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[Tabris]

Both, and you have to understand that as a quebecer my opinion and feeling of the name Trudeau is far different from yours. As I said i'll give them credit if they do a good job but as of right now I have my doubts and fears

So you are basing your decision based on his late father enacting war measures act in a completely different generation and political landscape?

So if your Dad was a homophobe due to ignorance and misunderstanding, should I think you're a homophobe too in this day and age?

 

[lamaroo]

maybe i'm just jaded or cynical but that particular promise is most likely at the bottom of his list, along with weed legalisation. In 4 years he'll tell us all about he "didn't have enough time to do it" and how "he needs 4 more years and he swears he'll do it this time"

Legalisation seems like it would be relatively easy to get going, and would create a lot of tax dollars, why wouldn't they go ahead with it?

 

[Kyuur]

Not sure if posted recently, popular vote results:

PR would have ended with a Liberal minority, greater seats for everyone else, especially Green. Sounds about right.

 

[Pedrito]

ksharp will be relieved to know that the loony is not crashing.

 

[Mysterious]

We aren't getting PR. Not when Liberals won a majority with 39.5% of the votes.

 

[Zombie James]

It's part of their platform. Don't let 10 years of Harper apathy make you be pessimistic.

They nearly got destroyed in 2011 and the Conservatives attempted to bankrupt the other parties by removing the $1 per vote and creating the longest election we've had in a very very long time. It's too important not to do.

Not to mention the bullshit "Fair Elections" Act. The Cons stacked the deck in their favour and things are definitely going to change. What I'm hoping for:

- Online voting.
- National election day holiday.
- Ban on corporate and union donations like it's been done in Alberta.
- Ban on campaign advertising when there isn't an election on.
- Ban robocalls.
- A hard limit on how much a government can spend advertising government programs.
- A hard limit on the length of an election.
- Tougher penalties and punishment for electoral fraud and parties that break election laws.

 

[imBask]

So you are basing your decision based on his late father enacting war measures act in a completely different generation and political landscape?

So if your Dad was a homophobe due to ignorance and misunderstanding, should I think you're a homophobe too in this day and age?

if YOUR dad was a militant homophobe and that person was the one who teached you everything you knew, i'd be careful until proven otherwise

and it's not just the war measures act, it's the corruption, the scandales des commandites, the illegal $12M for flags, etc etc etc

as I said i'm not saying it'll happen again, but I prefer to tread lightly and not get too excited. I didn't vote for them and I don't agree with some of their ideas, so i'm pretty sure I have the right to be doubtful

Legalisation seems like it would be relatively easy to get going, and would create a lot of tax dollars, why wouldn't they go ahead with it?

because weed is infinitely worst than cigarettes!!!!111! and baby boomers are afraid of everything new

 

[Stet]

The Liberals know more than anyone else that they only won a majority because of Harper. It benefits them in future elections to implement voting reform. It was also part of their platform. I don't know why it's even an argument.

 

[Simon Belmont]

The Liberals know more than anyone else that they only won a majority because of Harper. It benefits them in future elections to implement voting reform. It was also part of their platform. I don't know why it's even an argument.

I mean it's been one day and it hasn't happened. Clearly they're never doing anything about it.

 

[Cynar]

Not to mention the bullshit "Fair Elections" Act. The Cons stacked the deck in their favour and things are definitely going to change. What I'm hoping for:

- Online voting.
- National election day holiday.
- Ban on corporate and union donations like it's been done in Alberta.
- Ban on campaign advertising when there isn't an election on.
- Ban robocalls.
- A hard limit on how much a government can spend advertising government programs.
- A hard limit on the length of an election.
- Tougher penalties and punishment for electoral fraud and parties that break election laws.

I'd vote for you in a heartbeat. Let's hope these come and Elections Canada gets some teeth. They were practically dismantled after everything they caught the Conservatives doing.

 

[Box of Kittens]

From an American: Congratulations Canada on preserving your national igloo giving Harper the boot.

