-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Canadian PoliGAF - 42nd Parliament: Sunny Ways in Trudeaupia
- Thread starter matthewwhatever
- Start date
- Status
I would say that poll and approval numbers between elections are meaningless, because no one is paying much attention...
Yeah we're doomed to years more of Clark here since the NDP completely and utterly fucked up last election. Hopefully she'll announce some new ferries or get a deck built or something soon.
Eventually one or both of the parties will get kicked out of power because it's really rare for one party to govern for like 15+ years. I don't think they will be able to keep power for like 20+ years especially the OLP. The people in the western provinces(BC.Alberta, Manitoba and Sask) have a knack for keeping their parties in power for like 15+ years at times so I'm not sure how much time is remaining for the BC Liberals before they get kicked out of government.
Of course I think they're eventually going to go, but none of their opponents at present are in remotely good enough shape to even present a minor challenge.
Wait....this is real? I thought this whole thing was made by the Onion or something!
Oh man, I just looked up this guys Twitter. TBH I'm still not sure if this is parody or real.
Simon Belmont
Banned
Congratulations on being yet another person willing to post all day about politics while sitting on your arse, but can't bother to actually do your civic duty.
gutter_trash
Banned
Anyone interested in parliamentary procedure nuts and bolts might want to tune in to #ableg on twitter right now. Something interesting (and confusing) has happened, and resulted in the expulsion of the leader of the PCs (third party) for yelling at the speaker. He's alleging the speaker took issued a ruling on a point of order he hadn't yet made, and that the ruling actually came from the governing NDP.
Another option is that you can decline your vote:
STEP 1: Voting officer gives ballot to voter
STEP 2: Voter marks ballot
- The voter must take the ballot directly to the voting compartment and, without delay, mark the ballot
- (a) by placing an "X" in the space provided for that purpose beside the name of the candidate of his or her choice; or
- (b) by writing "declined" on the front of the ballot.
STEP 4: Voting officer examines ballot
- Without unfolding the ballot, the voting officer must confirm that it is the same ballot that was provided to the voter by examining his or her initials.
From what I read on the timeline of the situation, and the papers that are now circulating on twitter... McIver has every right to be pissed and I'm not even a PC supporter.
If it's true that the 'wall' was actually breached, then this is a huge matter regardless of whether McIver got thrown out.
The PC's are pretty much guaranteed to get a decent sized majority government as long as they win enough seats in Winnipeg. I think they will get close to 50% of the vote tomorrow unless enough people vote against the PC's at the ballot box tomorrow to not give them a majority.
Agreed. What I'm skeptical of at the moment is the leap from what McIver has said happened to the allegation of the NDP writing the ruling. I'm not up on parliamentary machinations to the degree necessary to even propose alternate interpretations, let alone assume that his is correct only on his own claim. Be very interesting to see what comes out of this.
There's an explanation that sounds plausible to my understanding of how the Speaker works (that is, that the Speaker uses advice from experts to make rulings) on this twitter feed: https://twitter.com/donnyademaj (sorry, he didn't chain his tweets so I can't link to one and show all of them). Of course, this is bad too, but it's neither the Speaker nor the Government's fault if that's the case, and McIver's posted document doesn't indicate where it's from.
That's probably the most reasonable explanation, and does make sense if it's a table officer document. The only question is... does Rick McIver know how table officers work?
Huh. I didn't know that this was possible. It seems to get my message across. If I find time, I think I'll do this tomorrow.
gutter_trash
Banned
it does not matter if your team is going to lose, you still do your duty and vote.
I currently live in a lefty-left Nationalist riding; Liberals never win here, either Federally or Provincially. I grew up in the suburbs which where super separatist.... I still got out an vote no matter what after I turned 18.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Unless "no vote" actually wins a riding though, no one is going to care.
Heck, are mismarked ballots even counted separately from intentionally marked protest votes?
Heck, are mismarked ballots even counted separately from intentionally marked protest votes?
The proposed details for PEI's electoral reform plebiscite have been released. Normally people don't pay much attention to PEI politics, but since this is a national issue and the only electoral reform event that will occur before the Trudeau government's mooted reforms, it will potentially be significant.
Ironically, the vote to decide on electoral reform is being done with ranked balloting, which is one of the five options presented for how to run the electoral system. The first option is the current system. The second is the current system plus seats for party leaders that meat a certain vote threshold. The third is ranked balloting. The fourth and fifth are two different systems that attempt to mix district-based voting with compensatory systems to achieve a legislature that reflects the total popular vote.
