Charlatan

I don't think that's accurate at all.

All three opposition leaders wanted to see the laws that are on the table right now get through Parliament... the most important of which was the energy rebate for low income people. There are a few more laws that will die on the books because we couldn't compromise and get three more weeks out of December.

In the end, the house will fall on Tuesday which is the fastest anyone could have brought down the house. There were no, confidence motions available prior to that. Martin would have had this much time anyway... you can't blame his actions on Layton

Does calling Layton Wacky actually make you feel better and is it really necessary? If anything he has been more statesman like than either Harper (the Liberals are in Bed with organized crime) or Martin (What me, worry?). He has done more to make this Parliament work than most.

I don't really want to see an NDP government but I would love it if they held around 50 seats and held the true balance of power.

For Harper to win this election, he needs to come out and say, "If you give us the balance of power we can work with NDP. It will send a clear message to Canadians that he will not try to push his Social Conservative adenda through. It would win him a lot more seats in Ontario which is where he needs to gain about 15 seats to take the balance of power.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

canuckguy

My own opinion why harper will not win is his personal views towards gay marriage, abortion....etc. I think people view him as too extreme almost like Bush. I think we do a better job separating church and state, and canadians like that. Canadians don't like been told what to do, sure we don't mind you stealing or wasting our money, but don't fuck with any rights we have.
And my own opinion which is probably wrong and most certainly uneducated.



sorry typed all that out and missed the last paragraph you typed charlatan. i change my answer to what you just said!

Charlatan

I was just looking at the polls in the paper today... it suggests that the Liberals would get a majority if the election were held today. Go figure.

I guess we just have to remember that Kim Campbell had better than those kinds of figures going into her election and look where the PCs were after the campaign...


I think many Canadians don't think Martin is a bad leader, they just don't like the alternatives... either they are terrified of Harper and his social adgenda or they are terrified of Layton and the tax and spend brush he has been painted with... What is a middle of the road voter to do but support the Liberals...

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

highthief

Yup, it does. Layton had a chance to be a big, stand up player here, but he came off looking weak and sneaky.

I'll bet you any money we get almost exactly what we have right now, with maybe the Liberals getting a couple more seats.

__________________
Si vis pacem parabellum.

canuckguy

again you put it perfectly.

exactly!

Charlatan

Weak and sneaky? Are we looking at the same political landscape? In my eyes Layton stood up and said, Let's get down to business and get the laws that the house wants to see passed... passed.

Both the Bloc and the Conservatives supported him on this. He did what good politicians do... he struck a compromise between those who would dig in their heels and stick around until March and those who would pull the plug now. He also agreed that if the compromise couldn't be reached he would sink the government as soon as possible. Which he did, when he seconded Harper's motion of non-confidence.

There was nothing weak, sneaky or double dealing there. It was good governance (or an attempt at it). If Harper even showed half of this sort of ability he would be prime minister right now instead of Martin.

Politicians who, in a minority government situation, can build consensus like this are "big stand up players".

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

highthief

Your opinion - in my opinion it was weak and sneaky. I'm sure we could go back and forth on this all day. Layton could've been the Man, instead he tried to circumvent established procedure. The NDP keeps getting the rules rewritten for it so they can maintain "official party" status and soak up more of my tax money. I really have little time for their strident wailings.

(And before anyone labels me an evil conservative, I'll probably vote Green)

__________________
Si vis pacem parabellum.

Charlatan

No, I wasn't going to label you a Conservative rather I would say that you are holding the Liberal's party line on this whole mess. The Conservatives were backing the NDP on this move.

As for voting Green, they are largely a fiscal Conservative (not that that's a bad thing)... they are nothing like the greens in Europe.

I don't begrudge you your position on the NDP... many poeple feel that way about them. As I see it, they offer the balance that can't be found in the US. I've said it before, I don't really want to see them in power, rather I think they represent a voice that needs to be heard. As for them being a waste of taxpayers money... why not just abolish Parliament entirely?

What we really need is electoral reform so that representation is given to all the voices rather than just first past the post. With this sort of system, the Green party you support and spent your vote supporting would actually have representation in Parliament.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

Ace_O_Spades

What I have to ask myself is how Martin is going to try to play the "I tried to avoid a holiday election but look at these Conservatives and NDP who forced me into it" when he turned down a compromise to ensure no holiday election would take place.

Seems kinda strange to me. I also regret that I will have to figure out the absentee ballot system to vote for my MP in Burnaby Douglas.

__________________
Feh.

highthief

1) Actually, I said before "anyone" labels me a Conservative, not you specifically.

2) I find they are middle of the road financially, certainly more to the right than the NDP, and socially liberal. Ideally, I like fiscally conservative and socially liberal - and the Liberal Party actually fits this mold best, given how economically sensible they've been over the years. Fiscally, they are more conservative than the Republicans in the US, who spend like drunken sailors and run up their credit card bill to no end. However, I'd like to see the Greens get more of a push here and the Liberals, who always win my riding, don't need my vote.

3) I'd just prefer the NDP doesn't keep getting special treatment. Even when they lose official status (as they did federally under McLaughlin and in Ontario under Hampton) they keep getting the rules bent for them so they have more of a voice in parliament than they deserve based on performance.

4) I agree - I'd rather see a form of proportional representation, but one more workable with 4 or 5 major parties than you see in Europe or Israel where often, nothing gets done and governments fall every 6 months.

