MightyAC

Sadly, I have a feeling this won't hurt his anti-gay movement that much in the end. Although, I'm fairly certain his "end" was a little sore after leaving the drug dealing, gay man whore, masseur's place. Initially, Haggard denied even knowing the guy. Then he admits to buying meth and receiving massages from him. Obviously, the guy is a liar and a hypocrite and likely needs some psychological counseling. Based on my immense knowledge of the human psyche obtained from TV crime dramas I'd say he has been brainwashed by the church from a young age and really believes that homosexuals are depraved, vile, sinners, yet he couldn't fight his genetics and gave into his inborn sexual urges. Now to atone for his belief that he sinned he has championed an army of 30 million plus ultra conservative Christian homophobes. He may feel that even though he is likely gay that his god will forgive him if he makes life miserable for gays in general. I'd like to believe that this guy will go down in flames and somehow the evil spell he has put on his zombie followers will be broken...but I doubt that will happen. Deprogramming is tough and it takes a long time. Anyway, I'm glad Haggard has been disgraced and maybe, just maybe, a handful of his followers will become a little more liberal (note the small L) in their views and be a little less judgmental of others. Maybe one day participants of all organized religions around the world will be content to live by their own belief systems without attempting to inflict them upon others.

I can understand resistance to systems that elect MPs that do not represent a specific riding...I don't agree with the arguments, but I understand. Why do you oppose multi-member districts?

Great if it doesn't matter why not switch to a system that actually elects the government Canadians vote for? There are many people like iamcanadian that are too apathetic to care... Even worse there are some that think like Figleaf who support are winner take all system that produces results like those in the quote above. Like Figleaf most people don't really understand PR. Figleaf doesn't like the idea of list MPs. Great, many forms of PR don't use list MPs. Bradco is a proponent of STV which uses none at all. However, most people like Figleaf simply oppose PR because they have an agenda. Over the last 15 years Liberal supporters have been served very well by our lack of democracy. Chretien won 3 majorities without ever receiving more than 42% of the vote. Most people aren’t even aware that parties can receive dictatorial majority power with less than 50% of the vote…but in Canada it is not only possible but very common. Bloc supporters routinely get a huge bonus simply because their supporters are concentrated in one area. Oh well ridiculous threshold or not the ball is now rolling. Votes have and are taking place in BC, PEI, NB and Ontario. It is just a matter of time before we join the many other nations that have switched to newer much more democratic systems. Self serving politicians and greedy party supporters like Figleaf will fight for their advantaged situation but in time they'll loose. The 60% threshold is likely too high for a change to take place right now but in the process people will be educated about various electoral systems. As more people realize that in Canada every vote is not equal and the majority does not rule, they will be amazed and disgusted. They will wonder how a country like Canada can call itself democratic when some votes are worth more than others...They'll ask why it only takes 30,000 votes to elect a Bloc MP but over 100,000 to elect someone from the NDP. Education will start to kill apathy and eventually we'll get democracy.

For those that feel provinces should be able to sepparate, can cities sepparate from provinces? Should say Toronto or Calgary be able to become city states on their own if the residents vote in favour? Should I be able to create my own nation on my own land if the majority of my family members vote in favour?

I agree with most of what you said about majorties and the advantages of PR. I do have some exceptions though.. Making the threshold 50% + 1 does not mean there we’d be changing the system every year or two. The threshold has nothing to do with the frequency of change. The government itself decides whether or not there will be a referendum in the first place. Why? Any threshold is an arbitrary number. Anything other than 50% + 1 simply means that a minority voice has more power than a majority. Plus governments make major changes that affect our lives all the time based on a 50% + 1 vote in parliament. Why is majority rule fine for government votes but we, the people, require higher thresholds? I like both the Mixed Member Proportional system and the Single Transferable Vote, but I prefer MMP. Under MMP most MPs come from a riding and a few list MPs represent their party in order to balance out the popular vote. The size of the ridings under MMP are smaller than STV thus MPs would represent a much more specific area. Also the percentage of wasted votes tends to be smaller under MMP than STV, depending on the number of MPs in each riding. The greater the number of candidates in an STV system means fewer wasted votes. However unless the size of parliament is dramatically increased the ridings have to grow much larger. This is fine in small countries or provinces but for large relatively sparse areas this system doesn’t work that well. STV would be fine in the South Western Ontario as it well populated. In Northern Ontario 1 riding would have to encompass such a vast area that geographical representation is lost anyway. I find MMP a great compromise. It gives better geographical rep than STV in most cases, (STV would suite PEI, NS and NB perfectly), it limits the amount of wasted votes very well and it still correctly represents how people vote.

