Agreed on the extremists - I would rather have PPC/New Blue Yahoo/Wexiteer wingnuts safely on the margins than being the defacto base of a moderate Conservative party. They infiltrate those parties for a reason. MPs screaming at clouds are easily ignored. Randy Hillier can go full on Nazi, but he's irrelevant by himself as he amply proved.
When you depend on the wingnuts to win, that's how you have Sam Oosterhoff having a say in Ontario education. No thanks.
And definitely fuck the referendum. Not one person voted for FPTP, and there's no constitutional requirement to change it. As seen in 2007 in Ontario, you can't trust a party who benefits from FPTP to post the question. McGuinty offered a tepid defense of the idea at best and allowed it to fail. And you can't trust a FPTP majority government to commit to electoral reform - Trudeau in 2015 proved that. Last FPTP election my ass. Those getting 100% power with 35-40% of the vote won't kill their golden goose. Why would they?
Solutions come from the boring professional civil service. Throw the "right" solution in the hands of Elections Canada and provincial equivalents. We trust them to create ridings that aren't gerrymandered to the extent American legislative districts are, and for the most part they do a good job. Create a similar multi-partisan structure to create and tweak a better voting system based on equity and representation. It'll never be perfect, but can't let perfect be the enemy of the good, while we basically have shit.
"MMP [is] great in theory, but MMP would require an increase in the number of politicians (for the top up seats) if they keep 338 members" Yes! I don't view that as an inherently a bad thing. I'm okay with doubling the number of MPs if I could get actual representation when the riding I live is heavily Conservative no matter what.
Still, I applaud your commitment to having an honest conversation on electoral reform. I agree with Fair Vote Canada's central objective but their messaging is awful. The conversation on electoral reform has become a total intellectual cesspool. Us Poli Sci weirdos care about electoral reform probably too much and everyone else probably too little, which has contributed to it becoming a source of toxicity.
Thanks for the great read!
Agreed on the extremists - I would rather have PPC/New Blue Yahoo/Wexiteer wingnuts safely on the margins than being the defacto base of a moderate Conservative party. They infiltrate those parties for a reason. MPs screaming at clouds are easily ignored. Randy Hillier can go full on Nazi, but he's irrelevant by himself as he amply proved.
When you depend on the wingnuts to win, that's how you have Sam Oosterhoff having a say in Ontario education. No thanks.
And definitely fuck the referendum. Not one person voted for FPTP, and there's no constitutional requirement to change it. As seen in 2007 in Ontario, you can't trust a party who benefits from FPTP to post the question. McGuinty offered a tepid defense of the idea at best and allowed it to fail. And you can't trust a FPTP majority government to commit to electoral reform - Trudeau in 2015 proved that. Last FPTP election my ass. Those getting 100% power with 35-40% of the vote won't kill their golden goose. Why would they?
Solutions come from the boring professional civil service. Throw the "right" solution in the hands of Elections Canada and provincial equivalents. We trust them to create ridings that aren't gerrymandered to the extent American legislative districts are, and for the most part they do a good job. Create a similar multi-partisan structure to create and tweak a better voting system based on equity and representation. It'll never be perfect, but can't let perfect be the enemy of the good, while we basically have shit.
"MMP [is] great in theory, but MMP would require an increase in the number of politicians (for the top up seats) if they keep 338 members" Yes! I don't view that as an inherently a bad thing. I'm okay with doubling the number of MPs if I could get actual representation when the riding I live is heavily Conservative no matter what.
Still, I applaud your commitment to having an honest conversation on electoral reform. I agree with Fair Vote Canada's central objective but their messaging is awful. The conversation on electoral reform has become a total intellectual cesspool. Us Poli Sci weirdos care about electoral reform probably too much and everyone else probably too little, which has contributed to it becoming a source of toxicity.
What's wrong with pure party-list PR (either national or provincial) as found in israel and the netherlands?
What's wrong with pure party-list PR (either national or provincial) as practiced in israel and the netherlands?