Stable Majority Goverments and Electoral Reform | rabble.ca

Since day one of the campaign, Harper and his gang have been consistently spining the message that a majority goverment for his party is good for us because it will provide stability.  Let’s take a closer look at that highly dubious proposition.

First off, is a majority government in and of itself, no matter what party, necessarily a good thing?  Despite our parliamentary traditions, I think not.  Under our first past the post system, it obviously concentrates power  undemocratically in the hands of one party which may or may not  necessarily represent the full spectrum of Canadian citizenship. Discounting those who did not vote at all in the last election, for whatever reason, and given that three out of four people who did vote in the last election did not do so for the Harperites, Harper’s goverment, it would seem clear, did not represent the majority of Canadian citizens or necessarily their value when it assumed power in 2008.  That’s a very significant exclusion of direct representation for a large number of people -- and that’s not taking into consideration how many who did not vote might not have been supportive of the Harperites, a perspective about which we can only speculate.  So in and of itself a majority isn’t axiomatically a better form of goverment or a better form of democratic representation.

A similar question can be asked about stability.  Does a stable government in and of itself automatically yield “better” goverment - whatever that might be - or a more democratically responsive goverment?  One could argue that a stable goverment provides the ground  of power to get things done, to move legislation and implement policy.  But what if, say, two-thirds to three-quarters of Canadians disapprove of those policies and their legislative forms? Other than grass roots protests and political activism outside the system and perhaps, in limited ways, through the proxy of opposition parties can any sort of poltical objection be mounted.  The problem is, however, that these forms of democratic action, as self-satisfying  and sometimes effective as they might be, lack the efficacy that a voice in parliament would yield.

Democracy is, as many have said, a very messy business.  We should rejoice in  that fact, not bemoan it,  as so many in the main line parties seem to do.  Real democracy involves real participatory work that needs to be embraced by us all.  From what I can see, the only formal remedy to speed up that full embrace is electoral reform based on proportional representation -- a form of broadbased democratic goverment well established around the world,  the only exceptions in the western world being  -- surprise, surprise -- the U.S., Canada, and Britain, this  last, however, gearing up for a move towards real proportioal representation soon.   Isn’t it about time that we begin gearing up too?

Take a look at what  Fair Vote Canada is trying to do: Fair vote Canada.

-----------------------------------------------

Here are some suggestions for gearing up:

1) Establish a network of all the grassroots organizations across the country who have or would support proportional representation -- a sort of ACTION NETWORK focused on democratic reform.

2) Seek resources and - judiciously - support internationally.

3) Work the media assiduously in an effort to create a wide public discourse  about the issue.

4) Begin serious lobbying of the main line parties that might benefit from proportional representation.  (After this election, that may number two, not one.)

5) Lobby provincial parties that would benefit from proportional representation in their jurisdiction to bring them on board the NETWORK.

5) Consider legal options if necessary and possible.

We should all probably have a good conversation about mandatory voting and the notion of a preferential ballot first.  The latter is very attractive as a fall-back position to proportional representation.  When one votes, one chooses a preferential order of candidates.  Political parties use this system, but it too has its problems.  Proportional still seems the fairest, most democratic method even if the results are messy and involve agreements and negotiations.  That's what democracy is all about, one could argue

via Stable Majority Goverments and Electoral Reform | rabble.ca.

Postscript May 8, 2011 3:09 PM : Of course, AV was overwhelming defeated on May 5 in the U.K. I'm not reading much into this since there was such massive propaganda from everyone apparently during the referendum campaign, not to mention that AV is very problematic. But a question remains: was the vote a rejection of AV or an endorsement of FPTP?

I should add India to the list of countries still on FPTP.

Suburban Voters and Voter Suppression | rabble.ca

I hate to admit this but John Ivison in his piece in The Post on Saturday could have a point: “There is anger in the herbivore community about Stephen Harper’s failings — some of it is even justified. But the evidence on the doorsteps suggests it does not extend beyond the politically engaged into the suburbs, where people have to get up in the morning.” Two questions: does the apparently large turnout on Friday at the advance polls suggest a newly engaged voter constituency or was that the already committed who showed up? Will the votemob constituency have any real voting power now that the University year is coming to an end?

The answer to the first question is we simply don’t know whether these are newly engaged voters or what their voter preference might be, but if they are they could potentially  make a difference for any of the parties.  As for university students. there are 3 million elegible votes under 25, and pollling suggests that their voting preferences would probalby favour the Liberals, NDP, or Greens over the Harperites. But did they vote on Friday in their campus ridings, and if not, will they vote today?  If they do vote over this holiday weekend on campus, what percentage of support would there be for each of the three favoured parties, and how split would that vote be? And will their votes make a difference?

