Parliamentary change is more practical than electoral change.
I don't think it's easy to change voting culture. That is slapping Australian methods of Canadians would be a revenue generator but wouldn't change voter turnout. I did the survey and it's clear that I would like less partisan politics. The rep has to represent their constituents with in a loose frame of the party. Formalizing requiring action on e-petitions and banning omnibus bills would be a great start. Coming to a consensus - that is working together to get the best for all citizens - is key. Trudeau talks a lot about science and we should make sure people understand how science (and statistics and big data) works and have mechanisms in place to answer questions/ provide input.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/wherry-parliament-reform-1.3955247?cmp=rss
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Yep. I want voting reform as well though. We won't get away from a polarized pair of parties without it.
ReplyDeleteWhat Canada needs is Sortition
ReplyDeleteDouglas McMillan we have 3 mainstream, I regional masquerading as a federal and a small federal. I don't think we need more parties.
ReplyDeleteClinton Hammond At this point, perhaps Sortition is best implemented with school student bodies or at the municipal level.
The last thing we need is an electoral system like America has.
ReplyDeleteWe need budget responsibility assigned to each party according to percentage of popular support. Each party then has the tools necessary to demonstrate their suitability to lead, and they all have to try harder to work cohesively. Failure to allocate any part of a party's portion of the budget causes it to be redistributed to the other parties.
ReplyDeleteCass Morrison In the last election, the only reason that we got rid of the fascist is because people got together and voted strategically. That should not be required. We need voting reform.
ReplyDeleteDouglas McMillan The flip side of voting reform is parliamentary reform where members aren't held to voting party lines or controlled by party whips. Did you do the reform questionnaire when it was live? Broad strokes was quite easy but the nitty gritty /no grey area questions were not. If nothing else, it showed how difficult a consensus reform will be
ReplyDeleteClinton Hammond I agree
Breen Ouellette That's an innovative way to hold the parties responsible. The difficulty would be in assessing results. For instance, the effect of Reaganomics are only now coming to full effect.
I'm not saying we don't need parliamentary reform, just that we need voting reform as well. Parties can let their member vote according to their constituents wishes right now without any changes. Those restrictions are put in place by the parties themselves, not the law. That's part of the reason i'm not a big fan of any of them.
ReplyDeleteI've maintained since high school that what government needs is to ban party politics altogether. Every MP is an independent. Lobby groups can't buy off a whole party vote by influencing leaders, and we wouldn't need non-confidence votes -- because each bill could pass or fail on its own merits (or lack thereof). How to choose a Prime Minister then? Well, that's always been the sticky bit. There are many ways to do it, but most of them are as flawed and influenced as the current system.
ReplyDeleteGet rid of omnibus bills. They should be illegal, as they only serve to pass legislation that nobody actually wants based on being tied to something that IS actually important. Yep, that would require more votes. Might take longer for some things to pass/fail. But small bills that don't need much debate and get consensus quickly will speed things up vs lengthy arguments over what evils are tucked behind an important bill.
Some changes are certainly needed, but you'll never get everybody (or maybe even a majority) to agree on what exactly they are. THAT'S the challenge, and I haven't heard any single great ideas on how to tackle it yet.
Chris Pollard I'm very much in agreement.
ReplyDeleteThat's certainly what I indicated Chris Pollard in the survey. While you can have an umbrella party with joint policies to work towards, the MPs should reflect their constituents rathar than the party.
ReplyDeleteCass Morrison: Assessing the results of some policies will always be reliant on the passage of time, unfortunately. The real benefits of proportional budget allocation are that:
ReplyDelete1. all parties may be evaluated on objective performance, in that every party must back up their policies with measurable action;
2. any party may react to attempted defunding/underfunding of important services by shifting their own party budget priorities; and
3. voter apathy may be reduced, because voting for an opposition party is no longer a 'wasted vote'.
I think your idea is a great one for making parties accountable. Breen Ouellette
ReplyDeleteThanks. I've been floating it among friends and colleagues for a couple of years. No big holes punched into it so far.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, I would like to see proportional cabinet representation in our Parliament. This would involve the formation of the executive branch via MP committees rather than appointments made by only the largest party. Each government ministry would be overseen by a committee made of MPs appointed by all the parties. The optimal number of members for each ministry oversight committee would be dependent on the total number of ministries enacted by a newly seated Parliament. Each party would be granted a pool of appointments proportional to its capture of the popular vote. The appointment of the committees would proceed as follows:
1. the largest party (most MPs) would be entitled to name up to half of its appointments; then
2. the second largest party would then be entitled to name up to half of its appointments. This process would continue in decreasing order until the smallest party; then
3. the smallest party would name all of its appointments; and
4. the second smallest party would name its remaining appointments. This process would continue in increasing order until all appointments had been named.
Each committee would then name its chair from among its members.
The anticipated outcomes of proportional cabinet representation are:
1. relaxation of the largest party's tight control of the Parliamentary agenda;
2. increased cooperation among individual MPs and their parties;
3. increased objective measures of the performance of all parties;
4. reduction of the pressure to move toward a two party system; and
5. retirement of the adversarial government-opposition duality.
It's past time that our system encouraged working for the benefit of Canadians more than fighting to remain at the top.
Breen Ouellette I like the suggestions you're putting forth. You should get that before the PM for discussion!
ReplyDeleteChris Pollard: It's probably about time that I write a proper paper on it, or at least a blog post.
ReplyDelete