PumpkinSpice
Banned
This is the main thing that concerns me about PR. There's always going to be the temptation for a moderate conservative party that emerges out the results of a PR system trying to make a government with racist extremists.
Canadian PoliGAF - 42nd Parliament: Sunny Ways in Trudeaupia
- Thread starter matthewwhatever
- Start date
- Status
This is the main thing that concerns me about PR. There's always going to be the temptation for a moderate conservative party that emerges out the results of a PR system trying to make a government with racist extremists.
That's a good point. I had actually been thinking of it the other way around; I vote Liberal, but I've also become interested in the NDP and was considering voting for them at one point. One of the reasons I didn't was because I thought that doing so would risk putting the Conservatives back in power. I like the current federal government, and I think Trudeau is doing a great job so far, but it would have been nice to feel like I had more choice, even if I was happy with the final outcome of the last federal election.
That said, I hadn't considered that electoral reform could open up the door to more far right parties - and that's something that definitely complicates the matter for myself.
It will open the door for parties all over the spectrum. That's rather the idea.
Yeah, like I said in my first post about this topic, I think there are more parties out there that deserve more representation, even if I would still vote Liberal. But when you get the far ends of the spectrum involved, I guess it just gives me pause. I understand, we're a democracy and our government follows the will of the people - which is great! - I just worry about what happens if the will of the people were to become nationalistic and xenophobic. I'm still for electoral reform, and I hope we can find a system that works and gives more people representation.
Crown this man king.
killer rin
Member
Now to play devils advocate, Healthcare, CPP, our own Flag and even the beginning of our student loan program... a good portion of the things Canadians treasure every day came to be during a Minority government
Well to be fair, within Canada what would likely happen under a Proportional system would be the Conservatives splitting back into their Roots with a Progressive Conservative and a Social/Religious Conservative. Beyond that though, all that will happen is that the Greens will gain more seats and the NDP/Liberals shifting around their seat numbers.
You have to remember that in Canada, we already have 5 political parties which cover almost every spectrum of the political opinion in the country. That is way more parties than most democracies can claim to have under FPTP. We have the Liberals, Conservatives, NDP, Green and Bloc. Add in the Conservatives splitting under reform and we then have 6 parties. If you stretch it a bit, you can maybe see Libertarian and the Christian Heritage getting less than 5 seats each
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
You can always set some kind of threshold to get seats, unless we're planning on expanding the HOC upon the shift to a new system.
If you fail to get X% of the vote, even with PropRep, no seats for you. I'm not advocating for this necessarily, just that there would be ways to keep things from getting insane.
Impeach this man
He's showing off kids hockey (or the smallest Habs lineup I can recall), let it slide this time.
Here's some minority accomplishments:
Universal health care, student loans, bilingualism, the Canada Pension Plan, and Canada's flag.
What you need for a minority to work is a system where for one party to get a majority it actually has to get a majority of the votes. Since that's very very hard parties working in the system realize they need to cooperate with each other and so they do to enter into majority coalitions.
In FPTP and single member ranked ballots there's no incentive for parties to cooperate in a minority. The incentive is to bash the other big party until your own support is close enough to the high thirties that you can score a full 'majority' to do whatever the hell you want for four years.
We were absurdly lucky to have Pearson and Douglas who were amazing leaders and cooperated with each other for the Pearson minority.
That... doesn't explain the Harper years at all. Harper was a straight ahead bully with his minorities and engineered government downfalls when he thought he could convert small shifts in voter sentiment into huge seat gains culminating in his unfettered majority. The incentive in winner take all isn't to play nice... It's to take it all for four years!
If 10% of Canadians are fascist nationalists then it's far better for them to have their own odious party and make it transparent which big party is willing to cater to them rather than have those extremists try and take over a big party from the inside Tea Party style. (It happened in Canada too with the Western nationalist Reform and the Quebec nationalist Bloc devouring the poor old PCs).
Honestly the 1993 Federal election results should be enough to prove the perversity of the system. The fourth place bloc was the official opposition! The PCs two million votes only got TWO seats!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_federal_election,_1993
killer rin
Member
The Ontario Progressive Conservatives sure hate themselves.
The Habs are the Yankees of the hockey world.
Impeach this man
GOAT franchise; Trudeau recognizes that
ProfessorMoran
Member
I knew he would be a filthy habs fan.
Impeach this man
Good points. I'll put my faith in the Canadian people and hope we won't fall into the nationalism trap, whether we're under FPTP or another system.
This already happens, it's just behind closed doors.
