There are those of us down here that think that’s a good idea. There are also those of us who think US campaigning is a continuous process, and is integral with the political process, and that it isn’t even a bad thing to keep the politicians constantly interested in what their bosses think of them. Not that I necessarily agree completely, though.
Sam, I’d be interested in hearing your explanation of how only one party gets the bulk of the vote there while being “unresponsive to public opinion”. Perhaps they’re only unresponsive to yours? And perhaps for good reason?
The Tories got the same charge leveled at them, and got voted out because there was another party that had its act together. If the other parties can’t present an attractive national program, how is that anyone else’s fault but their own? And how is any procedural change going to help?
Raygun, the problem with proportional representation, to my mind, is twofold:
Proportional representation wouldn’t work in a huge, dispersed, regionally divided system like Canada. Having a local person be your represenative is, in my humble opinion, pretty important, especially when you live 3000 km from the seat of government.
I don’t see a lot of advantage to it anyway. The basic argument for it are that the allocation of seats better mirrors the vote, and that small parties get a shot at holding office. The problem with that is, as you already pointed out, the potential for pizzafication of the House, and as to small parties having a chance, you potentially create alliance governments that go in directions largely unsupported by the public. I don’t really see any reason why the percentage of seats in Parliament should exactly reflect the popular vote; I think that’s a statistical fallacy. You’d get totally different results just by changing the voting system - weighted ballots, for instance, or runoff votes.
Look, there’s no magic bullet here. A country of 31 million people spanning half a continent will never be easily governed. I think we have to identify 2-3 key problems and solve them. What are the key problems in the structure of our government?
There is no check on the power of a majority government.
Half our Parliament consists of appointed cronies and old hockey players.
The less populated provinces are pissed off.
You can solve those problems very easily:
Elect the Senate.
Elect a Governor-General.
Would that makes things perfect? No. But I think it would work better than the current system, and would go a long way towards easing the major problems.
I’m against the setting of term limits and fixed elections for the reason most mentioned already: that it leads to continual campaigning and less real work. All baby kissing and money doling, no real planning. Of course the primary system in the States magnifies the problem.
For the Senate I would make an exception however. I would like it to truly be a house of sobre second thought. I fear that might take a few rules. Long terms to weed out fly by nighters and campaign fever, say 7-8 years. As strict a ban as possible on party affiliation. The election of a senator should be given full attention, thus a ban on any other elections within 4 months of a senatorial election. Only scripted government funding for any candidate that meets specific requirements (eg signiture list, etc. dare I mention my dream of making them pass history,business and legal courses/exams??). I waver on term limits for Senators but term limits really is a throwing the baby out with the bathwater system. Noone can stay 3 terms because someone might get corrupt?
As for the parliament, again I’d like to see the party system taken down a few pegs. Strict campaign funding laws might go a long way towards that. Perhaps reverse the system, donations can only be made to individual candidates and if they desire they can send some of it on over to party headquarters. This would turn it into more of a voluntary fraternity rather than the only way to get elected.
And I almost forgot, we’ve got to drop the first past the post system and to hell with fears of “pizza parliaments”. If the people want a large combo with extra cheese running the country they should get it.
Many countries have tried to ban party affiliations (including our neighbours to the south) but it doesn’t really work. Turns out there are lots of citizens who don’t like devoting lots of thought to the individual they are electing, and use the party system as shorthand.
You’d probably have to mandate something like Switzerland’s “friday afternoon debate clubs at work” to get this to work properly.
Barbarian - Many countries have tried to ban party affiliations (including our neighbours to the south) but it doesn’t really work. Turns out there are lots of citizens who don’t like devoting lots of thought to the individual they are electing, and use the party system as shorthand.
I know it is in many ways problematic, that’s why I said “as strict as possible”
We shouldn’t ban a candidate from saying he supports the Liberals or whomever. We could make sure the parties can’t finance their campaigns and that there is no party affiliation next to their name on the ballot.
You’d probably have to mandate something like Switzerland’s “friday afternoon debate clubs at work” to get this to work properly.
Why not? Maybe local CBC-radio could run biweekly candidate debates Friday afternoons as well. It may end up being cost effective too as steady debates/Q&A could take the place of slick professional(read: expensive) TV ads.
You are not going to get a chamber of sobre second thought by letting it get voted in by party sheep. If you can’t be bothered to listen to a debate once in a while or read the candidate’s stances then don’t bother coming out. Let the lower chamber be the place for your flight of fancy vote.
I realize that I’m completely out of my depth here, but what about the Queen? She is the head of state. Wouldn’t all your proposed changes require her (his) approval?
In any case, what is your position on retaining an English monarch as head of state? I don’t understand it, myself.