Ironically, the vote to decide on electoral reform is being done with ranked balloting, which is one of the five options presented for how to run the electoral system. The first option is the current system. The second is the current system plus seats for party leaders that meat a certain vote threshold. The third is ranked balloting. The fourth and fifth are two different systems that attempt to mix district-based voting with compensatory systems to achieve a legislature that reflects the total popular vote.
For what its worth, I have no intention of declining my own ballot this election, but I think it's a valid and better option than staying home.
This is the same argument people make for not voting.
Yes, they're counted separately. Sometimes a spoiled ballot is something like someone voting for all candidates. It's impossible to tell the intention there. However, if you specifically follow the guidelines in declining a ballot, that will be explicitly recorded.
These are decent options, except for the status quo plus leaders one, which is bizarre and I can't even imagine what the expected positive outcome would be. Hopefully one of the proportional ones win.
I'm sure you didn't mean this all that seriously, but I don't think it's at all ironic to decide it this way. Ranked ballot is a great way to achieve proportionality on a *question*, but not a good way to achieve proportionality in terms of *representation*. The two are not the same, and the point of proportional representation is to make it so when representatives answer questions *they* are answering them proportionally.
---
In the #ableg drama, Ric McIvor (leader of PC) is apologizing for his outburst in the house:
Or wait! He apparently is going to apologize for something, but he's not sure what: https://twitter.com/MBellefontaine/status/722450947327143936
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
It's typically the case that these sorts of institutional votes are done in two phases: one phase to choose between alternatives to the status quo, and a second phase to choose between the status quo and the alternative. If you don't do it this way, if you force everyone to jointly consider them all at the same time, confusion or analysis paralysis will benefit the status quo. I would expect this vote to fail on the basis of the described referendum options.
Consider how a legislature works. A legislator moves a bill (Let's call it A), which proposes a change to the status quo (X). First, legislators offer amendments (A', A'', A''', etc.) These amendments are voted on, resulting in some final amended bill. Maybe that bill is A, maybe it's A'''''. Then, they take a vote between X, the status quo, and A'''''.
Let's look at some example referenda. New Zealand just finished with a plebiscite to try to change their flag. How was it executed? Stage 1: Choose between 5 flags you might like to switch to. Stage 2: Choose between the current flag and the most preferred of the 5. Alternatively, let's look at a referendum that did both stages simultaneously. The Gray Davis California gubernatorial recall election in 2003. The first question was Q1: Should Gray Davis be recalled? The second question was: Q2: If Gray Davis is recalled, who should be governor?.
Here's how I would design the PEI referendum
Referendum 1) Would you prefer a ranked ballot, mixed-member proportional, or one-district proportional representation?
<4-6 week campaign period>
Referendum 2) Would you prefer PEI's current system or <winning alternative>?
The reason I would drop the "seats for leaders" requirement is several-pronged. First, leaders should not be institutionalized. As-is, most of our party structure is a matter of convention, including the Premier/Prime Minister being the leader of the largest party. That convention (the confidence of the House) is useful. Other than salaries and office resources, we do not institutionalize party structures. I think it serves us poorly to try to do so. Moreover, if the idea is that an effective leader can parlay their minor party into success, the results are mixed historically but the most recent and most obvious example, the federal Greens, suggest it's not super likely. Elizabeth May enjoys high favourables and solid reviews across the board, and now has a fairly comfortable seat, but has been unable to recruit higher quality candidates or expand the party's seat-count elsewhere. It's also the most confusing of the options, and the option least tested in other parliamentary democracies. As an option, this seems like tossing a few crumbs, and is not worth considering.
Given that PEI is as small as it is and as homogeneous as it is in terms of interests, I think a good case can be made for straight PR rather than MMP. But MMP is clearly the model that's being suggested for national reform efforts, so it may be worth it to keep MMP in the mix. A ranked ballot is the simplest change and reflects the fact that most Canadians don't actually think the number of parties needs to increase--most of the anger around the current system is driven by the specific strategic voting incentives that hurt the right from 1997-2004 and the left subsequently. Hence why you get the occasional effort to formalize strategic voting through inter-riding vote trading, hence why Layton's "Lend Me Your Vote" campaigns in 2008 and 2011 were resonant, and hence why Trudeau's victory required an NDP collapse.
So I guess you'd put me down for MMP/PR > Ranked Ballot > Status Quo, and objecting to the structure of the referendum as is. I think political scientists and social choice theorists would object to this referendum. Given that both the BC and Ontario referenda in the past have been pretty half-hearted, it disappoints me to see what I think is a bad design for this one. Governments need to stop campaigning on reform and then phoning it in when they're elected to enact it.
