Should political parties be abolished?

This topic that came up in a discussion I had when the Liberal party scandal was in the head lines.
Many ideas came up on how it should work if we did get rid of it.
Imagine real democracy in parliament where no party can have a majority.
If this was so would we need a senate?
Could we minimize government by doing so?
This way MP's could really represent they're county.
Should the Prime Minister seat outside of parliament?
Your thoughts on how to make it work if we had the chance.
Wishful thinking allowed lol
PS. notice this is not a long and informative post like some I see.
LOL

I'm fine with our political structure. It's people's right to come together to achieve common political objectives. You can't outlaw it. That would be undemocratic.

I want an overhaul

The only way to get honest people to run is to --Total accountability before hand --

The system is one no difference in parties that have been in power in the last 10 years all liars .own agenaers

Bunch of self serving idiots with no real value ,puppets if you will

Using our money for their (family friends ) little click gains

I'm not happy at all

I see no way of telling where anything is being spent or other wise

There should be not secrets --we are the last to know what happened we should be the first consulted ,we are electing people that have their own agendas not Canada as a whole ---

True but what and how , do you do to change that?

I'm search ing

I'm learning


I m gathering info


too do ,to become part of ,to encourage others


Only united can we fight for what Canada needs ,its long over do

I want people to actively stand up for what they have worked so hard for

the will be no middle class soon there will be servants there will be rich

We have done nothing to stop this ,OK not enough

I wish I knew better earlier

we need protection from our own government before they railroad us as a country into the bowels of the earth

The system is one no difference in parties that have been in power in the last 10 years all liars .own agenaers

Bunch of self serving idiots with no real value ,puppets if you will

Using our money for their (family friends ) little click gains

---------------------------------------Temperance----------------------------------------------------------------

I highly doubt that any of us mere mortals --- each of us individually----can withstand the
temptations and pressures and public flagellation our politicians volunteer to take.

Especially those politicians who have no independent source of wealth ---- they are the most
unprotected to such ungodly pressure.

And those who are wealthy---it is their ego that leads them to vice, having grown up with
the idea that they made all this money to themselves (usually false when you research their
lives thoroughly).

I doubt it either ,so let a computer run the country

perfect

Fascism 3.0.0

now available for download from the Conservative Party of Canada website

don't bother backing anything up

Better filters would help screen out the greedy and the corruptable, strip searching politicians might be revealing as well.The problems aren't new, the solutions have to be.

That's what the thread is for . new Ideas

Ranting is too easy to do. we can do that till we're blue in the face. To come up with something is much harder.

Here's what will change politics.

Forget about changing political parties or creating new ones.

Write a constitutional law (because it trumps statutes) that forbids any tax breaks
to any particular constituency.

It's all about tax breaks, isn't it ?

This severely cuts down on lobbyist power and lobbyist influence.

Make the parliament publicly write taxpayer subsides to these lobbyists if they want
special consideration.

That's transparency ---the new wordspeak for sunlight legislation.

good your getting the intent of this thread.

Were also being sold out --this happened to Argentina not so long ago same pattern ,

Many of those CEOs represent companies that are foreign-owned and controlled – corporations whose true interests are the profits of their shareholders, not the good of our country, not the well being of our citizens and not the global well being of citizens around the world.

How to change that and this


The International HIV-AIDS conference began in Toronto Sunday. Nothing demonstrates the reach of corporate power more than this. Two years after Canada passed ground-breaking legislation to let generic drug companies produce affordable medicine to export to desperate countries, not one life-saving pill to help those with HIV or AIDS has been shipped anywhere in the world.
That’s right sisters and brothers - not a single low cost pill has been shipped to Africa, where hundreds of thousands of people have died, where children are being orphaned every day.
Why? Because the Canadian law requires companies holding the drug patents to voluntarily licence a generic manufacturer to produce the medicine.
And they are not doing it.

