The Official Canadian Electoral Reform Thread

[FiveParadox]

Re: BREAKING: Liberals agree to NDP proposal on Electoral Reform

You obviously didn't listen to the program that was on C.B.C. radio recently. Trudeau has no more power than Adam's off ox when it comes to voting reform..............he was being an A$$hole!

...I don't think that you and I were hearing the same thing, then.

The Government has the prerogative to introduce a bill to amend the Canada Elections Act. Since they can introduce it as Government business, and control the schedule of its passage through the House, yes, the Prime Minister does indeed have a good deal more influence over electoral reform that Jane and Joe Canadian. To the credit of the Government, though, they have given the opposition parties a majority on the special committee responsible for reform recommendations.

You may be right, thought, that the bill may get more scrutiny in the Senate than it will the House of Commons, especially now that the Government has lost given up its majority in the Senate in perpetuity; the Conservatives continue to enjoy a plurality, and the Senate Liberals have not been as supportive of the Government since the appointment of the last round of independent senators, and appointing a Leader of the Government from outside the Senate Liberal caucus.

 

[PoliticalNick]

Re: BREAKING: Liberals agree to NDP proposal on Electoral Reform

Does the law/constitution allow electoral reform to be made without a referendum?

You weren't supposed to be able to make constitutional changes without a referendum but.....1982!

 

[FiveParadox]

Re: BREAKING: Liberals agree to NDP proposal on Electoral Reform

You weren't supposed to be able to make constitutional changes without a referendum but.....1982!

Constitutional changes have never required a referendum in Canada...

 

[Colpy]

Re: BREAKING: Liberals agree to NDP proposal on Electoral Reform

In 2012, Stéphane Dion wrote a short policy paper on electoral reform in which he advocated that Canadians elect MPs to the House of Commons through a single transferable vote (STV) electoral system. Under Dion’s model, the multi-member constituencies would each return either 3 or 5 MPs. His essay, “Which Electoral System is Best for Canada?” appeared in a newsletter called The Federal Ideal.
On page 13 of his paper, Dion also concluded that Canadians should be able to vote on electoral reform in a referendum. He wrote:

Precedent makes holding a referendum necessary in Canada: changing the voting system would require popular support. To get this support, Canadians must be presented with a voting system that provides them with better influence over the political system.
​

Dion — a former university professor, Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, father of the Clarity Act, former Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, and current Minister of External Affairs — is one of the pre-eminent experts on Canadian political institutions in the country; I very much hope that his colleagues in cabinet would take his advice seriously if he suggested that the government should put electoral reform to a referendum today.

• Stephane Dion, “Which Electoral System Is Best For Canada?” The Federal Ideal 3, no. 4 (April 2012): 1-15.

https://parliamentum.org/2016/06/05/stephane-dion-is-right/

 

[Locutus]

Re: BREAKING: Liberals agree to NDP proposal on Electoral Reform

Charles Adler Verified account ‏@charlesadler

Charles Adler Retweeted James Bowden
In the days when #StephaneDion was allowed to speak his own mind he favoured a referendum #cdnpoli

Stéphane Dion Is Right: Put Electoral Reform to a Referendum http://parliamentum.org/2016/06/05/stephane-dion-is-right-put-electoral-reform-to-a-referendum …

 

[Colpy]

Re: BREAKING: Liberals agree to NDP proposal on Electoral Reform

No, this is about you whining about what the Libs said they would be looking at during the election and the fact that they can do it LEGALLY and WITHIN the framework of the constitution without a referendum. Something that is NOT new, and obviously something you knew about quite some time ago with your reference to the old Reform Party.

And if you read back, you will see that I know " they can do it LEGALLY and WITHIN the framework of the constitution without a referendum."

Simply put, that does not make it right.

 

[pgs]

Re: BREAKING: Liberals agree to NDP proposal on Electoral Reform

The Libs ran part of their campaign, last election, on Electoral reform. Canadians gave them a majority in the House.

The libs ran their campaign on legalizing marijuana , if electoral reform was in their platform they sure weren't talking it up .

Perhaps you've forgotten one tiny little step! The Senate has to approve it, in the unlikely event it gets that far.

But there are no liberal senators .

 

[JLM]

Re: BREAKING: Liberals agree to NDP proposal on Electoral Reform

...I don't think that you and I were hearing the same thing, then.

The Government has the prerogative to introduce a bill to amend the Canada Elections Act. Since they can introduce it as Government business, and control the schedule of its passage through the House, yes, the Prime Minister does indeed have a good deal more influence over electoral reform that Jane and Joe Canadian. To the credit of the Government, though, they have given the opposition parties a majority on the special committee responsible for reform recommendations.

You may be right, thought, that the bill may get more scrutiny in the Senate than it will the House of Commons, especially now that the Government has lost given up its majority in the Senate in perpetuity; the Conservatives continue to enjoy a plurality, and the Senate Liberals have not been as supportive of the Government since the appointment of the last round of independent senators, and appointing a Leader of the Government from outside the Senate Liberal caucus.

