The Shrine

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/10/11 ... 56100.html

On a related note, Canada's two right-wing parties merged?

We have two right-wing parties?

I assume he's referring to the Reform/Alliance and PC parties merging to form the Conservative Party, which was... 10 years ago?

Actually, I thought you guys had four parties:

Smaller left-wing party (Green?, NDP?)
Larger left-wing party (Liberals)
Smaller right-wing party
Larger right-wing party (Conservatives)

We have 5 parties with one or more seats in the House of Commons.

Our right wing party, even with its majority government, is hardly right wing at all. To compare it to your system, our Conservative Party talks like a republican, but walks like a democrat.

SineSwiper wrote:Actually, I thought you guys had four parties:

Smaller left-wing party (Green?, NDP?)
Larger left-wing party (Liberals)
Smaller right-wing party
Larger right-wing party (Conservatives)

We have no real right-wing party. Conservatives are much more centre-right than anything. Then we have the Liberals (centre-left), NDP (left), and Green (far left). Sure, we have the Bloc Quebecois (right) in Quebec but they're hardly worth mentioning really as they're quickly losing any real support (NDP fucked them hard last election) and are only representative of a shrinking portion of the population.

It sounds like you're going to have two parties before the next election. Either that or the Conservatives are going to win again.

SineSwiper wrote:It sounds like you're going to have two parties before the next election. Either that or the Conservatives are going to win again.

Our Liberals are like your Republicans right now, huge state of flux and no one's really sure where they're going next. And like your 2016 election, what they decide to do going forward will go a long way to determining if they have a chance at removing the incumbent Conservative party

Only three parties now have "official party status": Conservatives, NDP, and Liberals. NDP saw a huge surge in house seats last election while the Liberals dropped off substantially. Bloc is as good as dead and Green is too small and too far left to do anything.

House of Commons Seats (308)
Conservative - 166
NDP - 103
Liberal - 34
Bloc Quebecois - 4
Green - 1
Independents - 2

Official party status entails having at least 12 of the 308 seats.

Zeus wrote:

SineSwiper wrote:It sounds like you're going to have two parties before the next election. Either that or the Conservatives are going to win again.

Our Liberals are like your Republicans right now, huge state of flux and no one's really sure where they're going next. And like your 2016 election, what they decide to do going forward will go a long way to determining if they have a chance at removing the incumbent Conservative party

Not a fair comparison. The solution is easy in CA: combine the parties. Honestly, with how mathematically unsound more than 2 parties is with a binary election system, I'm surprised it's taken this long.

As far as the GOP, they already have the combined party, but it's not working:

The Rich %1
The Extreme Right Zealots (Tea Party, Ultra-Religious, Southern Racists, etc.)
The Moderate Conservatives / Libertarians

The third group is trying to be heard, but right now, the first two are the acting as the main voice. None of them can survive without the other, but a third party split isn't going to work without some members gained from the Democrats to beat out the ultra-rights.

bovine wrote:We have 5 parties with one or more seats in the House of Commons.

WE have 4 parties. Quebec has a 5th :p

SineSwiper wrote:

Zeus wrote:

SineSwiper wrote:It sounds like you're going to have two parties before the next election. Either that or the Conservatives are going to win again.

Our Liberals are like your Republicans right now, huge state of flux and no one's really sure where they're going next. And like your 2016 election, what they decide to do going forward will go a long way to determining if they have a chance at removing the incumbent Conservative party

Not a fair comparison. The solution is easy in CA: combine the parties. Honestly, with how mathematically unsound more than 2 parties is with a binary election system, I'm surprised it's taken this long.

As far as the GOP, they already have the combined party, but it's not working:

The Rich %1
The Extreme Right Zealots (Tea Party, Ultra-Religious, Southern Racists, etc.)
The Moderate Conservatives / Libertarians

The third group is trying to be heard, but right now, the first two are the acting as the main voice. None of them can survive without the other, but a third party split isn't going to work without some members gained from the Democrats to beat out the ultra-rights.

Why would California be the only state to combine parties? :-)

Our parties separated because they wanted their own national voice and not be lost in the party's voice. It was kind of a reverse takeover when the Reform (right; a Western party) split from the Progressive Conservatives (centre-right) then they remerged with the Reform (with Harper, our PM) taking over the new Conservatives. It may yet happen where the NDP swallows the Liberals but that's not close...yet.

I LOVE the idea of a minority government. That way, you get two points of views forced to be serviced by any action as opposed to 1. The fact that our parties were too childish to make it work and we didn't punish them for it (we rewarded the Conservatives) don't diminish the fact that minority governments will do far more to serve more of the public than anything short of abolishing the formation of parties, my favoured course of action.