 

[GSG Flash]

The Liberals know more than anyone else that they only won a majority because of Harper. It benefits them in future elections to implement voting reform. It was also part of their platform. I don't know why it's even an argument.

Yup and also the collapse of the NDP vote, they should not take this victory for granted.

 

[Kyuur]

Liberals were never planning on implementing PR specifically anyways. Not sure why folks are saying 'we're not getting it with what the Liberals just got' like they were planning to but will scrap it now.

Voter reform will still happen. There is a non-zero chance of it being PR. Once we start to hear details, write/talk with your MPs. Involvement can't end at election day.

 

[Simon Belmont]

Yup and also the collapse of the NDP vote, they should not take this victory for granted.

On the flip side, the NDP shouldn't take those voters for granted, either.

 

[Azih]

I have hopes for PR. Not as high if it was a minority. But . A lot of Liberals are idealistic and progressives. Just got to help them against the cynical Blue power hungry wing of the party. Follow Fair Vote Canada guys we're going to be badgering Liberals for PR as Trudeau's 18 months of study start going into gear.

 

[Simon Belmont]

In PR who gets selected to be one of these new MPs?

 

[clem84]

I guess the majority of Canadian voters are ok with busting the federal budget and generating a deficit until, what did Trudeau say, 2019?

Economically, Canada is not doing good right. We're not doing horrible but we're not good either. The way I see it, this will hurt us long term. Before the election I was thinking to myself "anyone but the liberals".

 

[eBay Huckster]

In PR who gets selected to be one of these new MPs?

assuming you're referring to who actually gets elected: IIRC, in a strict party-list system it's based on what order they're listed in relative to how much of the vote they got above a certain quota

(whereas in MMP they can either get selected that way or by winning a constituency vote, same as now, though generally if they "deserve" X seats and they already got Y from constituencies then they're only awarded X-Y seats from the party lists)

 

[AuthenticM]

Question:

what is the likelihood of the Senate shooting down some of the Liberals' progressive bills, such as marijuana legalization?

I fucking hate the Senate.

 

[Samyy]

I guess the majority of Canadian voters are ok with busting the federal budget and generating a deficit until, what did Trudeau say, 2019?

Economically, Canada is not doing good right. We're not doing horrible but we're not good either. The way I see it, this will hurt us long term. Before the election I was thinking to myself "anyone but the liberals".

This is an absolute ridiculous comment, in what way is deficit spending bad when the economy is doing bad (unless you simply waste the deficit spending on shit projects ala Mr. Harper).

 

[Simon Belmont]

assuming you're referring to who actually gets elected: IIRC, in a strict party-list system it's based on what order they're listed in relative to how much of the vote they got above a certain quota

(whereas in MMP they can either get selected that way or by winning a constituency vote, same as now, though generally if they "deserve" X seats and they already got Y from constituencies then they're only awarded X-Y seats from the party lists)

So it's all either people who lost the riding they were running in, or were just voted in by the local party?

 

[whitehawk]

We aren't getting PR. Not when Liberals won a majority with 39.5% of the votes.

No.

Vote reform will happen in some fashion. Liberals won this time, but it was the perfect storm. They won't be as strong next time unless they truly follow up on their promises. They need to take action on this, and I think Justin knows this.

 

[Blue Submarine No. 6]

Not so sure. Conservative majority of 2011 had a larger % of popular vote than the 2015 majority won by the Liberals last night...

Me thinks that the Liberals will shelve that electoral reform for a bit and focus on other (easier) issues...



Except that historical data doesn't allow you to make that conclusion (i.e., Liberals have won with very low turnout too and that turnout in 2011 (Tory majority) was similar to some of the Liberals' wins (2000, 2004).

Semantics.

Conservatives 2011 = 5,835,270 votes
Liberals 2015 = 6,928,514 votes

A million votes difference.

 

[eBay Huckster]

So it's all either people who lost the riding they were running in, or were just voted in by the local party?

the second one, basically

I'd imagine the party-list selection process is similar to the current system of candidate selection by the parties - though I'm not too sure about this because literally nothing I can find about MMP goes into any level of detail about it

 

[Stet]

I guess the majority of Canadian voters are ok with busting the federal budget and generating a deficit until, what did Trudeau say, 2019?