All the parties have fringe members that have to be accommodated. This does have the potential to influence policy but you don't see this step because it's at the convention level or behind closed doors. They usually just end up as backbenchers though.
In the current system the Conservative member from some very conservative riding would have very conservative views and the Conservative party would have to throw him a few bones to get his support.
In a PR system what you'd likely see is the exact same thing but in a more public way.
The conservative riding would potentially elect a member from the Very Conservative Party and the Conservative Party would have to negotiate with him more publicly to get his support.
I can see the argument that maybe having these fringe members no longer be under the same party banner could give them more leverage, and that'd be a negative, but on the other hand I think the switch to having these sort of negotiations, which already take place, occur in a more public fashion is a positive one.
killer rin
Member
So apperently the Royal Family is touring BC and just landed in Victoria today http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/royal-visit-canada-saturday-1.3777148
I'm a little surprised how many people showed up to see the event, especially since we tend to forget they exist most of the time.
I'm a little surprised how many people showed up to see the event, especially since we tend to forget they exist most of the time.
The Royal Family are celebrities of the first order, so their events are always well attended.
Hey, we have good trails and parks at least, sure it's nothing flashy, but the city has a cool scene for the arts too. The royals could also always check out Pandora Street, it gets pretty wild there I hear! (the BC Liberals mental health special).
Well, at least it gets the city buzzing and helps tourism. Would have been neat to have seen Trudeau but my family and friends have never been particularly interested.
haha I actually really like Victoria I just couldn't miss an opportunity to play up the stereotype that its dull. 
The Royals will be in Vancouver on Sunday. Here's the itinerary if you want to wave a little UK or Canadian flag. http://www.metronews.ca/news/vancou...d-where-to-see-royal-couple-in-vancouver.html
The Royals will be in Vancouver on Sunday. Here's the itinerary if you want to wave a little UK or Canadian flag. http://www.metronews.ca/news/vancou...d-where-to-see-royal-couple-in-vancouver.html
Guys guys guys!
Andre Marin is running for provincial office.
As a Conservative.
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/c...n-for-progressive-conservatives-in-byelection
This can't be real life. :dead
Andre Marin is running for provincial office.
As a Conservative.
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/c...n-for-progressive-conservatives-in-byelection
This can't be real life. :dead
Prince George snubbed Trudeau's high five? Abolish the monarchy in Canada!
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada...high-five-leaves-british-media-in-frenzy.html
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada...high-five-leaves-british-media-in-frenzy.html
haha I actually really like Victoria I just couldn't miss an opportunity to play up the stereotype that its dull.
The Royals will be in Vancouver on Sunday. Here's the itinerary if you want to wave a little UK or Canadian flag. http://www.metronews.ca/news/vancou...d-where-to-see-royal-couple-in-vancouver.html
Also will be in Kelowna at the UBC campus on Tuesday.
I'll be in Français
Such disrespect from a three-year old will not be tolerated on our sovereign soil! #HiFiveGate
I'm not sure what he plans to do about electricity prices tbh. I don't know if anything short of rebates can be done about power rates.
killer rin
Member
At this point, because of the gross neglegence on the file for the past 30+ years, the only way we are solving our hydro issue is by using tax money to offset it... and we are already in a tax revenue deficit that nobody seems in a hurry to solve anytime soon so that will only make our problems worse.
The Liberals will eventually get voted out, the PC's will come back in and sell off some more assets, they will go all religious with Patrick Brown and scare people back to the Liberals. People will continue to be scared of the big bag boogie man that is the NDP because of that one time they somehow got power and forced civil servants to work a couple days without pay to avoid laying off a large portion of the workforce
The cycle will continue. We are basically fucked.
I mean, I don't see Horwath's NDP actually being capable of doing anything constructive on this issue either tbh.
PumpkinSpice
Banned
Power rates are going to have to remain high to help reduce consumption and keep renewable sources viable. There's not really a great way around it. It's not an easy sell politically, though.
I'd hope for better pricing structure at best. Like right now, even if you reduce your consumption to zero, you still get dinged the high distribution charge.
I'd hope for better pricing structure at best. Like right now, even if you reduce your consumption to zero, you still get dinged the high distribution charge.
Yeah, IMO the only viable course of action at present is to try to cushion the price changes for the lower income individuals and households.
I'm reading some backgrounder to the Ontario energy situation, and it seems like there's really no way out of this situation. A combination of distribution costs, decommissioning, and so forth just snowballed into this massive behemoth that can't be unwound.