There does not appear to be much room for optimism.  Now that through the not so subtle voter-supression tatics of the Harperites to shut down special voting polls on university campuses has occurred, students would have had to remain on campus this holiday weekend to vote in their university riding in the advance polls, but most univerisites are in the process of wrapping up the semester, and preliminary estimates of students who did remain are that one-third of  the student body have remained on campus. How many of those plan on voting, and even if all did so, how much of a difference is there in effect between one-third and a full student body? For those who did not remain on campus and still wished to vote, their  only option is to vote in their home riding today or on May 2 where their vote,  because unconcentrated and spread as it would be across many ridings, would count for much less.

It remains to seen how all this plays out.  but one thing is certain:  the shutting down of the special voting stations on campus by elections Canada in complicity with the Harperites might turn out to be far more significan than first thought.

via Suburban Voters and Voter Suppression | rabble.ca.

Earth Day is April 22. Will its Celebration Change Anything? | rabble.ca

A recent Ipsos Reid poll for Postmedia News reveals that only 5% of Canadians think of the environment as a key issue that our federal parties should be discussing, and even poll figures from Day 22 of the campaign from Nik Nanos rank it well below heathcare and jobs/economy at 4.3%, a drop from 5.1% on April 16.   These are shocking numbers for a variety of reasons, among them that respondents to the polls are apparently unable to see a connection between health and the economy, on the one hand, and the “health" and “the economy" of the planet, on the other. So who can blame the four federal parties for ignoring this issue? To them, obsessed with trying to win as many seats as possible, it’s just one of many issues in a long list.  Political expediency, as is so often the case,  trumps both principle and, in this context, reality.  The  absence, in varying degrees,  of a meaningful strategic policy initiative in  three of the four federal parties and in all four the recessing of serious discussion on the most pressing issue our world has ever faced  during this federal campaign is a direct result of such ordinary Canadians’ apparent indifference to it.

I write of course about the crisis in our biosphere — the rapid and now, it would seem, inevitable  movement towards the total destruction of our planet and everything in it through the unconscionable industrialization of the planet over the past century and a half that manifests itself in countless ways, not just in the global warming phenomenon.  Unfettered industrialization and indiscriminate economic development have led to global warming and, in turn,  the climate change phenomenon.  But the environment is not just some “natural” realm external to ourselves, as David Suzuki continues to remind us with greater urgency every day.  It’s everything, and we –plants, animals, humans, water, land, air — are in this together.

To name only a few disturbing trends in which we now find ourselves in 2011:

• Unsustainable population growth throughout the world from roughly 3 billion in 1960  to approximately 7 billion in 2010 (Malthus haunts us: while the rate of growth is declining, the absolute numbers are increasing unsustainably)
• Corporate and other forms of industrialized farming with the widespread use of toxic chemicals  (Where have all the bees gone?) and,  as so many economists have been telling us for months now, a massive food shortage looming throughout the world and, as a result,  rising food prices
• The commoditization of water ( Jean Chrétien had the audacity to talk about that possibility two weeks ago.)
• The massive destruction of wildlife habitats and the extinction of countless species
• The irresponsible clear-cutting and destruction of forests that still happens through the world
• Our very own Canadian embarrassment: the tars sands operation and  its out-of-control carbon emissions and now scientifically proven  toxic waste leaching into the  land and water around it  (Despite aggressive Canadian lobbying, we learned very recently the EU is about to slap a “dirty fuel” label on the tar sands.)

What continues to astound and appall me is the total absence of a focused discussion about the erosion of our biosphere from any of the federal parties.  Even the Green Party, which does indeed have a comprehensive and meaningful policy on a sustainable planet, is not talking about it much, though it does form the ground of its platform.  Hard to fault the Greens given the politics of exclusion exercised against them by Big TV’s federal debates consortium.  They have a good excuse. But it would seem that, in general,  politics takes precedence over the destruction of the world during this federal election.   Everyone wants  political  power -- some because they think they may accomplished policy with it; others, alas, for its own sake.   Who can blame them?

Well I, my children, and my grandchildren can. This is the pre-eminent issue of our day. For  job growth, health care, pensions, education, tax credits, the ethical behaviour of politicians — these mean nothing as issues of concern  if we are on the way to self-extinction.  Many scientists have been arguing with increasing frequency that we may already be beyond the tipping point, that the process of self-destruction cannot be reversed but only inhibited.

