Because It's 2016: Canadian Politics in Sunnier Days

the opiate epidemic is p huge. i don't think banning fentanyl would do much - pretty sure most of the fentanyl that finds its way into street drugs is not acquired legally.

Is the US #1?

https://biggiesplace.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/bridge-would-it-help-2.gif

according to a cbc bit tonight the fentanyl in canada is mainly imported from china

The Trump election has gotten me thinking a lot about Canadian politics and the level of complacency at large in this country, and what might be done to help combat it. I'm thinking seriously in becoming involved in the political process on a local level (here in TO) but I really have no idea where to start. (This is also influenced by the fact that, at 30, I finally have steady, reliable employment, not to mention no local family and few friends to take up my time or attention. Might as well try to be useful.) I'm wondering if anyone itt has experience with getting enmeshed in local politics.

No experience, but good luck. The election has me feeling a sense of personal complacency and a need to reach out more. Maybe by volunteering.

Thanks, jmm. Getting started by reading up on the NDP and Green platforms and their reps in my riding (University-Rosedale).

I volunteered a little with Brian Masse's campaign in Windsor West in 2011. It was fun!

I'm still processing the US election tbh, though.

Love Hebert: https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/11/19/cold-hard-reality-about-to-hit-the-liberals-on-three-fronts-hbert.html

sunnier days indeed

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/11/29/liberals-approve-trans-mountain-line-3-pipeline-projects.html

This is going to be such an endless clusterfuck

this is going to be fucking mayhem in metro vancouver

i live in a bubble, of course, but literally everyone i socialize with and my in-law family in bc are dead against the transmountain expansion

https://dogwoodinitiative.org/letter-shows-trudeau-ready-break-promise-kinder-morgan/

This one is intense: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/prime-minister-you-failed-to-do-your-job-by-approving-pipelines/article33199170/

we seem to pretty consistently lag US social and political trends

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/chris-alexander-lock-her-up-chant-anti-carbon-tax-1.3880911

https://www.mydemocracy.ca/

tell the gov what you think about electoral reform

I'm a pragmatist! Was hoping I was Tyron Lannister but apparently he isn't an option.

im an innovator apparently

fyi, they use census weights to make sure results are representative (correct for self-selection bias) so if u don't fill out the demographics ur answer is discarded:

https://twitter.com/robgillezeau/status/805877752695951361

it's pretty awfully designed in general but that is quite hilarious, what a mess (altho tbh unless you live in a very sparsely populated/homogenous postcode im not really sure about the privacy concerns people would have)

i am NOT sympathetic to the privacy concerns because i've been on the other end, having done research in Statistics Canada's Research Data Centers (tiny room with no windows in basement of a University library) and the privacy/confidentiality requirements are absurdly stringent

Ha, I was an innovator too. Half of the description doesn't seem to apply to me, though. I leaned against online voting and strongly disagreed with mandatory voting any time it came up.

But I think it's the only group for people who want more options/preferences on ballots.

I had similar answers. What a bunch of bullshit first past the post propaganda

I don't have a problem w/ mandatory voting at all tbh, so long as there's a "nahhh" / "none of the above" / write-in option

it never directly asks if we should keep first past the post or switch to PR, the one aspect of democratic reform i remember the liberals campaigning on

and the questions about about ballot design are not so subtly priming respondents to keep the current, relatively simple system

As part of a national engagement process, we will ensure that
electoral reform measures – such as ranked ballots, proportional
representation, mandatory voting, and online voting – are fully
and fairly studied and considered.

This one sentence is all I found in the 2015 Liberal platform on electoral reform. I don't remember them ever advocating PR, to be honest, although I could be wrong. It's probably the system that would weaken the Liberals the most. Most of their Parliamentary reform ideas had to do with giving greater autonomy to MPs and Senators, which seems like the opposite of what PR would do. The NDP are the most pro-PR party iirc. (On this, I tend to agree with the fantasy version of the Liberals that was described in their platform. I would probably favour a ranked ballot system.)