In retrospect, keeping the now-canceled gas plants would've been for the best.
In retrospect, keeping the now-canceled gas plants would've been for the best.
That was a failure of democracy at every level.
killer rin
Member
Its not even that. The problem with Hydro prices is a lethal combination of:
1: Outdated and aging infrastructure (critical and not) that is falling apart and needs to be repaired
2: Overproduction of energy which we are forced to sell off at prices less than what we pay for it
3: Being signed into long term agreements on Wind and Solar at prices that cost waaaay more than they should be.
4: Losing a large portion of the industry that would have used up said extra energy.
5: The expiration of government subsidies on our bills
It's not the scanldles, though they certainly don't help. Basically every government for the past 30 years has shredded the files, poured gasoline on them and then lit it on fire and fired the ashes into the sun
gutter_trash
Banned
It's near impossible for him to recover from today's beating
he dig up two or three own graves and he even brought up NATO again out of his own volition without being asked about it
He has lost
Annex ourselves to America and watch President Trump stumble and fall into an abyss in his first 100 days.
It is fucking surreal to me that Ontarians won't vote out the Liberals after all they've done with the energy file and privatizing Hydro One.
TheRealTalker
Banned
anything is possible
we live in a crazy world were fictional comedy and parodies our now outmatched by reality
TheRealTalker
Banned
firehawk12
Subete no aware
I still think It's going to be Brexit all over again. lol
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
The point was that gone are the days when the worst case scenario in politics was Stephen Harper as PM, not that Harper is actually missed as PM.
That said, I always felt that the animosity towards Harper was a tad extreme at times and people lost sight of his actual faults (e.g. his brazen attempts at consolidating his power at the expense of proper parliamentary process) in an attempt to try and paint him as Bush North.
TheRealTalker
Banned
what gives me reason to fear is that it seems the right is getting more and more extreme with every session
the next Canadian election will likely be even more disgusting and I don't want to think who the next republican front runner will be if Trump loses this election and 4 years pass.
I can't claim to know what will happen next election, but I do get the sense what we are seeing in the CPC leadership race is basically a bunch of expendable candidates who are trying to become leader of a party that will lose the next election to the Liberals. I think a lot of the CPC brass (and many have gone on record and said this) believe that the real next opportunity to form government is after the second Trudeau term and not the first.
That means that some of the more serious and credible candidates are biding their time until the next CPC leader gets thrown out and then they'll enter the fray. This means that some of the more marginalized and extreme elements of the CPC come to the fore-front in this cycle because it's such a weak field.
PumpkinSpice
Banned
I really think the CPC race will end with a leader that plays very well to their base. It'll get them out to vote and hopefully get their regular 30% minimum on their side, and maybe just maybe gain them some ground in Quebec.
If there's PR, the game is going to change and a smart leader is going to realize that. If they can consistently win 30% of the vote they're going to be a big force in Parliament. Maybe even enough to be #1 in seats, depending on how much the left vote splits, and in that case it'd be awfully tempting for one party or another to work for a coalition with them.
The real risk for them is the right-wing vote fracturing into a more extreme party or two, but starting out they have a very consolidated vote vs fractured for Liberal, NDP, Green. And even with ideological similarities, it's always harder to negotiate a coalition with more parties.
TheRealTalker
Banned
that makes sense
hopefully by Trudeau 2nd term we actually accomplished some things that can buffer ourselves against people voting for the CPC
I wouldn't be surprised if we saw another split in the right on the federal level a la PCs and Reform given how bad some sections have and could get without Harper leading them. Whatever else can be said about the near decade of time Canada suffered under his leadership, he did unite Canada's right under a single party and kept them together during that time.
This reminds me, why does the right have a much easier time uniting than the left? They more easily "fall into line" for what they perceive to be the common goal than the left, and its not just Canada- take the US where people are going from Bernie to Trump (!) or the UK where the Labor party won't back Corbyn who won two consecutive leadership contests. Its infuriating.
I want to say because the left being more secular and promoting of free thinking naturally results in greater division, but that may just be the biased leftist in me talking
gutter_trash
Banned
the comments section in the Globe & Mail about the US election is insanely weird, overwhelmingly pro-Trump on a Canadian paper website
There is a darkside in the underbelly of the 30% to 35% base of Canada that has moved closer and closer to the US styled current Republican Party
this was unheard of during the 1980s, making Mulroney look like a Social-Democrat.
I agree that the next Canadian Federal Election will be ugly.
political discourse will get worse
- Status