I too applaud Harper for taxing the trusts. Perhaps "the howls from the liberals" reflect the fact that Harper condemned the previous government for proposing to tax the trusts. Or perhaps "the howls from the liberals" reflect the fact that he promised not to tax the trusts. Perhaps the howls come as a result of the great big lie.

Retirees and pension plans are the largest purchasers of income trusts. Proportionally old people vote in the greatest numbers. We are an aging country. Earlier I said that Harper is betting the average voter has the memory of a goldfish... When it comes to seniors they may forget they told you the same story 5 minutes ago but they don't forget when someone screws with their pension income. I'm guessing this will hurt the CPC and as a result they will throw a bone to the seniors...maybe full pension splitting.

I wonder if the income trust bomb the CPC dropped on retirees will now pave the way for income splitting for seniors. Senior pensioners are a key democraphic for the Cons, will they now throw a bone to their way to save support?

I think the original Liberal and now Conservative decision makes sense. The problem is that Captain Accountability, Stephen Harper, flat out promised that he would not do this. He even bashed the Libs for their plan to do the exact same thing. People made financial decisions based, in part, on those assurances and those people will now potentially loose money. Hopefully most investors do nothing in the short term and minimize the damage done. To run on an accountability platform and then deliver a lie of this magnitude is inexcusable. Harper must be betting that the average voter has a memory akin to that of a goldfish. As a result his government will be a lame duck for awhile. He will not want to go to the polls anytime soon so that will give an immense power boost to the opposition. I wonder how Layton will approach the Green meeting now..

So the McGuinty Libs announced that the threshold for electoral reform in our upcoming referendum will be a very undemocratic 60%. Plus at least 60% of the ridings will have to vote with majority support. So much for democracy. No political party in Ontario has ever won 60% of the vote yet they have no problem instituting major changes to public policy. A 60% threshold means minority rule. 40% + 1 can tell 60% of the population what to do. That is absolutely ridiculous...it is disgusting in fact. Our soldiers are fighting and dying to force democracy on a nation and the McGuinty Libs blatantly abuse democracy here at home. People all have a different ideas of what would be the ideal electoral system in Ontario, but I'm sure we can all agree that for democracy to be effect the majority must rule. A system will be proposed and the people will get to vote. Purposely setting an almost unreachable condition on the vote is a slap in the face to voters. The McGuinty Liberals have told us that the people do not matter. If anyone would like to help tar and feather the Ontario premiere let me know.. I'll rent a bus and bring the tar and feathers. :angry:

And yet Harper said he would let him MPs be themselves. Turner remains popular in his riding. Letting MP's be themselves does not mean allowing them to attack Government policies or the party's policy as expressed in policy statements, voted on, by the party. What "voted on" policy or policies are you referring to? The fact that any sitting MP can loose the Con nomination even right after an election?

I didn’t defend Mr. Chuckman or the validity of the details in his post. I wrote an angry couple paragraphs about a common problem within political message boards. More and more often people seem to have trouble reading anything longer than a paragraph but sill feel the need to make a partisan comment about it. The two posts I quoted were perfect examples. The posters actually said they didn’t read it, yet still called it biased, drivel, etc. If a post is “not worth reading” fine but then it’s probably not worth making partisan comments about either. First of all I didn’t single out Israel; I mentioned popular US examples as well. There are hundreds of examples and you provided many yourself. My point was simply that “Maybe it’s time to challenge ridiculous Western imperialistic foreign policy”. I’ll expand.. I realize that our security sometimes requires that we get involved in foreign conflicts and it is preferable to have someone else do the dirty work…especially if we’d like to see that someone else dead too. However, I’m sure we are all aware that nations don’t always get involved in foreign conflicts for security or humanitarian reasons. We attempt to secure resources, affect commodity prices, install Western friendly leaders, etc. In the process we provide money and weapons to some very unstable groups who tend to do some very bad things to their own people and their neighbours. That doesn’t seem wise to me, in fact it seems quite stupid, unless of course the ultimate goal is really to keep a region unstable for an extended period of time. That’s why I think we should challenge Western imperialistic foreign policy. I also said that I do not support Canada’s decision to unequivocally back Israel. Harper has said that Hezbollah and Hamas are listed as terrorist groups so we will always side against terrorism. Terrorist is simply a label. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. I'm not defending Hezbollah or Hamas but I can understand why locals support them. All nations have the right to defend themselves but Israel goes far beyond defense. In the 06 conflict with Hezbollah roughly 7 Lebanese (mostly civilian) died for every 1 Israeli (mostly soldiers). Israel also devastated the infrastructure of Beirut and killed their tiny, fragile economy. That’s not defending itself, that’s taking revenge. It seems counter productive to me to kill civilians and create even more poverty if the goal is to someday create peace. From the point of view of the Lebanese Hezbollah builds hospitals, schools and provides money while Israel kills parents, children, relatives, destroys buildings and bridges, and eradicates jobs. It seems to me that Israel is the ultimate Hezbollah recruiting tool. Why not support the Lebanese economy and give the people something to loose. Also support the Lebanese army and intelligence forces so that they can keep Hezbollah at bay. In time, much time, people will start see Israel as a trading partner and meal ticket rather than an aggressive murderous regime. Also, as the economy improves people have something to loose and are less likely to give their lives for a cause. If a country is responsible for killing some of my friends, family, etc and then an election comes along a party vows to get revenge they’d likely get my vote. If I had no job, no money, no hope, relatively little to live for and religious fanatics telling me I will be honoured in the afterlife I may give my life to seek revenge.