Consider how a legislature works. A legislator moves a bill (Let's call it A), which proposes a change to the status quo (X). First, legislators offer amendments (A', A'', A''', etc.) These amendments are voted on, resulting in some final amended bill. Maybe that bill is A, maybe it's A'''''. Then, they take a vote between X, the status quo, and A'''''.
Let's look at some example referenda. New Zealand just finished with a plebiscite to try to change their flag. How was it executed? Stage 1: Choose between 5 flags you might like to switch to. Stage 2: Choose between the current flag and the most preferred of the 5. Alternatively, let's look at a referendum that did both stages simultaneously. The Gray Davis California gubernatorial recall election in 2003. The first question was Q1: Should Gray Davis be recalled? The second question was: Q2: If Gray Davis is recalled, who should be governor?.
Here's how I would design the PEI referendum
Referendum 1) Would you prefer a ranked ballot, mixed-member proportional, or one-district proportional representation?
<4-6 week campaign period>
Referendum 2) Would you prefer PEI's current system or <winning alternative>?
The reason I would drop the "seats for leaders" requirement is several-pronged. First, leaders should not be institutionalized. As-is, most of our party structure is a matter of convention, including the Premier/Prime Minister being the leader of the largest party. That convention (the confidence of the House) is useful. Other than salaries and office resources, we do not institutionalize party structures. I think it serves us poorly to try to do so. Moreover, if the idea is that an effective leader can parlay their minor party into success, the results are mixed historically but the most recent and most obvious example, the federal Greens, suggest it's not super likely. Elizabeth May enjoys high favourables and solid reviews across the board, and now has a fairly comfortable seat, but has been unable to recruit higher quality candidates or expand the party's seat-count elsewhere. It's also the most confusing of the options, and the option least tested in other parliamentary democracies. As an option, this seems like tossing a few crumbs, and is not worth considering.
Given that PEI is as small as it is and as homogeneous as it is in terms of interests, I think a good case can be made for straight PR rather than MMP. But MMP is clearly the model that's being suggested for national reform efforts, so it may be worth it to keep MMP in the mix. A ranked ballot is the simplest change and reflects the fact that most Canadians don't actually think the number of parties needs to increase--most of the anger around the current system is driven by the specific strategic voting incentives that hurt the right from 1997-2004 and the left subsequently. Hence why you get the occasional effort to formalize strategic voting through inter-riding vote trading, hence why Layton's "Lend Me Your Vote" campaigns in 2008 and 2011 were resonant, and hence why Trudeau's victory required an NDP collapse.
So I guess you'd put me down for MMP/PR > Ranked Ballot > Status Quo, and objecting to the structure of the referendum as is. I think political scientists and social choice theorists would object to this referendum. Given that both the BC and Ontario referenda in the past have been pretty half-hearted, it disappoints me to see what I think is a bad design for this one. Governments need to stop campaigning on reform and then phoning it in when they're elected to enact it.
Technically a ranked ballot choice encodes the two stage process into one vote. I agree it's not as good as doing it in two stages (because it adds undue emphasis to the status quo), but I do think it is at least a better approach than the BC and Ontario ones. But I know basically nothing about the local politics of PEI, so.
I don't think this conclusion follows from the presented data. That Canadians would prefer not to be strategic voting and have the option to vote for the NDP instead of the Liberals to prevent a CPC majority is absolutely evidence they want more choice. Else there would be no dilemma and the NDP would not have been a growing force in Canadian politics for the last 50 years. People would have simply stuck with the Liberals.
I don't think this conclusion follows from the presented data. That Canadians would prefer not to be strategic voting and have the option to vote for the NDP instead of the Liberals to prevent a CPC majority is absolutely evidence they want more choice. Else there would be no dilemma and the NDP would not have been a growing force in Canadian politics for the last 50 years. People would have simply stuck with the Liberals.
Rural PEI, particularly the eastern and western peripheries, would never in a million years go for a system that didn't feature any districts at all. The Island is small, but it has all the same issues of regional interest as larger areas. In the 2005 electoral reform referendum those areas voted 75-80% against it.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
Yeah I'm not sure I articulated my position well. My position is not that Canadians were satisfied with two parties. My position is that presently most people seem generally satisfied with the spectrum of parties that are represented nationally. The impetus for electoral reform does not appear to be a drive to have a Christian Heritage party, or a Party for the Animals represented in parliament. They simply don't like the distortionary effect and cognitive costs of having to vote strategically in their riding.
Like, I think the bigger problem in most Canadians minds is not the nationally wasted vote, it's their own need to balance sincerity and strategy.