Economically, Canada is not doing good right. We're not doing horrible but we're not good either. The way I see it, this will hurt us long term. Before the election I was thinking to myself "anyone but the liberals".

The majority of economists are okay with generating a 3-year deficit. The Conservatives generated deficits most of the years they governed. They just pretended not to.

 

[Simon Belmont]

the second one, basically

I'd imagine the party-list selection process is similar to the current system of candidate selection - I'm not too sure about this because literally nothing I can find about MMP goes into any level of detail about it

See this is the part of MMP that scares the bejesus out of me. I need somebody to explain how this isn't just going to turn into a layer of party cronyism.

 

[GSG Flash]

On the flip side, the NDP shouldn't take those voters for granted, either.

I agree and it seems like the NDP did take their voters for granted this time around, it was evident with their "we only need 35 more seats to beat Harper" push.

Question:

what is the likelihood of the Senate shooting down some of the Liberals' progressive bills, such as marijuana legalization?

I fucking hate the Senate.

Very little.

If the Senate becomes a problem, the Liberals will just fill up the vacant senate seats with Liberal senators who will push their bills through.

 

[Tabris]

I guess the majority of Canadian voters are ok with busting the federal budget and generating a deficit until, what did Trudeau say, 2019?

Economically, Canada is not doing good right. We're not doing horrible but we're not good either. The way I see it, this will hurt us long term. Before the election I was thinking to myself "anyone but the liberals".

Except when you aren't doing well economically, you spend your way through it. It's cheaper to spend money now (when interest rates are low) then it will be when the economy recovers or over a longer period - and you speed up recovery by spending.

You can look to history to see this. The best example (which unfortunately led to bad circumstances) was Hitler's autobahn initiative in 1930's Germany. Germany was crippled through austerity measures and global recession. Instead of keeping spending down, they went the opposite route and spent a lot of money creating a network of autobahns (highways) that propelled an economic upturn that led Germany back to being an economic powerhouse (which then unfortunately led to WW2).

Can you tell me examples where keeping spending low for a balanced budget has led to quick economic upturns?

The time to balance budgets and create surpluses is during economic peaks.

 

[Azih]

In PR who gets selected to be one of these new MPs?

There's three main forms of PR

Pure List PR which only makes sense for smaller countries (like Scandinavia level) where basically you just vote for a party and the party publishes a list before the election of which candidate will get the seats in order. Pretty straightforward.

There's Irish style STV in which MPs are elected in multi member regions. So instead of 5 FPTP districts in Mississauga with a bunch of wasted votes and a Liberal sweep (it was a Con sweep last time) you'd have a 5 region Mississauga and everybody would rank their favourite candidates. The result would probably be something like 3 Libs, 1, Con, and 1 NDP getting in. Stephane Dion has his own design that is roughly similar to this

There's German style MMP (my fave!) in which you vote in a local election just like now but also pick a party in a second ballot. Parties that get screwed by the local election but should win seats get top up MPs to make up their proportion. These top up MPs come from a list that the party publishes before the election. The second ballot can be regional and open so that the party ranking can get modified by people voting for a candidate in the party list and not just for the party.

There's a bunch of details that go into PR. But really it's either MMP of a regional open sort or STV that fit Canada (or Dion's P3 system).

 

[gabbo]

I guess the majority of Canadian voters are ok with busting the federal budget and generating a deficit until, what did Trudeau say, 2019?

Economically, Canada is not doing good right. We're not doing horrible but we're not good either. The way I see it, this will hurt us long term. Before the election I was thinking to myself "anyone but the liberals".

The previous government ran almost non-stop deficits. At least Trudeau is up front about it

 

[Darkangel]

I think both Liberals and Conservatives can be happy that the Bloc failed to reach official party status again.

 

[Zombie James]

An interesting issue with PR was brought up during CBC's late night broadcast and it's something I hadn't heard mentioned before, and that's the much higher possibility of fringe or radical parties getting a seat. The host made the example of what if there was an anti-niqab party and they end up with 1% of the vote; you'd be giving three seats and the national stage to a potential hate group for four years.