You get rid of national parties and then you'll see, after an adjustment period, true government for the people. With parties, it's just choosin' Tweedle Dee over Tweedle Dum.

Zeus wrote:I LOVE the idea of a minority government. That way, you get two points of views forced to be serviced by any action as opposed to 1. The fact that our parties were too childish to make it work and we didn't punish them for it (we rewarded the Conservatives) don't diminish the fact that minority governments will do far more to serve more of the public than anything short of abolishing the formation of parties, my favoured course of action.

I'm not talking about personal preference, but the reality of the situation. With the current form of elections, 3+ parties cannot be a stable political landscape. It's just taken a bit to have one party decide to combine forces and defeat the rest. Sure, I would love to have more than 2 parties here, but I know that's not going to happen, because the smaller parties are going to be defeated the larger ones. (In fact, you're seeing this kind of behavior in corporate mergers and the like.)

Zeus wrote:You get rid of national parties and then you'll see, after an adjustment period, true government for the people. With parties, it's just choosin' Tweedle Dee over Tweedle Dum.

No, you'll see an even worse outcome. People don't spend the time to research the choices. It already happens with local office positions:

For the elections with parties involved that hasn't received national attention, many people just vote whoever has the R or D in front of their name. For the ones WITHOUT parties (judges and the like), the methodology is even SIMPLER: picking people based off of their name. Why do you think they promote signs with last names in big letters? Name recognition. And it works. It's horrible that it does, because it betrays an abusive problem with our election process: People don't have time to research this stuff.

(We had a Dept of Agriculture head named "Richie Farmer". It was the perfect name for the position, because he's basically a "rich farmer". We all figured he had the job for life, until he made the dumb move to be a running mate for the Republican governor race. He lost. People now know more about the guy, so he'll never get his guaranteed position again. He threw away a good thing because he thought people actually liked him. No, people liked his name.)

I mean, hell, we have a representative democracy for a reason: Our forefathers KNEW that the proles can't and won't research the topics, so they made it representative. Even our representatives don't research the bills they are given to them most of the time.

The reason you eliminate parties is to ensure the only factors affecting the decisions of the representatives other than those related to their particular constituents. That's what I want, representatives to ONLY work for the people they're representing and NOTHING else. Then you can truly have a proper representative government as opposed to the shit we see now (why do I want my representative to have his Quebec colleague affect his decision?). You may still have a bit of pressure on your locale representatives down there but up here, it's amazing if we even know who our rep is

Zeus wrote:The reason you eliminate parties is to ensure the only factors affecting the decisions of the representatives other than those related to their particular constituents. That's what I want, representatives to ONLY work for the people they're representing and NOTHING else.

Well, here in non-fantasy land, that's not how it works. People would vote for the person with the best name, which is like not voting at all, for the most part.

And do you think that removing the parties would magically make people less corrupt? Bullshit. People typically run for office to push their agenda on others, and/or gain more power. Representing the people? Ha! You may me laugh.

At least by tying it to a party, you have some sense of the ideas that they promote.

SineSwiper wrote:

Zeus wrote:The reason you eliminate parties is to ensure the only factors affecting the decisions of the representatives other than those related to their particular constituents. That's what I want, representatives to ONLY work for the people they're representing and NOTHING else.

Well, here in non-fantasy land, that's not how it works. People would vote for the person with the best name, which is like not voting at all, for the most part.

And do you think that removing the parties would magically make people less corrupt? Bullshit. People typically run for office to push their agenda on others, and/or gain more power. Representing the people? Ha! You may me laugh.

At least by tying it to a party, you have some sense of the ideas that they promote.

No, you're missing the point. By removing all other excuses, everything falls down to the representative alone. You can't say "well, the party made him do it" or he follows a certain ideal because he's part of a group who does. First and last excuse is the person and their actions, nothing else.

And if voters are too stupid or lazy to actually know what they're voting for, that's their problem and perogative. Their vote still counts even if they're throwing it away. That's what we call "democracy". Still don't diminish the fact that the current system setup minimizes the true representation of the people and needs to be fixed

I actually don't really like the factionalized political system very much. If it exists, I do think having multiple parties and having a proportional representation part of the body works better. That way we can get some more Greens in there. I've always been NDP, but I want to be able to think that the Greens have a chance at getting the voice they deserve.

Zeus wrote:And if voters are too stupid or lazy to actually know what they're voting for, that's their problem and perogative.

Yes, they are too stupid and lazy. That's my point!

SineSwiper wrote:

Zeus wrote:And if voters are too stupid or lazy to actually know what they're voting for, that's their problem and perogative.

Yes, they are too stupid and lazy. That's my point!

Stupid and lazy still gets a vote if they care to whether you like it or not. Remember, it's not democracy if you always agree with it