Lately I've been impressed by Garth Turner. It's a rare thing these days when a politician puts his or her constituents ahead of the party. He recognizes that he represents everyone in his riding not just those that voted Conservative. I find that inspiring. If I had my way we would have a mixed member proportional system, no senate, fixed 4 year terms, no ability to topple coalition governments and a partridge in a pear tree. I agree with August’s excellent group project analogy…PR tends to greatly increase voter turn out. I’m not sure why exactly but I suspect it is because every vote counts. Currently, why would Conservative voters in Toronto, Liberals in Alberta or Green voters anywhere bother heading to the polls? I think the fact that under PR those people can still help create representation makes the difference.

Here are two examples of a problem that hampers all intelligent discussion. So if something challenges a predetermined position it’s not worth reading? Or is it the fact that something challenged the position of a party that you hold a membership in? In these two cases the discreditors didn't even read the whole post. I'm guessing enough was read to determine that they didn't like the direction and like good foot soldiers fought for their party. Not with any counter arguments though...just with angry little criticisms of its direction. sad I particularly like the claim of bias…of course it is biased…everything on this board is biased. In this case the definition of bias seems to be any statement that goes against a supported position. I’m guessing that statements like the Liberals are a bunch of lying thieves or the NDP are left wing nut jobs would be considered perfectly unbiased by the authors of the quotes above. I think Jerry was correct in saying that this is “none of our business” and that “we can't fix the problem for them and we can't fight their battles for them”. That’s why I have a hard time supporting our government’s position on this issue. Why are we unequivocally backing a side that acts more like a terrorist group than the surrounding factions that have been labeled as such? I also love how “our” side can support the enemy one minute and attack them then next. Israel supported Hamas so they could fight Fata and destabilize Palestine. In the past the US supported Iran, Sadam in Iraq, the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Maybe it’s time to challenge ridiculous Western imperialistic foreign policy. I don't think we

Are you seriously saying this is a result of PR or did you just want to tell your interesting story? Despite having a first past the post system Canada elected a PM that channeled the spirtit of his dead dog... I think he may have been our longest serving PM as well.

I suspect its popularity is derived from the fact that it makes it easier for politicians to do the "dip and dive", i.e. avoid responsibility for not keeping promises. Any government, by definition, winds up being a mixed bag of parties, so no one party can be held to its promises or even basic philosophy. I suspect its popularity is derived from the fact that every votes counts and the elected government matches the vote count. How MPs vote is public knowledge so they can't hide. You prefer a system that gives dictatorial power to a party with as little as 40% of the popular vote simply because they have no excuse for not keeping a promise? Talk about mixed up priorities.

We've had proportional representation in Canada before. It didn't work very well in Manitoba. It was quite unfair to urban areas and was eventually abolished itself. If they could come up with a formula that was not unfair to urban or rural areas and didn't bog down the government in every collapsing coalitions, I'd be in favour of it. Every time it has been put to a vote in Canada, it has been defeated. Mixed Member PR is not unfair to urban areas. MPs are still elected from ridings; obviously there are more ridings in more heavily populated areas. In fact, I'm not aware of a PR system that is unfair to more heavily populated areas. Since every vote actually counts in a PR system, areas with more population have more say. Also, a vote in parliament against PR doesn't mean that PR is wrong....it is never in the interest of the governing party to turf the system that got it there. As the old southern saying goes “Dance with the one what brung ya”. Chrétien was all for PR until he won 3 majority governments without ever receiving more than 42% of the vote. Harper was for it until he could almost taste a false majority of his own. Anyway, my point is that under PR the mix of parties in the house match how Canadians actually vote so there would be no need for a senate. Right now a party can win a (false) majority even though only 35%-40% of the country voted for it. It doesn't seem right that a party should be amble to ram through bills despite the fact that they only have the support of 1/3 of the country. A senate can then theoretically act as a safety net. Whether they do or not is a different story. Anyway, for a party to win a majority under PR they would have to gain 50% + 1 of the vote and since the do in fact speak for the majority of the country I see no need for a senate.