We are currently spewing 388ppm (parts per million)  of CO2 in the biosphere, a disturbing notch on an escalating  trending pattern of 2ppm a year, way past the tipping point of 350ppm that scientists maintain is the real tipping point.   This is what James Hansen of America’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the first scientist to warn about global warming over two decades ago, wrote recently:  ”If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm.”   In other words, this is our last chance: if we don’t reverse that trend in the next ten years, we’re done.

via Earth Day is April 22. Will its Celebration Change Anything? | rabble.ca.

P.S.World Environment Day, June 5: http://bit.ly/iiu0pu http://bit.ly/jqz9VY
CO2 emissions reach a record high in 2010; 80% of projected 2020 emissions from the power sector are already locked in: these bleak findings from the International Energy Agency in a recent report suggests the crisis is even more intense than we have imagined.

Students Just might Make a Difference in this Election | rabble.ca

Students Might Just Make Difference in This Election

“Ratings monitor BBM Canada said that 3.85 million viewers watched the debate Tuesday night, an increase of 26 per cent compared with 2008’s showdown. The number jumped to 10.6 million viewers once those who only watched a portion of the debate were included.”

The question is who are these viewers? Are they the already entrenched partisans of each party combined with the usual political junkies, pundits, and journalists — the usual suspects — or are they that cabal in combination with the undecided and the uncommitted? It would be intriguing to think the latter, and the 10.6 figure for those who only watched a portion does indeed suggests a fairly substantial level of interest if not engagement. If we take these numbers, then, as a postive trend towards engagement and thus, as a result, a potentially larger voter turnout and link them to the large increase in Twitter traffic on the election and to the Rick Mercer energized votemob initiative expanding every day, we may indeed have a radically different election than 2008. The result may surprise us.

The second question, then, is who gains from this increased matrix of activity if it’s real? We can’t be absolutely certain it’s Harper, who is obviously counting primarily, as many have pointed out, on his base, targeted ridings, and of course voter apathy, indifference, or ignorance to get him his coveted majority, though at least some of the undecided will swing his way. But countering that movement is the increasing number of whack the Harperites websites and videos, the extremely pumped Green supporters since Elzabeth May’s exclusion from the debates, whose numbers are also expanding, and, most significant, the increasing participation in studentvote-votemob movement, which I strongly suspect is not travelling in the direction of the Harperites.

Driven by the leadnow.ca intiative, this group refuses to lie down and roll over even after Elections Canada, pressured by the Harperites — a blatant Rove-like voter suppression tactic — has shut down campus voting. Leadnow.ca has started a petition to have campus voting reestablshed, and sudents all across Canada have said if they can’t vote on campus, they will vote in advanced polls and in their home riding.  Apathyisboring has already heard from 60,000 students pledging to vote.

But the last question remains the very first one everyone asked:  has either debate make a difference, changed anything, or were they just a little stop on the way? The polls suggest the latter, but, remember, students, whose communciation matrix is social media and cell phones, are not a significant part of the polling sample if at all. We may indeed be having a different election, and on May 2, the results may just turn out to be  much more than simply intriguing.

via Students Just might Make a Difference in this Election | rabble.ca.

Hockey, Politics, Corporations | rabble.ca

Last week we once  again witnessed politics trumping principle in the swift, complete co-operation of the four main political parties in agreeing to shift the french debates up a day to allow Canadian viewers to watch the Habs game. What does this say about the parties' underlying  attitudes towards and trust of the Canadian public?  Something sadly cynical, I'm afraid:  that Canadians can't be trusted to choose the potential good of their country over a mere hockey game, that "sports" means more than the fate of our country, that the parties fear viewers might just not tune in because most would prefer hockey to the debate?  Alas, they're probably right.

But who else benefited from this particular shift?  RDS and Mother Corporation, of course, both of whom are now probably overjoyed at this opportunity to have  recovered potential lost revenue.  Had the game and the debate taken place on the same night, potentially splitting the viewing audience, the already reduced revenue because of the ad-free debate would have been further eroded, though one could argue that the bulk of that audience for the debate would be Quebec, not necessarily an increased across-Canada viewer-ship, who could still watch the game in comfort if they're not bilingual or interested in the debate. But since it's the Habs, that viewer-ship in Quebec had the potential to be very large.