The recent NDP rise is something that would have been protected by a ranked ballot, because shy/strategic NDPers could vote NDP>LPC without loss of power to also say *>CPC (or vice versa in the 90s; Ontario Reformers could vote Reform>PC without loss of power to also say all conservatives>Liberals).
I guess implicit in this is the idea that there are some districts where shy/strategic voters actually could tip the balance if they were forced to be sincere, because another possibility would be that the strategic results end up being the same as the sincere results and the implementation of the ranked ballot does nothing. I don't actually expect that the Greens would get much more than a few extra seats from a ranked ballot, because it's not like there's a plurality of shy Greens everywhere in the country.
There's also no real "pure type", sincere preferences about leaders and national-level perceptions help drive what makes sense strategically--the "Lend Me Your Vote" thing is sort of a mix of both in the sense that people had sincere desire to support Layton, and that sincerity helped convince people that the strategic anti-Conservative vote could be the NDP rather than Liberals.
Like I said my own preference is MMP > Ranked > Status Quo federally and either MMP or PR at the provincial level depending on the intra-provincial regional dynamics, so if I'm wrong about what people want it's no skin off my back if I get an even better outcome. The only reason why I even care about other peoples' perception is that I think a lot of vote reform efforts fail by having perfect be the enemy of better.
These are decent options, except for the status quo plus leaders one, which is bizarre and I can't even imagine what the expected positive outcome would be. Hopefully one of the proportional ones win.
I'm sure you didn't mean this all that seriously, but I don't think it's at all ironic to decide it this way. Ranked ballot is a great way to achieve proportionality on a *question*, but not a good way to achieve proportionality in terms of *representation*. The two are not the same, and the point of proportional representation is to make it so when representatives answer questions *they* are answering them proportionally.
---
In the #ableg drama, Ric McIvor (leader of PC) is apologizing for his outburst in the house:(source: https://twitter.com/LedgeWatcher/status/722448588064690178)
Or wait! He apparently is going to apologize for something, but he's not sure what: https://twitter.com/MBellefontaine/status/722450947327143936
So apparently he's not apologizing: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmon...g-my-ground-after-assembly-eviction-1.3543064
The article does back up the assertion that it was a table officer document... which means McIver is just grandstanding at this point.
Wolf Dawgz
Member
As expected, the Manitoba PCs win the provincial election decisively, ending an NDP dynasty that lasted 17 years. Brian Pallister is the next premier.
The moribund Manitoba Liberals will double their seat count to 2 seats, at a minimum; they also, as of this writing, have a lead of five votes in a third riding. Joining veteran/formerly lone Liberal MLA Jon Gerrard in the legislature is Cindy Lamoureux, the daughter of former MLA/current federal MP Kevin Lamoureux.
The NDP, well, they'll hope for a quick turnaround, though Manitoba's political history unfortunately offers little hope in that regard; there's been only one one-term government in the history of the party system there (Sterling Lyon's PCs from 1977 to 1981).
The moribund Manitoba Liberals will double their seat count to 2 seats, at a minimum; they also, as of this writing, have a lead of five votes in a third riding. Joining veteran/formerly lone Liberal MLA Jon Gerrard in the legislature is Cindy Lamoureux, the daughter of former MLA/current federal MP Kevin Lamoureux.
The NDP, well, they'll hope for a quick turnaround, though Manitoba's political history unfortunately offers little hope in that regard; there's been only one one-term government in the history of the party system there (Sterling Lyon's PCs from 1977 to 1981).
Simon Belmont
Banned
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaay.
Still a year away, boo.
Kabuki Quantum Lover
Member
...and people are still going to be charged until then?
Just to jump back this momentarily:
http://www.electionsmanitoba.ca/en/Results/ENR
Note that they have different numbers for rejected and declined.
The law hasn't actually changed yet.
Kabuki Quantum Lover
Member
Well I hope the police fill up their quotas before then.[/s]
gutter_trash
Banned
But more importantly: Walpurgis, did your leave your house to cast a ballot?
(Someone else ask him, I'm pretty sure he has me on ignore at this point)
I am curious too, he is open about voicing his opinions but did he actually vote when it was time to do so?
hmmmm
It is important to note, though, that only a couple of jurisdictions in Canada actually do this. It's not a universal thing.
I was about to post and say the same.
Simon Belmont
Banned
Well how do you break non-existent rules?
I'm sure he'll find a way.
Thought I was in one of the NHL threads and was really trying to figure out which team this Duffy player was from and how they got hurt.
dragonfart28
Banned
This could be good.
This could be real good.
This could be real good.
- Status
Similar threads
- Locked