Well, if you believe in the importance of the senate, then the MPs should serve their constituents. The senate can serve the country outside of such tyranny of the majority considerations.
Reality paints a different picture.
I suppose.
Just for the record as more people vote in the pole, I voted 'mankind'.
I'd have to disagree, because if all candidates placed their constituents before all else, just immagin the NIMBYism and the porkbarelling of funds for any and all pet projects in their own constituency even when it might more sense to put it elsewhere.
I'd even place mankind before the country, because I've read of enough CIDA projects that benefit Canada to the detriment of the host country even though it's supposed to be an altruistic international development agency. Sickening, really.
I don't profess the Christian faith myself, but if we're going to pretend to have soo many Christian voters in this country, then let's let our votes reflect it.
I suppose.
Just for the record as more people vote in the pole, I voted 'mankind'.
In reality, the best form of government is a dictatorship with a wise and benevolent ruler. A dictatorship so there are no problems making timely decisions, benevolent so that they do what is best for all, and wise so that they know what is best. Good luck setting that up.
Democracy seems to work because a group of average people arguing about the best thing to do is much better than a corrupt/idiotic person doing whatever they like.
I think that MPs should ideally serve mankind, which is why I like Harper's senate reform (because we shouldn't need the phoney chamber where they are "removed from the political process"), but think we also need electoral reform to lessen the power of individual parties. The reform party and the CPC should never needed to merge, they had different ideas and expressed the plurality of views, but the liberals unfairly dominated them and their voices were not heard. Now the Conservatives have power and the other voices go unheard.
Meanwhile, they all maneuver for petty political ideologies so that they will get re-elected and nobody considers the public good just the public want.
Completely agree.
Again I completely agree.
I agree in large part but I still haven't seen any plausible electoral reform proposals. Most of what I have seen is echoing of the partisan whining that the losers in our process inevitably revert to, justified or not.
A final, sad and disheartening truth.
Of course nobody whines about it when the system works in their favor. I think at least getting rid of first-past-the-post or making the senate elected via proportionality would at least allow one to say the makeup of the chambers are representative (winner take all is the definition of unrepresentative). I have complained about the electoral process since before I could vote, and that has encompassed quite a few different political parties in power.
I think that the concerns voiced by the Reform party and the Progessive Conservatives was different enough to merit separate parties. It is sad that they needed to merge in order to regain power. It is sad that something like 5% of the population votes for the Green party and they only get to hold 0.3% of the seats. How is either a case of representing the views of the people? It will be sad if the NDP and the Liberal Party need to merge to regain power. Can all issues really be handled simultaneously with by a binary choice? The world is not black and white, why should the electoral process be forced to be?
Actually it is not the constituency that hired you, you were nominated by your party, and put
forward as a choice yes, but your first responsibility is to the nation. I ran Federally in 1997
and you learn any number of things you would not other wise know. Unless they changed the
constitution the same rules likely apply today.
What if the constituents were demanding you support something that is in conflict with the
constitution of the country. Oh, that can't happen. Well if you look at some countries around
the world that had good intentions and have gone to hell in a hand basket we see it can
happen potentially.
Actually it is not the constituency that hired you, you were nominated by your party, and put
forward as a choice yes, but your first responsibility is to the nation.
I would oppose pro rep. It merely gives parties more power, as if Parliament is not partisan aenough as is.
I'd say adopt a non-partisan system like Nunavut has: every candidate runs as an independant.
instead of micro managing your mp, i think it would be better to collect approval ratings on every issue then measure his level of compliance to his constuent's wishes.
I'd be perfectly ok with that. I'd actually like to see a government where there are multiple elected from a given area and at any given issue, they hold the votes of a certain proportion of the electorate. People are free to change who holds their vote for any given issue.
It has a number of benefits (you might not see them all as benefits). First, the situation would be expensive to implement at first, but if it was implemented as a chip based SIN card + card reader generating a one time pass, it would be more secure than the current electoral system and we wouldn't need Muslims to unveil themselves. Future elections would be cheaper, since it is a once off cost. Elections could happen continuously because I could just log onto a webpage and change my vote. There would be a reward for staying educated about the electoral process: you could immediately change your vote to support the side of the issue you believe to be best. You wouldn't have to sacrifice issues, yes I agree with the liberals on gay marriage, the conservatives on senate reform, the Bloc Quebecois on mandatory minimums, the conservatives on the gun registry, the NDP on the digital locks wording in the recent copyright bill, so on. Voting would be extremely easy, so maybe voter turnout would be higher.
We have the technology. The days when it was unfeasible for everyone to cast their vote on every issue are gone. Why do we need representative government at all when direct democracy is so easily achievable?