I mean, that's democracy, though. If that's what 1% of the population wanted then that's what would happen, but it was something to think about. PR would be a huge improvement over first-past-the-post but it probably wouldn't end up being the sunshine and rainbows electoral system we all hope it would be.

 

[AuthenticM]

An interesting issue with PR was brought up during CBC's late night broadcast and it's something I hadn't heard mentioned before, and that's the much higher possibility of fringe or radical parties getting a seat. The host made the example of what if there was an anti-niqab party and they end up with 1% of the vote; you'd be giving three seats and the national stage to a potential hate group for four years.

I mean, that's democracy, though. If that's what 1% of the population wanted then that's what would happen, but it was something to think about. PR would be a huge improvement over first-past-the-post but it probably wouldn't end up being the sunshine and rainbows electoral system we all hope it would be.

Some countries have a rule that a party needs at least 5% of the vote in order to have seats. Germany is one, I think, to curb exactly that.

Here's an article Radio-Canada posted last night, discussing this: http://ici.radio-canada.ca/sujet/el...017-vote-mode-proportionnel-canada-2015.shtml

 

[Simon Belmont]

There's three main forms of PR

Pure List PR which only makes sense for smaller countries (like Scandinavia level) where basically you just vote for a party and the party publishes a list before the election of which candidate will get the seats in order. Pretty straightforward.

There's Irish style STV in which MPs are elected in multi member regions. So instead of 5 FPTP districts in Mississauga with a bunch of wasted votes and a Liberal sweep (it was a Con sweep last time) you'd have a 5 region Mississauga and everybody would rank their favourite candidates. The result would probably be something like 3 Libs, 1, Con, and 1 NDP getting in. Stephane Dion has his own design that is roughly similar to this

There's German style MMP (my fave!) in which you vote in a local election just like now but also pick a party in a second ballot. Parties that get screwed by the local election but should win seats get top up MPs to make up their proportion. These top up MPs come from a list that the party publishes before the election. The second ballot can be regional and open so that the party ranking can get modified by people voting for a candidate in the party list and not just for the party.

There's a bunch of details that go into PR. But really it's either MMP of a regional open sort or STV that fit Canada (or Dion's P3 system).

Thanks! That was very informative. My overall feeling on PR is that it's still going to make getting rid of the rats in the party just that much harder. If people will vote Pollivere in in his riding, they wouldn't bat an eye at him on a list.

 

[You Are Viewtiful]

prefferential ballots is my choice and the LPC's choice for obvious reasons.

i want Trudeau as PM for life

Except that's not what will happen. When 60% of Canadians will want change again, they will get it. And God knows what flavour of Conservatives AV will produce.

If AV gets passed, we'll go from being 70% left / 30% right to being 50/50 like Australia. All AV and preferential systems have devolved into two party systems. It makes me very worried.

 

[imBask]

An interesting issue with PR was brought up during CBC's late night broadcast and it's something I hadn't heard mentioned before, and that's the much higher possibility of fringe or radical parties getting a seat. The host made the example of what if there was an anti-niqab party and they end up with 1% of the vote; you'd be giving three seats and the national stage to a potential hate group for four years.

I mean, that's democracy, though. If that's what 1% of the population wanted then that's what would happen, but it was something to think about. PR would be a huge improvement over first-past-the-post but it probably wouldn't end up being the sunshine and rainbows electoral system we all hope it would be.

that 1% has to be represented whether you like it or not, they still only get 1% of the seats and don't have a lot of power anyway

or as someone else stated you put a threshold of 3-5%

 

[clem84]

This is an absolute ridiculous comment, in what way is deficit spending bad when the economy is doing bad (unless you simply waste the deficit spending on shit projects ala Mr. Harper).

