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If you look at things in the UK, backbench MPs have considerable more freedom to speak their minds, including publicly opposing government policy and speaking against ministers and the prime minister. Both the Conservatives and Labour party have ongoing issues with backbenchers publicly criticizing the party leaders, and I think that openness is good for democracy.

It's never been about 'racism', that's the narrative the Liberals put forward to deflect from their own incompetence and ineptitude.

The only people who have the first idea about how to do a major reform of the legal system are lawyers, who largely have a financial interest in keeping it the way it is; complex and time consuming. When you charge by the hour you have little incentive to speed things along. If false asylum claims were denied within a week or two, and people shipped out of Canada, far fewer would show up to take advantage of an unwieldy system which promises years in Canada on government allowance before any decision can be made. That's why I think the only thing to do is pass new legislation under the Notwithstanding clause, put new claimants into a nice camp, give them hearings within a week or two, and then deport those that fail to meet stringent standards.

Oh shit, I don't think that you should have said that word "amnesty" here. If that prime mistake of yours sees and reads this it may well be what he will try to do next and allow everyone who enters Canada illegally could or would get amnesty for all. You need to take that post back now before that fool sees it. Just saying.

I don't think anything can really result in better politicians. Except maybe if we do selection by lottery instead of voting. Modern representative democracy is specifically set up to encourage only the most power hungry and unethical individuals to get into office.

If someone is too go*****med lazy to get off their a*s to go to a polling station, even getting a ride from a campaign organization, they don't deserve a vote. Voting is THE most important part of democracy. You get time off from work, the campaign will provide child care, rides to the polls, etc. There is no excuse for not showing up at the polls. Voting is not enough. If you don't get out and campaign for your candidate, both in the nomination process and the election, you have no right to complain about the result.

That is the idealist view of democracy, sure. But the reality is that, to varying extents in different countries, the parties/government drive the discourse or the opinion. Government has enormous power to shape public opinion. These powers include explicit control of permissible discourse (i.e. laws about what is permissible speech and what is not), the power to propose or pass bills that shape the context and content of political discussion for years to come, and of course endless free media coverage of their views and positions. Governments also have immense power of aiding or hindering various organizations through tax policy, trade policy, and regulation. Governments can also criminalize or decriminalize things, which can powerfully shift public perception and discourse around certain issues. Governments also control the content and nature of the education system, which shapes the minds of future generations, and is perhaps the most powerful tool of changing/controlling what future voters will want. I would say that "what voters want" is influenced just as much by their government, as the government is influenced by what voters want, if not more.

1. I saw him saying what to me came pretty close to what I believed he was thinking about and wanting to maybe say. We see today as to what the old man was really thinking about back then and where Canada is today. A multicultural massive third world invasion pile of hodge podge. Trudeau was going to work very hard to try and destroy our once great Canadian British culture and way of life forever and give us an hell hole in return one day. I pretty much think so. 2. I wasn't there there there either. But you sure gave me the impression that you were actually there as you did say that "you were there". I do not believe that I ever said that I was there? 3. It's classless for anyone to be watching CBC or MSNBC or CNN TV. Real and true fake news TV they be. But it is all class for anyone to be watching FOX news though. Maybe I will go to a casino or a movie on election night. Much better entertainment. '

But what convinces the voters where the centre is? If left of centre ideas are constantly being discussed respectfully in parliament and in media courtesy of their being a 'respectable' left wing party in the NDP but no conservative ideas are discussed because there is no respectable party advocating for them then does that not convince the electorate that conservative ideas are scary and irresponsible?

What about a run-off election in those ridings where the leading candidate doesn't get a majority. That keeps it local and each MP has a firm mandate. PR entrenches the power of the parties and the voters of Kootenay-East end up with a party bagman from Toronto as their MP. Parties already have too much power. Under PR, you would never have any independents.

That's why I said that at best, he'd be a backbencher, assuming he wins his seat at all. It might even be more accurate to say candidate in an election than backbencher. It can happen sometimes that a politician succeeds in changing a few minds. But again, the politician who tries to do that will certainly never sit in cabinet or at least not for very long. The reality is though that the party that best follows opinion polls stands the best chance of forming a government.

Not entirely correct. Yes, a party can govern by the polls. Alternatively, a candidate can try to persuade the electorate and may or may not succeed. A party that governs by the polls is the one that will govern the most often, whereas the candidate who strives to persuade might not even win an election or, if he wins an election, will most probably sit as a backbencher in opposition. That said, he will probably change the political landscape far more than any PM or cabinet member will because whereas he might change a few voters' minds, they will simply have adapted themselves to the popular opinion. It's the reality of politics. The party in power implements the will of the people whereas the opposition backbencher changes the minds of the people.

