Vega

The U.S. would have more of a claim to be a bilingual country than we do. Just throwing that out there. But as I said with the Senate appointments, and some will disagree, but I doubt this system will hold under a future Conservative government.

Neither Trump nor certainly Harper are racists. Just because you disagree with them, as I do on most issues, doesn't mean they're racists. I base that on all the people Trump and also Harper have dealt with over their careers. You dont get to the top if you hate other races, especially business and politics where you negotiate and have to be around other races all the time. Trump has said racially insensitive things, but that doesn't mean he's racist.

Ranked Balloting/Instant-runoff voting most certainly isn't proportional and isn't much better than first past the post in the long run. I would rather we have no reform than have have politicians pat themselves on their back with that system. Another problem with proportional systems and even IRV is that the results take a long time to count, with election counting dragging on to a month or so. You can see this in Ireland. Weak coalitions would also be a problem, and one that I would rather not have.

The worst thing the Conservatives - or NDP for that matter - could do is try to follow in the mold of Justin Trudeau.

I would rather we in BC just become part of the U.S. under such a scenario. Anyway, yeah, provinces are quasi-powerful but not as powerful as American states. I would rather we just become a unitary country rather than continue with the weird federal system we have.

Nothing shocking about it, really. The U.S. had similar requirements early on, let alone for Blacks.

I doubt the Conservatives will go along with it, owing to their name. I feel like a fine way to get a less partisan Senate would be to let the Governor-General pick them. He already leads the nation in not being overly political, so I'm sure he could fill new Senators in that mold as well.

Mainly because it provides no certainty. Should the Conservatives eventually get back into power, they could decide to appoint Senators another way. There needs to be a definiteness to the Senate that this middle ground doesn't accomplish

Justin Trudeau is probably the shortest tallest person I've ever seen. He definitely doesn't seem 6'2. Also, for what it's worth, current American Secretary of State and former '04 Presidential nominee John Kerry is 6' 4", and I remember reading that it didn't help him when he ran against Bush back then.

If everything goes halfway right for him, he'll probably be in office for as long as his father.

Why can't we just go back to having the Senate be how it was? Either that or get rid of it wholestock. This meeting in the middle just won't work and is weird. That being said, I filled out an application.

It's rather remarkable that Trudeau never had any personal indiscretions appear in the press. Either he is and was an upstanding individual, or he got lucky.

I'm still surprised nothing was ever said in the campaign about Harper's hair and its dubious authenticity.

I mean, not really, it did open him up to prettyboy attacks, though some of that was self-induced.

I know it won't be considered, but I feel like I have to bring up a fantastic voting system in Mixed Member Majoritarian (or MMM, if you prefer acronyms). A good many countries use it including Japan and South Korea. Essentially you have MPs elected by voting on part of the ballot for the party, which has an open list by which the MPs are selected. Then separately, you have your normal constituency elections. If you were to have 50% of the MPs elected via the open party list, and the other by constituency where things stay the same, it would be really great.

She'll be 67 in June, so not that young. I really don't get why U.S. politicians are some of the oldest in Western democracies.

I never thought it was possible to be annoyed by a PM more than ever but also agree with most of the things he talks about before.

That was absolutely hilarious.

I wouldn't say Canada is broke, and if we were, it certainly wouldn't be because of Syrian refugees. That being said, I'll have to look into your information. I don't think they should be here, but evidently the majority of Canadians are more sympathetic than I, because they elected the Liberals and Justin who want more refugees (thankfully, they haven't been able to deliver). If you think about it, Canada is evidently quite fine with refugees/immigrants considering how many haven't protested their massive arrival in the past 30 + odd years. We live in a country that is 20% or more minority, compared to Britain with a minority population of under 10% likely and there are huge fits of anger at the new-coming immigrants. Canada just hasn't seen a patently popular political figure or party that is willing to be anti-immigration/refugee.

Yeah, it's actually really funny to see the supposed party of equality get so upset over the situation. Her and Brown should have been treated with the same level of concern for their safety (AKA - there was no concern). This hilarious idea that somehow Brosseau was so, so incredibly shaken by the experience she had to miss the vote feeds into those nasty gender stereotypes we here about so much from people in the NDP, no?

I mean, I'm sure that there are some kindergarten teachers who do that to their students.

That's his next move when they're debating the pot bill.

I don't think there is any doubt that he didn't mean to hit Brosseau, he obviously didn't, but he put himself in a really stupid situation a Prime Minister shouldn't be. Maybe it was bouncer instincts, but it was incredibly stupid and will no doubt make international semi-news.

The entire "Just Not Ready" campaign seems to be pretty poignant right about now.

Yeah, I can only imagine. I think the fact that Trudeau feels he can manhandle MPs is a bit concerning. Not even his father did that. Mulcair really got upset.