I agree with GC1765… I would support aborting my own twins conjoined at the head…however the original statement in this thread was implying the abnormal twins shouldn’t be permitted to be born…which is quite a different story. The cost argument seems irrelevant to me as well. The cost of separating and then caring for the twins pales in comparison to amount spent on fat, lazy bastards and smokers. I am in good shape, I eat well, I don’t smoke, I exercise regularly should I get some money back or preferential medical treatment because I am less of a risk to our system? Of course not… There is no perfect way to provide universal care and then ensure that every gets a fair slice of the pie. Our system needs to be replaced but with what? The Swiss, Luxembourg and Japanese systems seem to get a lot of praise….maybe we should investigate those.

Right now I’m glad we have a Senate as safety net because the representation we get in the house doesn’t match how we vote. If we had a form of PR and the government did match how we vote then I’d be in favour of abolishing the Senate completely.

One, that would empower the 'dippers'. Two, Israel and Italy have PR. It totally emasculates accountability since the government can blame any failure to keep promises on "coalition partners". It seems that people think PR is one specific type of electoral system. There are many forms and combinations of PR. The majority democracies in the world use some form of PR. A mixed member proportional system wouldn't be much different than what we have now...except that the actual number of MPs in the house would match how Canadians vote. Imagine getting the government we vote for. I say any system that distorts how we vote is undemocratic. Here are 10 great first past the post low points in Canada: http://fairvotecanada.org/en/node/148

Mixed meber PR would elect MPs from a riding as we do now. Then only a handful of party members are elected from a list afterwards to match the popular vote. Those in a riding won by say a Liberal can still help to add Conservative, NDP, Green, etc list MPs so they still have an infinite amount more representation than they do right now. Under the super riding styple of PR every MP is from a riding.

I'm completely in favour of the CHOICE to have an abortion but this post is absolute lunacy. What are you proposing imposed abortion because some medical cases are expensive?! So do you propose we have economists estimate the costs of children born with illnesses and abnormalities and if the number exceeds a predetermined amount an abortion is ordered. "Sorry ma'am your baby is a freak and too damned expensive please spread your legs so we suck it out." Maybe your idea should be extended to adults as well. "Sorry Mr. Smith that type of cancer is expensive to treat and is rarely defeated. You now have 10 minutes to say goodbye to your wife before we kill you." We could even extinguish adults with low IQ scores and strengthen the herd...ouch...that one probably hit a little too close to home didn’t it?

A little dramatic...but at least the Reformers were actually representing their socially Conservative voters and it was only be attacked by outsiders. Now socons attack procons and vice versa. No MP is allowed to speak without a script and approval while the PM tries to parlay 30% core support into a majority. Under PR the CPC party could split and return to actually representing those right of center. The formerly angry Libs are now slowly returning to their party; Conservative support will return to normal...even when they use the Liberal trick of buying votes with surplus cash. In its current form the CPC will start to loose the socons like the PCs did years ago. Harper is walking the razors edge but they can only be patronized for so long before they realize they are never going to be thrown a bone. I just hope we have PR in time so that both halves of the right can receive representation rather than competing for the same seat.

I don't blame them for missing the old days, under the CPC banner MPs are not able to be themselves. MPs cannot have a social opinion, or any opinion for that matter, for fear of being slammed by supporters of their OWN party. In the old days the SoCons could be SoCons and the progressives could be progressives. They were allowed to speak freely, represent their constituents and they were only attacked by supporters of other parties. Now they are bound, gagged and forced to be part of the collective...resistance is futile...you will be assimilated...or kicked out of caucus. The Reformers and PCs are too just too different. The same would happen to the Libs and NDP if forced to combine. Here’s the solution… Give us PR. Give us two right options again, the center-right PCs and the further right Reformers, and let MPs represent the people that voted for them. I’m guessing that would be preferable to walking on eggshells over a mountain made out of mole hills. (Sorry, I had to throw in a song lyric there).

Maybe he should have shut his f*cking mouth and been a team player after not being named to cabinet instead of causing a stink and giving the PM a black eye. Part of why he was left out of cabinet was his reputation for not being a team player. It was a critical time for him after Harper named his first cabinet. Garth failed the test big time. There was no way he was ever making it into a Harper cabinet after that ouburst. Yeah what a terrible guy...he put is constituents before the party. Anyway, the CPC likes to talk the talk but they don't seem to practice what they preech.. IMO MPs should be accountable to their voters not the dictatorial PM and his office.