I was actually ignorant on the subject & possibly still am! What I did hear on C.B.C. was that electoral reform is something that can't be changed by a politician and Trudeau had absolutely no business promising he would because HE CAN'T! But other people get sh*t wrong besides me.

 

[mentalfloss]

Re: BREAKING: Liberals agree to NDP proposal on Electoral Reform

And if you read back, you will see that I know " they can do it LEGALLY and WITHIN the framework of the constitution without a referendum."

Simply put, that does not make it right.

No, but it does make it unlikely.

 

[mentalfloss]

Re: BREAKING: Liberals agree to NDP proposal on Electoral Reform

Canada can do better than first-past-the-post electoral system, Monsef says - Politics - CBC News

 

[tay]

We need a referendum on electoral reform? No! We need a national referendum on the TPP!


Lately it’s been very hard to avoid noisy demands for a national referendum on the federal Liberal government’s electoral reform plans. These demands all emanate from the Conservative Party and its wholly owned subsidiary, the Canadian Perpetual Outrage Industry.

Funny, though, isn’t it, how we never heard anything about such referenda back in the bad old days when the Conservatives were in the drivers’ seat, bragging about how they were going to change the country beyond recognition?

So let me ask you this about that: if our democratic electoral mechanisms are so important that they can’t be trusted to politicians and ought only to be changed by national referendum, what about the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement? After all, it was negotiated in secret by the Harper Government and actually surrenders our national sovereignty to corporate-run trans-national entities.

Surely, according to the Tories’ anti-electoral-reform arguments, the case is even stronger for a national referendum on the TPP?

Why aren’t they campaigning for that? (Suggestion: Don’t hold your breath waiting for that campaign to get under way.)

In truth, the Tory opposition to electoral reform, while natural enough, has little to do with the fundamentals of democracy, as their support for the TPP handily illustrates. Pretty obviously, it’s because the only way Conservative Party of Stephen Harper and Rona Ambrose can hope to hold power in today’s Canada is the first-past-the-post system, which only delivers the people’s will in most places if there are just two parties competing for the people’s vote. Throw in a third party with strong support on the centre-left, and the way is open to yet another future Conservative majority.

So don’t be fooled. The Tory referendum demand is just democratic-sounding flapdoodle, desperate rhetoric designed to stall electoral reform until the Cons can get another kick at changing the country beyond recognition under first-past-the-post.

This looks less likely now that the Liberals have bent enough to get the NDP on side to “start work on electoral reform in a collaborative manner,” as New Democrat Alexandre Boulerice, MP for Rosemont-La Petite-Partie, told iPolitics recently. But this story is far from over, so the Conservative referendum campaign will loudly continue.

Not long after last fall’s federal elections, which brought Mr. Trudeau’s Liberals to power partly on a promise of electoral reform in some unspecified form, the Conservatives vowed to use their appointed majority in the unelected Senate to block any such change.

“The entire Conservative caucus, both in the House and the Senate, will be opposing any radical changes to the electoral system without a referendum,”

I think we can safely assume the Conservatives will do just that, and democracy be damned.

Meanwhile, though, the Tories are not just good with the TPP, they’re warm for its form!

Yet if Parliament ratifies the TPP, as may well happen under a Liberal majority too, Canada will never again be able to expand our public health care system, for example by implementing a national Pharmacare program.

The TPP was sold as a “free trade agreement” among 12 Pacific Rim Countries, but would be more accurately described as an investor-protection straightjacket. As a result of its strong investor protection provisions, foreign investors would have the ability to sue Canada for billions of dollars if the federal or provincial governments tried to extend public health programs that replace services now provided by the private sector.

That would put a desperately needed Pharmacare program, for example, right in the crosshairs – and hand plenty of ammunition to the opponents of public services to label new ones “unaffordable.”

Basic health insurance coverage would be grandfathered under the agreement, but any weakening of its provisions by a market-fundamentalist provincial government could never be put right again.

Other negative impacts of being part of the TPP would include:

Alberta PoliticsWe need a referendum on electoral reform? No! We need a national referendum on the TPP! - Alberta Politics

 

[captain morgan]

No big deal having 2 or 3 poll questions on a referendum ballot.

 

[JLM]

This shows that even though the majority of us aren't familiar with politics we want to keep it as democratic as possible. The majority of us don't like any ONE group making big decisions changing big processes. We want EVERYONE to vote... That's the way it should be

Is an uninformed vote of any value?

 

[petros]

73% of Canadians want national referendum on electoral reform

And if given a choice would chose a Republic.

 

[JamesBondo]

the libs could have used a little technology. The online census could have and should have included questions about electoral reform.

 

[lone wolf]

I want to see some recall legislation

 

[MHz]

We should hold a referendum on Canadians using that method all the time instead of once in a blue moon.

 

[IdRatherBeSkiing]

Referendum wouldn't work.

Electoral reform is a difficult discussion that you can't encapsulate in a simple question.

It's not like the question of sovereignty where there is a simple yes or no answer.

Do you want current system A or system B recommended by government? A or B. Pretty simple Even a Liberal can understand it.

 

[JLM]

Just keep what we have and don't f**k with what works!

 

[MHz]

The 'Pony Express' worked also, should we abandon the telephone because of that??