The financial  relationship between the CBC and the other hockey corporate broadcasters  and the NHL, itself a large  corporation, is also foregrounded here in this decision, and the story in theglobandmail today about the NHL inking a new contract with NBC TV -  a contract, by the way, that might prevent the move by the Coyotes back toWinnipeg - reveals just how insidious that relationship is. Hockey of course is a big ad revenue generator for Canadian broadcasters, but the larger U.S. markets generate much more revenue for both the U.S. broadcasters and the NHL in absolute numbers.  And this corporate driven thinking is the main reason the NHL is resisting any move to the tiny TV market of Winnipeg.

On a personal note,  I have relatives who work in profession hockey operations (who, as Jack Webb would say, shall be nameless to protect the innocent),  and I myself once played in the Leaf organization for a few years when I was a teenager until I got sick of playing what I now see as propaganda, recruiting games in North Ontario in  addition to regular games and practices -- seven days a week.   I wasn't very good, so no big loss for the Leafs. But we all know - that is, my relatives who are still working in professional hockey and I - that the illusion of professional hockey as a “sport” dissipated years ago.  I mark the original expansion from six teams as the day the music stopped.

And aren't most such expansions quite obviously driven by corporate agendas to expand the market and therefore make more money?  Isn't it always about money?  We all know, my relatives and I - especially because of the massive expansion into the U.S. -  that professional hockey, like most professional sport,  is positioned for marketing purposes as undignified entertainment, not sport, and that corporations and their bottom line  agendas are what really matters.  Plain and simple, hockey is deeply inscribed in capitalism:  NHL teams are designed to make money - sometimes they’re successful and sometimes they’re not -- and the players with their outrageous salaries are, as in all professional sport, bought and sold  commodities.

I haven't watched a game since that original expansion.  And I'm just as proud of that political gesture as the fact I never shop at Wal-mart, for, as I learned a long time ago, all shopping is political, and so too, one might argue, is all television watching.

via Hockey, Politics, Corporations | rabble.ca.

Ethnic Voters Unite: I Was Lost and Now I'm Found

Why don't all of you who seem so upset with the mainline parties take a good look at the Greens?   I simply can't vote for potential power anymore. Every time I have -- whether for the LPC or the NDP, never the Harperites -- I've compromised myself morally on some issue or other. I've found my way to the Greens in this election, and not just because of their clear recognition of the crucial condition in which planet earth finds itself on this Earth Day but also because they respect all Canadians and, unlike the mainline parties, respect the members of their very own party. Real input from the grassroots in the mainline parties is an illusion. A cabal at the top still calls the shots, and, in the case of the Harperites, an autocrat if not an implicit dictator - some would say explicit - controls everything.

Remind yourself of what sort of input the rank and file had the day Iggy was anointed and ascended to the LPC throne. That was the day many rank and file quit the LPC. Remind yourself of how man times, despite some half-decent policies, the NDP actually propped up the Harperites in order to gain a little bit of pathetic power and prestige. Remind yourself that the BQ is selfishly concerned about the welfare of  only one province, not Canada as a whole. And of course  you need no reminder of the endless abuses of the Harperites.

P.S. I am not a member of the Green Party. I just see full moral value in everything they do.

7:36 AM on April 22, 2011

Ethnic’ voters, unite! You have nothing to lose but your temper

Helena Guergis is No Michael Chong

http://bit.ly/gD5hki

"Basically, we’re talking about an internal Conservative Party of Canada dispute. As Andy Beaudoin, former head of the Simcoe-Grey riding association, asked at Friday’s press conference: “How reliable is a process which allows one man, [Conservative Party lawyer] Arthur Hamilton, to address the national council, the caucus leadership and the caucus with the recommendation to banish an MP, and no rebuttal or defence is permitted?”

Answer: Not very. Perhaps people will hold it against Mr. Harper and the Conservatives. But if it’s “the worst kind of politics,” as Ms. Guergis said on Friday, it’s not the worst by much. If this had happened to some notably principled Conservative MP — Michael Chong, say — we might have a poster child for better politics. But Ms. Guergis was best known as a not-very-impressive, three-bags-full partisan. Non-partisans can support her on principle, but again, this is the life she chose.

All that said, I hope Ms. Guergis wins on May 2. It would be a pretty impressive middle finger to the Conservative establishment, though it’s questionable if it would eventually accomplish anything for Simcoe-Grey or for Canada. Unfortunately, the real moral of this story seems to be not to let your children grow up to be politicians."

Chris Selley has it right.