The 2015 Liberal election doc had (used to have?) text promising (paraphrase) "2015 will be the last election using the current first-past-the-post system".

strongly disagreed with mandatory voting any time it came up.

same. i'm surprised i am in the minority of my friends on this one tho. i think a lot of people make a false equivalency of forced voting = more engagement. you can force people to vote, but you can't force them to be engaged.

The 2015 Liberal election doc had (used to have?) text promising (paraphrase) "2015 will be the last election using the current first-past-the-post system".

You're right. It was in the sentence preceding the one I quoted. They made no promises about what would replace it, though, and I never thought PR was at the top of their list. In retrospect, it seems a little crazy that they promised to change the system without saying how they would change it. This is the full electoral reform section of the platform.

We are committed to ensuring that 2015 will be the last federal
election conducted under the first-past-the-post voting system.
As part of a national engagement process, we will ensure that
electoral reform measures – such as ranked ballots, proportional
representation, mandatory voting, and online voting – are fully
and fairly studied and considered. This will be carried out by a
special all-party parliamentary committee, which will bring
recommendations to Parliament on the way forward, to allow
for action before the succeeding federal election. Within 18
months of forming government, we will bring forward legislation
to enact electoral reform.

I guess if I had to see a benefit to mandatory voting, it may be comparable to assigning a grade for attendance and class participation (which essentially penalizes people for not showing up or participating). And attendance/participation grades do seem to work at getting people to show up and participate, even if they're just doing it to avoid losing marks.

and then they just put a check next to the same they recognize. forced voting tends to heavily favour the incumbents (at least from what I've heard).

Yeah, it's different in that the 5% of your grade that counts for attendance and participation is supposed to help you learn and do better and not lose points on the other 95% of a course. There's no real analogue for that with voting, which I see as a right, neither a privilege nor a duty.

Actually, if PR just means multi-member ridings, I'm OK with that. I'm less comfortable with some sort of party list-based system. Coyne's idea of breaking the issue into two questions is not bad imo.

funny that one of the things that the poll seems to say all of canada is for -- flexibility for mps to vote for their constituency vs towing the party line -- will never, ever happen and basically cannot be enforced

also fuck a mandatory vote, EVEN IF they make voting day a stat. people working contract/hourly/tips/etc don't get stats. if you want more voters, throw every mp who suppresses a single voter into the fucking bay of fundy

let's keep the bay of fundy out of this.

I'm an innovator

Is there any downside to a ranked ballot (other than for the Libs and Conservatives)? Seems like such a simple to implement improvement that would help smaller parties a lot.

I'm pretty sure a ranked ballot would benefit the Liberals, actually, since they'd be the most likely second choice of both left-wing and right-wing voters. I think they're the only party that advocates it. I support it anyway.

its better for libs than for conservatives because there are two "left" (lol) parties, ppl voting for one will almost always 2nd-rank the other

xp beat me to it

flexibility for mps to vote for their constituency vs towing the party line -- will never, ever happen and basically cannot be enforced

Why? Canada is pretty unusual in terms of how much party discipline we have. There are ways to weaken the power of party leaders over MPs and also to make MPs more representative of their constituents, although these are two different things. (I favour the first more than the second.)

Just as one example, not that the UK Tories are who we really want to emulate, but their party leaders are directly responsible to the caucus, as opposed to the broader party membership, which means that MPs can boot leaders (as they did with Thatcher) and have less pressure to toe the party line on every vote.

Similarly, recall procedures could pressure MPs to be more attuned to their constituents' wishes.

I'm not sure Liberal voters could be counted on to rank the NDP second, though. In affluent suburban ridings, I would doubt that tbh.

(xp)

i reckon cons would be throwing a lot of their "second-place" votes at harder right fringe parties, like all those ones with family in the name or the alberta roses of wild

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/editorials/the-beer-that-could-change-canada/article33209730/