It's not necessarily bad, but you have to realize that it ends up being a risk. Those investments might not create the economic boom the liberals are hoping for and in a few years we might be back where we started economically, but also stuck with a deficit and a larger debt. It's a little like pushing our problems forward. They're still going to be there in a few years. Borrowing money from our future selves doesn't really solve anything. The budget has to be balanced first, then we find a solution to our problems. The only one who didn't see it that way was Trudeau.

Edit:

Just read the replies. Hey, I'm no economy expert. Let's hope you guys are right. Peace.

 

[Simon Belmont]

It's not necessarily bad, but you have to realize that it ends up being a risk. Those investments might not create the economic boom the liberals are hoping for and in a few years we might be back where we started economically, but also stuck with a deficit and a larger debt. It's a little like pushing our problems forward. They're still going to be there in a few years. Borrowing money from our future selves doesn't really solve anything. The budget has to be balanced first, then we find a solution to our problems. The only one who didn't see it that way was Trudeau.

You mean the guy who won? Fancy that.

 

[Impeccable]

It's not necessarily bad, but you have to realize that it ends up being a risk. Those investments might not create the economic boom the liberals are hoping for and in a few years we might be back where we started economically, but also stuck with a deficit and a larger debt. It's a little like pushing our problems forward. They're still going to be there in a few years. Borrowing money from our future selves doesn't really solve anything. The budget has to be balanced first, then we find a solution to our problems. The only one who didn't see it that way was Trudeau.

It's about investing now to prosper later, it's hard for people to grasp.

 

[Tabris]

It's not necessarily bad, but you have to realize that it ends up being a risk. Those investments might not create the economic boom the liberals are hoping for and in a few years we might be back where we started economically, but also stuck with a deficit and a larger debt. It's a little like pushing our problems forward. They're still going to be there in a few years. Borrowing money from our future selves doesn't really solve anything. The budget has to be balanced first, then we find a solution to our problems. The only one who didn't see it that way was Trudeau.

Except our revenue is lower in an economic recession (or in our case a stagnation as we're not in an annual recession), so to balance the budget, we have to reduce spending, which leads to less money being injected into the economy, which creates an economic downturn. So you can't approach it as "balance first, then upturn" because you create a downturn with that.

The conservatives think tax breaks is how you inject money into the economy, but when market confidence is low, it just creates dead money as the market waits for the economic upturn it can't create themselves. So thus furthering economic downturn (which we've seen in Harpers government when we don't have government spending or commodity money coming in).

So you need government to inject money as the market won't.

 

[Zombie James]

Some countries have a rule that a party needs at least 5% of the vote in order to have seats. Germany is one, I think, to curb exactly that.

Here's an article Radio-Canada posted last night, discussing this: http://ici.radio-canada.ca/sujet/el...017-vote-mode-proportionnel-canada-2015.shtml

Is there an English version?

 

[You Are Viewtiful]

An interesting issue with PR was brought up during CBC's late night broadcast and it's something I hadn't heard mentioned before, and that's the much higher possibility of fringe or radical parties getting a seat. The host made the example of what if there was an anti-niqab party and they end up with 1% of the vote; you'd be giving three seats and the national stage to a potential hate group for four years.

I mean, that's democracy, though. If that's what 1% of the population wanted then that's what would happen, but it was something to think about. PR would be a huge improvement over first-past-the-post but it probably wouldn't end up being the sunshine and rainbows electoral system we all hope it would be.

German PR requires that you get 5% og the popular vote before you get proportional seats. The MMP that was proposed in Ontario in 2007 required 3% or winning one riding to start getting proportional seats.

 

[Azih]

Thanks! That was very informative. My overall feeling on PR is that it's still going to make getting rid of the rats in the party just that much harder. If people will vote Pollivere in in his riding, they wouldn't bat an eye at him on a list.

No system in the world can keep people voting for Rob Ford in large numbers *sigh*. Demagoguery is a basic problem in democracy period. And with Canadians voting for party brand over local candidate there will always be bad candidates staying in. (Bad candidates can get in once in any system by being charismatic liars). I see your point though I don't think it's any bigger of a problem in Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, Scotland, etc (all PR places). as in Canada.

