I think a majority of Canadians are kind, hardworking, and want what’s best for their families, friends, neighbours, and the country.
What does a brand new political party platform look like to appeal to an overwhelming majority of Canadians?
I think a majority of Canadians are kind, hardworking, and want what’s best for their families, friends, neighbours, and the country.
What does a brand new political party platform look like to appeal to an overwhelming majority of Canadians?
No house parties! Once the election is over, people are seated randomly and every vote is a free vote.That way there is an organizational structure for the creation of platforms, but proposed legislation has to legitimately convince a majority of sitting members.
None of the above! This becomes a formal option on the ballot. If NOTB wins a constituency, there is an automatic by-election and none of the people on that ballot can run again. If NOTB is elected to the ruling party, well, that’s a pretty big do over that comes with a pretty strong signal that every party and every candidate is out of touch with reality.
Abolish FPTP! There are some legitimate arguments over the pros and cons of various electoral systems, but every honest person knows that FPTP is fatally flawed.
Citizens’ committees! I fail to see how a large enough collection of randomly selected people could possibly do worse than our current crop. We might never have true sortition and maybe true sortition is a bad idea, but a randomly selected citizens’ committee would let us test the waters and experiment with different amounts of “power to the people”. At the very least, a parallel structure with no party alignments might come up with different ideas than we have now.
Instead of NOTA party, a quorum requirement. If not enough people vote to meet a quorum for a riding, the results are invalid and the election is redone. Further, due to the low engagement, all candidates who previously ran for said riding are barred from running again. Same idea as “None of the Above” party being formalized, but also increases engagement; sitting out means, literally, “meh, they all suck.”
I mean, FFS, my condominium needs a quorum to do something obvious like getting our AC chiller upgraded; and yet, only 18% of eligible voters can give someone like Doug Ford a fucking majority?!
Thanks! I don’t know why I didn’t think of quorum instead of NOTA. I’ve sat on many boards, so I’m familiar with the concept.
It’s not compatible with the mandatory voting found elsewhere, but that’s not an issue for Canada.
I’m with you on most points but first and foremost abolition of party system has got to happen. Our politics just turned into tribalism, “us vs them” game that is being played at our expense. It’s got to stop. I don’t see any more of “lets compromise and work together” and constant “we’ll tear down what other party was building… because it has THEIR name attached”.
FPTP contributes greatly to the lack of political discourse and constant bickering with powergrab moves. It eliminates variaty forcing landscape to oscilate down to 2 options which over time become virtually identical and differ in optics only.