they are supposed to do. They're not supposed to vote for something they don't agree with, they're supposed to say "I can't agree with that, but change it to this and I will agree." Chuck Cadman agreed with the budget as is, good for him. If he hadn't, he would have been well in the right to say "I can't vote for that as long as it has X in it. Take X out and maybe I will vote for it." It's called negotiation, and it is how the legislative process is supposed to work.

 

Look, my main problem with the current voting system is that if I vote NDP and the local New Democrat doesn't win, my vote counts for nothing. People who want to vote Conservative in Quebec don't, because they know that it won't count. That is not merely bad for the country, it is evil and it is unfair, and you have yet to provide a reason why we can't make a PR system work when other countries have managed to do it so well. You mention "the conservative movement" and "Europe's socialism" and how Canada is a big country, and all that, and it just doesn't have anything to do with proportional representation. The last election, if we had used a PR system, would have allowed for a stable Liberal/NDP coalition or a Liberal minority with NDP support. If you have a problem with that, focus your arguments on why you think single-party majorities are preferable to coalitions and minorities - you know, like the intelligent critics of PR do - not on imaginary reasons why PR "can't work."

 

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentSe...ol=968350116795

 

Face it, our election system no longer works

CHANTAL H

Edited September 26, 2005 by Crusader

[Matt]

Your vote does count because if you vote for such and such and other people see such and such doing better they are more likely to vote for such and such if they like such and such as well. Change comes at a moderate pace it should not come overnight. Overnight leaves more room for mistakes to happen which is why our system works. Stability also makes more sense because that means people don't have to worry so much about what the government will do, they can let the government do it's job and if they are upset and make a bad decision people can voice their opinion.