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On October 20 2015 13:04 Impervious wrote: A few years ago, the Conservatives managed to get 60% of the seats with 40% of the votes. They managed to pass a bunch of legislation in that time that pissed a lot of people off.
Now we have a Liberal government which managed to get 60% of the seats with 40% of the votes. I expect them to also pass a bunch of legislation over the next few years that will piss a lot of people off. I hope I'm wrong though.
Chretien ran the country off of opinion polls with giant majorities. so u never know... Harper was a fuck-stick.. he was an extreme right wing guy who changed his policies and views to win votes of moderate canadians ...and then the nano-second he gets a majority he goes back to pretending he is peston manning junior.
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All of those votes that go to losing candidates left to rot ... if we could move to some type of proportional representation.
Sure they result in fragmentation and deadlocks, but I feel the sacrifices are worth obtaining a better democracy.
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On October 20 2015 16:08 domane wrote: All of those votes that go to losing candidates left to rot ... if we could move to some type of proportional representation.
Sure they result in fragmentation and deadlocks, but I feel the sacrifices are worth obtaining a better democracy.
the issue I have with that is that there is no specific representation by moving to that type of system. They would represent their parties interests and not any of ours (the people they are supposed to represent in the area). If we could figure a way to get around that I'd be all for it though.
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The most basic solution is to elect the PM. Instead of awarding the job to the party leader that won the most seats, award the job to the guy who wins the most votes.
On election day we should cast two votes. One for PM and one for a MoP.
Also I am shocked that all of Urban Alberta voted Conservative by huge margins when just 7 months ago Alberta cities where NDP in the prov election by huge margins. I knew all the places that voted Wildrose would vote PC but wow...talk about a 180
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On October 20 2015 16:08 domane wrote: All of those votes that go to losing candidates left to rot ... if we could move to some type of proportional representation.
Sure they result in fragmentation and deadlocks, but I feel the sacrifices are worth obtaining a better democracy. My favorite voting system is the following.
You get your ballot, all the candidates are there, you get to choose two. One primary, one "backup". If your first choice doesn't have enough votes, your vote automatically goes to your second choice. This is great because unlike proportional representation, it promotes a stable government that can still get a majority, rather than a bunch of parties. You also still get to choose for your local representative, rather than voting for a "list" of candidates which allegedly represent your interests with no formal link to you.
I think it's a good compromise, and it's better than the French system because you don't have to go vote twice.
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Canada11219 Posts
Oh wow. So NDP won in my riding, but they basically got the same number of votes as they always did. It's usually a close race between NDP and Conservative (1000 or so, sometimes with a couple hundred.) But it's 23K NDP, 14K Con, 14K Lib and 4K Green. Which means some went back to Green again (their highwater mark is 4K.) But not a lot of Conservatives like myself broke to NDP, but some NDP and a whole lot of Conservatives broke towards the Liberals. Of course our riding got heavily redivided, so it might also partially be subtracting one city and adding another, but even still.
Why this is surprising is this region (however the boundaries have changed) have only voted in a Liberal four times since BC joined Confederation. It is typically a throw away vote in our riding.
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i am pretty proud of the fact i predicted the Liberals would dominate Ontario 5 days before the election despite the polls being very iffy and very close.
well i ain't got nuttin' on one Richard M. Nixon. his prediction was 40+ years in the making
http://time.com/4079918/justin-trudeau-richard-nixon/
“Tonight we’ll dispense with the formalities. I’d like to toast the future Prime Minister of Canada: to Justin Pierre Trudeau,” Nixon (1972)
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On October 20 2015 16:34 OmniEulogy wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2015 16:08 domane wrote: All of those votes that go to losing candidates left to rot ... if we could move to some type of proportional representation.
Sure they result in fragmentation and deadlocks, but I feel the sacrifices are worth obtaining a better democracy. the issue I have with that is that there is no specific representation by moving to that type of system. They would represent their parties interests and not any of ours (the people they are supposed to represent in the area). If we could figure a way to get around that I'd be all for it though.
All things considered its still a much better system than first past the post though, even if there is no specific representation. I don't want to assume that you are saying 'lets keep FPTP', but even so I still think its worth pointing out that its not worth it.