Why not ?
As our good friend Stephen Lewis said this past weekend, “this is not rocket science - a government has great power”. But they are just not using it. The Canadian government could issue compulsory licences under the law, but it has not.


in BC, the University of British Columbia was the first university in Canada to sign a contract with Coca Cola and its bottled water company, Dasani. In exchange for some badly needed funding, the university gave the company a monopoly on campus.
Wait... it gets worse.
CUPE maintenance workers at the University reported that 44% of the public water fountains on campus were removed or disabled within 3 years of the exclusive contract. Coincidence?
Buy a Dasani or go thirsty – talk about a deal with the Devil!
My friends, these corporations even want to name our charities.
The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce gives substantial funding to the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation in order to put its name to the Foundation’s main event, now called the “CIBC Run For The Cure”.
And while no one can fault a worthy cause, what message is it sending when finding a cure for the scourge of breast cancer also becomes an effective marketing vehicle for a highly profitable bank?
This sort of corporate influence is insidious.
And its purpose is obvious – to make Canadians believe that corporations are positive forces in society, that corporations only do good things to help us and are a vital part of our lives.

• Take power out of the hands of lobbyists and ensure all decisions are made in the open by:
  • Obligating lobbyists to file annually a declaration of their political work.
  • Toughen penalties for violations of the Lobbyists Registration Act.
  • Ensuring lobbyists’ fees are disclosed and profit-based contingency fees banned.
  • Prohibiting businesses (including their owners, partners, employees or subsidiaries) from providing consulting advice to a government agency or department while simultaneously engaging in lobbying activity.
• Make appointments on merit, not on political connections.

I would love to see Parties abolished in any official sense.

Everyone would be elected as independants. They could claim membership to a political party, it wouldn't matter in choosing the next PM though, the PM is the one with the support of the most MPs, regardless of party.

Temperance, I wasn't really sure where you were going until you posted the last thread.
I like to say I agree. Corporation brings in the money for the party but in return they want something back. Some of the things you discribe may be material for another thread. In the line of your thinking of corporation I\d like to add that"they" make huge amount of profit but to what end. A company has to make money to survive which I have no problem with but there's should be a cut-off to abusive profit. Big example is the oil companies. Here in my provence if I build a house and sell it twice the price of an equivilant model , someone is going to bring me to court. Same thing should be done on the provincial and federal level. IE gun registration. In laval a company building a subway miss calculated the distance by 1 kilometer , who do you think picked up the bill.
Off topic- Laws and the Constitution and anything that touches us should be written in laymans term for all of us to understand and follow. Laws or there to protect and follow, but we need to pay through the nose lawyers to tell us what it means. We're slaves I tellya.
Judges should be voted for too. They're way too comfortable and un accountable for they're work.

ElBarto

LOL you have some good thoughts here....

Boortz has written "we should have oases from government where we could visit... unbuckle our seat belts, have a smoke (sorry JimMoyer), and..... "

Your remark on the big corporations having a cut-off caught my eye..... how would this affect the shareholders -- the 'little people" who invest their dollars on the stock market?

Regarding real estate and taxation.... that should be enough interference as long as code and municipal regulations are followed, taxes are paid, and insured property is sold to the bidders in a free market.... government should have no power over your rights to buy and sell as many homes as you wish... (I am not sure I get it - because I have never heard of this before in a community)...

I am not sure where you and Temperance are getting your information from about corporations coming in and taking over .... any Not for Profit or Academic Institution who engages in a one-only contract with a corporation should not be getting any tax breaks - but are engaging in corporation profiteering.... I think you are both reading some very skewed non-factual material.... do you have any links to the UBC water fountain expose for instance???

The Cancer run identifier is when a corporation fully funds a charitable event and this goes on all the time - and is perfectly legal if a corporation wants to donate to charity this way.... nobody had to "purchase" anything from the corporation did they? Besides it is a win-win situation - rather than spending huge amounts of money on media (electronic or press), they give to a charitable group... I think it is a fine idea.

You bring up some good points. Can't answer it all tho. The cut- off profit is inspired by the news of the oil companies and the fact my earnings per week hasn't changed since the gas hike. When I take what a pay for gas versus my wages then and now, there's agood differance. 4% then 14% now in short these corporations are making us poor slowly. I suppose if the government had balls we wouldn't be here. What am I saying, we 'd all have something to rant about.

ElBarto

We are all swimming upstream when the discussions and debates ensue about blame-laying and governments and corporations and war.

Why? Because we as humans cannot exist without competition.

That is how governments are formed to "represent" oppositional thought.

That is how great companies exist.... to be "better than the other guy"....

That is why we still kill each other in what is tidily called "war"....I call it government sponsored murder.

And that is why we sit here typing away laying out our opinions and calling each other names because we cannot arrive at a solution.

I am sorry to say this: I believe we cannot ever come to a satisfactory solution to please everyone.

If we did: we would stop seeking to better ourselves and our lives and the future of our nations....competition is what drives us forward.