Remove party names from the ballot, let each candidate run as an independent, and there you'll have 300 plus diverse ideas in Parliament. step 1: remove party names from ballots.

2) It supports a theory that the economy was on the upswing when Trump came in, but not at the rate that it is now. 3) Did you feel like BLM strife was a problem for Obama? I got the feeling that he was supporting it because he never had a bad word to say about them. He did, however, blame the murder of 5 police officers on "centuries of slavery, racism and Jim Crowe laws" which basically made a martyr of their murderer. Obama was a pice of crap. 5) https://themarketswork.com/2018/02/18/resignations-demotions-some-details-complicity-at-the-fbi-doj/ 6) I agree that Trump is a shitty businessman, he's just a really good PR guy for himself when he isn't saying things that are utterly classless. He still never did anything illegal with Russians though, and his campaign finance violations are the same things that Bill Clinton and Tom Edwards did, and they were ruled to be innocent of campaign finance violations. 7) Trump won't be disgraced by any of this unless he's found guilty of something, which doesn't seem likely to happen now. If the FBI doesn't find at least some evidence of Russian collusion then they are going to have to run some of their own members up on criminal charges though, because there were too many improprieties during the FISA application process. The FBI can't be seen to be misrepresenting laughable evidence to the courts in order to obtain a warrant against any citizen who was actually innocent, especially a sitting president. 8) Trump is the most crass, but his trucker mouth doesn't make him a criminal. Brennan is the poster boy for slimesters, sitting in front of a camera and saying that Trump is known to be a criminal and to have committed treason, just for the purpose of influencing the mid-term elections in favour of the Demmies, when Brennan knows better than anyone that there's still no evidence of a Trump crime and there likely won't be. Comey and Strzok are slime: lying to Congress, leaking information, exonerating Hillary when they are 100% aware that she committed crimes... McCabe altered official FBI investigation statements. Hillary is known to have colluded with foreign nationals (british and russian) to get this whole investigation started, for the sole purpose of influencing an election. Everyone on earth knows that Bill Clinton had a clandestine tarmac meeting with AG Lynch right before they exonerated her. Do we know why they both just happened to be on that tarmac at the exact same time? What were their itineraries? Why is the FBI trying to find out who leaked the fact that they met up instead of trying to find out if Bill was improperly influencing the outcome of a serious FBI investigation? Adam Schiff has stood in front of cameras and made dozens of declarative statements re: collusion, almost all of which he knew to be incorrect at the time that he made them. CNN never called him on any of it, they just peddle the lies and never issue retractions or clarifications. The list goes on and on. You're calling trump slimy when you can't point to a single thing he did in Washington that's a crime, and ignoring enough subject matter to write a series of novels. When the dust eventually settles on this, the FBI will look like the Democrat party's own personal KGB and Hillary will still be the exact person that I knew she was 20 years ago when she smiled her smug little smile after Bill admitted to his affair. You might ate Trump but the best thing that ever happened to America was when Hillary lost that election. Unfortunately it was Trump that won.

The U.S. DOJ indicted 19 foreign nationals for illegally voting in the 2016 election. Strange that we didn't hear the media or Democrats get upset about this as I really thought they were horrified about the idea of foreign interference in elections? http://thehill.com/homenews/news/403502-doj-charges-19-foreign-nationals-with-voting-in-2016-election

You're doing OK - but it's critical that we define the problem as an Asylum problem. Immigration - people who want and plan to come to Canada and follow the process for acceptance - is fairly well controlled with a points system that accepts those that have a fighting chance for making a contribution to Canada. There's room for argument on some of the components - like elderly family re-unification but all in all, it has worked reasonably well. It's vital that the "national dialogue" focus and remain on Asylum seekers at our borders - that's the problem that Canadians see - as it is in Europe and even the US. Liberals want the conversation to encompass immigration so they can paint any opposition as the bad guys - racists. They need that manufactured conflict to divert attention from their incompetence. We needed to get out in front of it and so far, we've failed miserably.

I seem to remember Immigration Minister Hussen saying that calling Canada's border-crossing issue a crisis was racist?- well – I guess he's a racist saying our system is unsustainable. MP Michelle Rempel has been putting out the facts but the Liberals only chose to spin and smear, a tactic which is ethically unsound and shows how they don’t want us to know the truth. Could this be a prelude to an amnesty cos Trudeau’s strategy of calling people racist isn’t going to work anymore.

...and arguably just as "racist".

Mikel Jollett nails it. The disparity is provocative to say the least.