Yeah thresholds are another detail of PR that gets overlooked. New Zealand has a 4% threshold, Germany has a 5% threshold. Pretty much the only party that can get over that hump is the Greens.

 

[Simon Belmont]

No system in the world can keep people voting for Rob Ford in large numbers *sigh*. Demagoguery is a basic problem in democracy period. And with Canadians voting for party brand over local candidate there will always be bad candidates getting in.

But Rob Ford is facing the voters. These are just going to be people on a list that half the voters won't look at anyways. Will there be rules about how much campaigning they have to do?

 

[Layell]

If the Senate becomes a problem, the Liberals will just fill up the vacant senate seats with Liberal senators who will push their bills through.

Trudeau severed the liberal senators from their obligation to the party, he has different plans for reform, from his plan: https://www.liberal.ca/files/2015/06/a-fair-and-open-government.pdf

"That is why Justin Trudeau removed all Senators
from the Liberal Caucus and why we will also create a new, nonpartisan,
merit-based, broad, and diverse process to advise the
Prime Minister on Senate appointments. We will also work to
implement the recent recommendations of the Auditor General
regarding Parliamentarians’ expenses, including with legislative
measures where necessary"

 

[Gotdatmoney]

I guess the majority of Canadian voters are ok with busting the federal budget and generating a deficit until, what did Trudeau say, 2019?

Economically, Canada is not doing good right. We're not doing horrible but we're not good either. The way I see it, this will hurt us long term. Before the election I was thinking to myself "anyone but the liberals".

This is literally what some of my conservative friends have been whining about. Why would you mot run a deficit and invest in economy and infrastructure when your economy is doing shit? This is the prime time to do it while interest rates are still cheap and the country needs invesstment to get back on its feet. What is the point of tight budget spending? Make us even less competitive in the global market?

 

[Tabris]

Just read the replies. Hey, I'm no economy expert. Let's hope you guys are right. Peace.

I would recommend reading:

The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money by Keynes

Some people disagree with the principles of Keynesian economics, but there's so many examples that show how a private sector cannot create economic upturns by itself due to low market confidence, that the public sector needs to generally get involved until the private sector can continue the upturn once market confidence has returned.

I disagree with some aspects on how the public sector should create that economic upturn, but the core theory on private sector not being able to drive economic upturns during low market confidence periods is I think a key to economics.

 

[clem84]

I would recommend reading:

The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money by Keynes

Some people disagree with the principles of Keynesian economics, but there's so many examples that show how a private sector cannot create economic upturns by itself due to low market confidence, that the public sector needs to generally get involved until the private sector can continue the upturn once market confidence has returned.

I disagree with some aspects on how the public sector should create that economic upturn, but the core theory on private sector not being able to drive economic upturns during low market confidence periods is I think a key to economics.

Thanks. I'll look into that.

 

[Zombie James]

I just realized...

June 2014: Hudak gone.
October 2014: Ford gone.
October 2015: Harper gone.

It's been an amazing year politically if you're in Toronto.

 

[Azih]

But Rob Ford is facing the voters. These are just going to be people on a list that half the voters won't look at anyways. Will there be rules about how much campaigning they have to do?

In STV they all campaign. In MMP they all campaign as well because the only way they guarantee getting in in the next election is to win locally. If they don't win locally the only way they get in is if

1. Their party gets enough votes to go over a threshold
2. Their party does well enough in the party vote to deserve seats
3. Their party DIDN'T do well enough locally to get those deserved seats and so get top ups
4. They are high enough on their party's list to get one of those top ups(their ranking can even change in an open party list).

Every candidate that wants to get elected or re-elected wants to win locally as the other route is a roulette wheel. In this election for example no Liberal list only candidate would have made it in at all and only very few Conservative list candidates would have made it in. That's why in MMP places like Germany, NZ, Scotland etc. there's no difference in how 'list' MPs and 'local' MPs behave either in parliament or in a campaign. They all play towards a locality where they hope to get in the next time around.

A side benefit is that if you need help from an MP then in both STV and MMP you've got a choice of people to go to. You're not bound to the one guy who won your riding.