Just think about what you gain and lose. In first past the post, you have specific representation, except that for the most part your needs on the community level are going to be met at the municipal and provincial level. Whatever remains at the federal level is going to be a very broad plan that would likely affect many ridings at once rather than one in particular.
Which is why its not that important to get a specific representative - it is called the federal government for a reason. They tend to deal with issues at a very broad level. There are definitely exceptional cases (like if you live in Toronto or something) but the majority of the time that is the government's purpose.
Therefore having some specific representation is kind of a weak reason for keeping first past the post, given that the policies of the party that he/she is part of are going to be 1000x more important in terms of what he/she can do for your riding, and neighbouring ridings, etc, as an extension of the government's broader policy goals. Which is precisely what is ignored the most under first past the post.
You have elections in which 40% of the vote determines a majority; 60% of people who did not vote for a party are now ruled completely by its policies. That is severely undemocratic, and I think the problems with that far, far outweigh any concerns about not having 'specific representation' at the federal level where that doesn't even matter that much anyway.
I understand people don't like constant minorities or coalitions...but really? I think we have to say tough luck and move on. Giving people the right to choose their government in a proportional, fair way is far more valuable because its at the level of basic human rights (yes I think voting should be considered a right, the whole subject is arbitrarily defined anyway...anyway whatever you'd want to call it, its clearly important). We can find a way to improve the system over time. But lets get the basics down.
Besides, in such a system I don't think we will ever have to suffer from a conservative majority ever again.
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Even Jack Layton's old riding , Toronto-Danforth, went Liberal... it was close though. I guess those Harper photo OPS with teh Ford family didn't work
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A bit late of a post. But I think this election was a lot more about cities than Ontario or Quebec deciding the election.
Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Winnipeg, Ottawa are basically all red, Cons even lost a bunch of seats in Calgary/Edmonton, even the smaller sized cities are nearly all red. Only real outlier is Quebec City because of the Niqab issue, lol. Liberals could of lost every rural riding and still barely squeaked by with a majority government, or close to it, depending on how you count things. (I counted like 30-32 rural liberal ridings)
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Congratulations on the upcoming Trudeau government. It's very exciting and will likely move Canada in the right direction.
We're fairly self-involved down here, but I think a liberal American government could work in tandem with the progressive policies a Trudeau government would pursue, particularly regarding the tax code, immigration, marijuana legalization and foreign intervention.
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On October 23 2015 01:41 Xafnia wrote: A bit late of a post. But I think this election was a lot more about cities than Ontario or Quebec deciding the election. Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Winnipeg, Ottawa are basically all red, Cons even lost a bunch of seats in Calgary/Edmonton, even the smaller sized cities are nearly all red. Only real outlier is Quebec City because of the Niqab issue, lol. Liberals could of lost every rural riding and still barely squeaked by with a majority government, or close to it, depending on how you count things. (I counted like 30-32 rural liberal ridings)
good point about the urban vote i certainly did not mean to imply that 'ontario' was the single biggest determinant in this election. just saying that ontario was more pivotal than quebec because they have more seats and 0 BQ seats.
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Sorry to bump the thread again but does anyone know if Trudeau said anything about funding for religious schools or is that 100% a provincial problem? When I try to find out I just get a bunch of complaints about him speaking in catholic schools while believing in a woman's right to choose.
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Well, funding for Catholic and Protestant schools is actually in the constitution, so that might be tough to do things about.
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On November 04 2015 07:09 Tephus wrote: Well, funding for Catholic and Protestant schools is actually in the constitution, so that might be tough to do things about. I knew it was mentioned it just seemed a little blurry like ~"they can only help existing districts"~ but do they have to? and how it only exists in like half the provinces. its just a shame...
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Its more like the section only applies to school boards (that are catholic or protestant) that were already in existance when joining the confederation (hence Ontario, Alberta, Sask). It gives them the guarantee of government funding into the future.
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Canada11219 Posts
On October 21 2015 21:43 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Even Jack Layton's old riding , Toronto-Danforth, went Liberal... it was close though. I guess those Harper photo OPS with teh Ford family didn't work Those Fords had better stay the hell away from my Conservative party. I'd vote for the Greens over a party run by the Fords... hell, I'd vote for the Communist party in protest.
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fucking hell...
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On November 05 2015 11:25 ZeroChrome wrote: fucking hell... What?
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I think the real answer is "Because otherwise people would bitch at me", lol.
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