Am I defeastist for thinking this way? Perhaps.... and perhaps more aware of the reality of human nature.

Be pleased we are not all becoming lotus eaters, stretching about on some meadow doing nothing to improve our lives.... while the world spirals into disuse. Disagreement and oppositional thought keep us alive and active....

Well said

You guys are running into a conundrum that bedevils every conflict of interest law and
every lobbyist influence law.

The riddle is that, almost always the people who know, the people who are experts,
the people who have the most knowlege are the very ones forbidden to advise our
politicians.

Because those same experts can benefit from that politician.

Very rare is the impartial expert.

Also those laws governing lobbyist influence are already on the books, and
it is a fine line how to interpret all the case law of loop holes that have grown up
around those statutes.

The clearest solution which has no chance of passing is to forbid all tax breakes
to any group.

It's all about tax breaks first, isn't it ?

And then what is harder is an outright subsidy.

Don't outlaw subsidies. Just throw sunlight on the subsidy. That's embarrassing usually.

Cut their salary,give all the MP's free room and board,supply them with personal allowance and let them govern with love of their country in their hearts..Free haircuts too, ............just joking though that would be nice .

Anyone who represents the people should be satisfied with an upper level government worker salary scale and should expect to be paid exactly that.

It is the "perks" I dislike - these are vague and leave the people uninformed as to their worth and how they benefit any lawmaker other than personal prestige.... We should have a published cost scale of how much money is expected to be laid out for meetings on international issues or provincial issues which takes them away from government offices and business of the nation.

They are outfitted with fine offices and modes of transportation and have many days off from their duties within the bounds of the legislature....

Their meetings and gatherings should all be taken within those buildings.... not travel to some far off resort to spend thousands of taxpayer dollars wining and dining and pushing their own reputations...

The people are expecting work for the dollar... not public relations and cocktail parties...

We do expect our reps to better reflect the conditions of those they represent. And, more importantly, their views. Political parties are a necessity. But parliamentary rules should serve first the interest of democracy and second that of the party. We need more free votes in parliament so that the charges of oligarchy and plutocracy often levelled - fairly - against Canada can be answered. I expect my rep to be smart but I doubt very much he'll be smarter than the bulk of the educated in his constituency. When I go to the polls I am voting for a representative and an individual who understands what that means. I am not voting for a gopher for any political party. Canada does a really crappy job at government and the bulk of the blame lies with power assignments in parliament: who gets to call the shots and how.
Pay the MP's decently. Give them a few perks, the same perks professionals should enjoy. Then knuckle down and demand performance.

We can dabble with government structure all we want, it'll change very little, as long as the balance of power remains in the corporate sphere.

That's pretty straight up.They will always contribute to, and do things for, the purpose of their own survival.

How should economy thrive without companies? Where would people work to earn a living for themselves and their families?

Governments can be dedicated to their people rather than corporate sponsorship. It comes down to the people in government seeking more power with higher available money.

Have you any idea how much it costs just to get elected? Where else is the money going to come from if not from the corporations who expect a handshake in return.

And then there are the ambitious billionaires who like to think they have a puppet on a string working to enforce all the billionaire's wishes through legislation...

Not a pretty way to look at it but I don't see any other suggestions.

What happened in Argentina is that the exact opposite of what you are seem to be proposing. The insidious nature of autarkic populism by Peron et. al. took one of the richest countries on earth, one that was as rich as Canada in 1920, and turned it into a basket-case. They, too, wanted to "control their own resources". They, too, wanted to "protect their citizens". They, too, wanted to "chart their own destiny". They, too, wanted "their own people, not foreigners or corporations, control their destiny." And what did it get them? 14,000% inflation. The real destruction of the middle class. And military dictatorship (who also propogated the same disastorous policies.) They, like many countries of their day - and Zimbabwe of today - tried to defy the iron laws of economics in the name of "democracy." Their unbridled economic ignorance destroyed the wealth of a prosperous nation.

Unfortunately, such ignorance seems to wallow in the minds of the unrealistic idealists who have learned nothing from history. Thank God those people are few and far between in the West.

Cutting off profits is a remarkably bad idea. High profits attract more capital to the industry, more capital means more competition, and more competition means lower prices and profits. Attempting to control profits and prices always leads to shortages.

And your earnings have nothing to do with the profits of oil companies. If you want higher earnings, go find a higher paying job.