__________________
Si vis pacem parabellum.

Charlatan

Actually Ace hits the nail on the as to why Layton's efforts to bring about the January compromise was genius.

On one hand, if the compromise was accepted by the Liberals, we get an election in early February, we get to see Gomery II before we vote, the Liberals don't get an extra eight weeks to buy their way to victory and we don't have a Christmas election

On the other hand, if they don't accept the compromise, the governement falls now (tonight actually), the Liberals don't have 10 extra weeks to buy their way to victory and ALL of the opposition gets to hold Martin responsible to a Christmas election by saying, we were being reasonable and offered a compromise... Martin was not being reasonable and forced a Christmas election.

Win-win. You can see why Harper and Ducieppe supported this effort.



I can understand your point on number three, but feel number four would solve this issue. First past the post had the NDP and the Conservatives getting greater portions of the popular vote than their number of seats reflects. As a result the Houses don't reflect the actual votes of the people.

If we had proportional representation, I think you would see the rise of more parties over time as people see the effectiveness of their votes. It might even allow for the rebirth of something like the PCs. I think over time you would see the rise of coalition governments rather than majority governments.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

Yakk

I don't see how a rejected comprimise absolves you of your actions afterwards?

"I want to shoot you in the head. I will offer a comprimise -- you give me your money, and I won't shoot you. Oh look what you made me do by rejecting my comprimise!"

Proportional Representation is tricky. I would not be willing to accept any PR system that gave parties (as opposed to MPs) more power than they have right now.

As it stands, if a party kicks an MP out of caucas, and the MP has the same support from voters, the MP gets to remain in parliament. MPs should be more beholden to their voters than to their party.

I also am against any voting system that is not human-verifiable at every stage. Any voting system that requires a computer to tabulate the votes has single-point-of-corruption issues.

More precicely, the virtue of our current system is that corrupting the voting system requires a conspiracy whose size is purportional to the number of votes corrupted. I want to maintain this feature.

Thirdly, locality of representation is important. Being a representative of "green party voters" is one thing, but that makes your constituancy nebulous. MPs should be geographically bound.

Can you generate any PR systems that have these properties?

The current FPTP system has many flaws. I don't want to replace the flaws of the current FPTP system with a system that lacks the virtues of the FPTP system.

__________________
Last edited by JHVH : 10-29-4004 BC at 09:00 PM. Reason: Time for a rest.

Charlatan

Regarding the compromise... ultimately what it does is make the issue of a Christmas election a dead issue. Neither side can truly get any milage out of it they are both sharing in the repsponsibility of the election timing.

I agree with your take on if vis-a-vis the shooting but that isn't the point in this sort of political posturing... this manouver, gives the opposition an out and renders the "issue of a Christmas election" a non-issue.


As for proportional representation. My feeling on the matter is that it should be a combination of MPs elected by the electorate (based on "locality of representation") as well as representation based on a percentage of the popular vote gaining you X number of seats.

The system still functions as it does now with ballots being counted by "little old ladies in church basements".

How the riding would be redrawn and how the numbers would be carved out is another question.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

Yakk

My point is, offering to rob someone instead of shooting them does not absolve you of shooting them.

Saying "call an election in Febuary, or we will call an election in December" does not absolve you of calling an election in December. 3 parties voted for a December election, and one party for a Spring election.

If you care when the election is, then you know the positions of the various parties. 3 are for a Christmas election, one is for a Spring election.

If you divide the popular vote by party, those X seats are more bound to the party than to the electorate. If you "balance parliament" so that it matches the popular vote, then a massive chunk of parliament will be more beholden to party than to a particular electorate.

*nod*, it manages the "hard to cheat" requirement. It fails on the "MPs are beholden to their electorate more than the party" and "MPs are geographically bound" requirements.

Political parties are, if anything, too powerful under the current system. Any PR system that makes membership in a party more important is not good.

I have figured out how to do it, if you do away with the "one person -- one vote" in parliament:

Each riding has 10 seats. Each "seat" is a vote in the house of commons.

You run for a seat with a running mate. This is called a "slate".

The 10 seats are allocated in a pseudo-fair way amongst the slates voted for in the riding. If a slate has 50% of the votes, it gets roughly 5 seats.

The person running and their running mate split up the seats. The seats are s split, but the person running gets strictly more seats than the running mate.

Every person with at least 1 seat gets to vote in the HoC. The number of votes that person has is equal to the number of seats they have. Members of a slate, technically, have no responsibilities to each other once elected. In practice this may not hold.

Technical details:
The only purpose of the "running mate" is to reduce the varience in the number of people in the HoC, and somewhat reduce the number of votes one person can hold in the HoC. If your slate is barely elected (1 or 2 seats), your running mate does not get into the HoC.

Slate Seats/Candidate Seats/Running Mate Seats
0/0/0 ... 1/1/0 ... 2/2/0 ... 3/2/1 ... 4/3/1 ... 5/3/2 ... 6/4/2 ... 7/4/3 ... 8/5/3 ... 9/5/4 ... 10/6/4

The "running mate" is sadly more beholden to the candidates support than I'd like. But giving some MPs up to (theoretically) 10 times more votes than others also seems yucky.

__________________
Last edited by JHVH : 10-29-4004 BC at 09:00 PM. Reason: Time for a rest.

Charlatan

Just wondering... can we say that Gomery brought down the Liberals?

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

splck

Maybe in part. Systemic corruption tended to be the focal point out this way, not the report itself.

__________________
nice line eh?