hitops

Completely agree. Budgets are important to your average voter. More visibility for the guy who checks the numbers is a good thing.

I can see the appeal of that on a level. Again I would point out that pure PR would basically eliminate people's ability to vote for an MP and leave them only parties. It assumes people just vote on the 3 very general ideologies presented to them on the national stage rather than specific MP's. This may be true for some, but I prefer at least giving people the chance to vote for more specific, regional candidates. Even with the modified system where extra MP's are awarded to top up the party to their national vote percentage, this still means a higher emphasis on the party rather than the MP since the party determines which MP's run where.A fairer representative system IMO is one where a voter can choose to vote for any MP in the country. Anybody who meets the requirements can run. They would declare their party, or no party, or any viewpoint imaginable. The number of MP's doesn't matter, but at least several hundred to accommodate the many potential viewpoints. The vote % is then divided exactly according to number voted received by each candidate. Total votes are determined, and divided by number of seats in the house. Rather than simply award the top 308 candidates the seats, the candidates are then awarded power to appoint MP's according to their vote share. So say Elizabeth May alone attracts 5% of the vote, she then assigns 5% of the seats. If everyone loves Jim Flaherty and he gets 15%, then Flaherty, not the CPC, assigns 15% of the seats. Actually a candidate with some vote power does not even need to assign themselves a seat, though I'm sure most of the time they would. The has the benefits of the modified PR system without any of the dependence on party in filling the house. It would let people vote truly directly for the person they want and that person gets influence accordingly. Of course, parties would still be critical in fundraising, organizing etc for a candidate and that part of their influence would rightly remain as that is part if democracy as well.

Public vilification is therefore also a form of free speech, your argument is self-defeating.

Your point was that viewing images already created does not do further harm. You did not address the reasons stated as to why that opinion is irredeemably wrong. Victims who know their suffering is continuously enjoyed by others, feel continuously victimized. The New York Times did an a very thorough piece on exactly this. It also wrong that without pictures, the same amount of abuse would take place. Viewing the pictures creates the market for that abuse, just like advertising any activity enlarges the market for it. If you don't think so, I suppose you probably also believe that advertising on TV is not effective.

PBO was one of the best ideas to come along in a long time from a politician. He did his job admirably and I have huge respect for his fierce objectivity and independent style even when it caused trouble for gov. Hopefully we get another one. I believe Page is the highest rates holder of public office.

Good point. It was always obvious that tax exemption for charitable groups doing humanitarian work in another country was exactly that and nothing more.

And the drawback is that it means some ridings would have a lot more influence over the results than others. Basically anywhere the result is very close, the loser is going anyway because of high percentage of the vote. Certain ridings would therefore systematically send 2 MP's while others never would. It seems unfair to allow some ridings to have double the influence. Parties could very easily identify those ridings and simply place favored people where they know they will be MP's even if they lose. Being a candidate who is therefore not able to win on your own merit but rather because of party placement, you are even more beholding to the party than they are now.Not saying its the worst system, but it really just takes one kind of imbalance and replaces it with another.

I think cheap, accessible post-secondary education is a tremendously good financial investment for a nation, however it can also be a source of terrible misallocations of capital. Some of the drawbacks: 1) The numbers don't work, because university costs like anything else, are highly subject to demand for those services. Massively increasing demand will accordingly drive up the cost and therefore applying current costs and just multiplying by more people will underestimate this cost. We already have this problem with student loans artificially raising the cost of education for everyone else. 2) It lowers the barrier to entry, which means more people who are kind of listless and non-directed will hover around not accomplishing much, and likely getting degrees which are unmarketable or of no net gain to the economy. We already have this problem in spades, creating more of it is not desirable. Ideally, the demand for university education should reflect the value of that education in the marketplace. Making everything free will just encourage all kinds of new subjects and departments to spring up to try to attract students and their government-allocated cash, will little benefit beyond employing university staff members. 3) Catering to demands because of riots, does not stop riots. It just confirms that rioting is how you get things done. I'd prefer to live in Canada, not revolutionary Egypt. When people try to get something just by demanding it, they are rarely happy even when they get it. Satisfaction with something like a paycheck of an education comes from working at it and making sacrifices for it, not having it handed to you. Any kind of subsidy for education should directly reflect the nation's need for that type of education. If you need more electricians, make community college for that reason free or very cheap, etc.

I think the drawbacks regarding PR have been well stated. As noted by others, while it sounds reasonable that people might be more appropriately represented by party, it also seems self-evident that many more of the MP's would be directly dependent on the party, rather than the votes for their placement in the house. This increases the importance and scope of the party rather than the MP. The argument against regional representative as being old fashioned misses the point. It's not that people in one region think alike, it is the fact that regional economics are usually the most important, and whatever is good for the region in general is economically beneficial to everyone in that region. A florist doesn't care about the tar sands per se, but she does care that more money coming in to the area means more flowers sold. Or she believes that pollution is bad for flowers, or whatever. Democracy certainly does imply consenting to rule by some for majority, meaning you don't always get what you want. The leading theories on why mid-east nations go into chaos in power vacuums are largely based on the fact they have no civil society. In the west we have hundreds of years of civil society predating our central governments, where people were part of groups, clubs, lodges etc and got used to the fact that voting doesn't mean you get what you want. If you don't like the CPC, using the current as example, but that's what you get, that doesn't mean you don't live a democracy, it just means a lot of other people who do like the CPC live in that democracy with you. In every conceivable form of elections, the majority of people will find themselves opposed to many or all of the views of their representative. That occurs even when the rep you vote for wins, as you may differ with them on many things as well. Going away from FPTP does not solve that problem.

Academics don't start discussions by responding with "I can only suspect you are from some sheltered backwater....". Whether you believe I work in academia or not......it's very clear you don't.

Sorry double post.

I think this is pretty much it. If you manage to immigrate here (other than refugees), you are probably better at paddling your own canoe and those kinds of people tend to identify with conservative values. It's not the values and polices that will sink the CPC, it's the wide variety of clownish characters they have.

Could not be more untrue. It fosters demand for the product, leading to increased production of the product and further victimization. It is also well-known that it is almost impossible for victims to recover when they know people are continuing to view their abuse day after day. Mentally for them its like being re-victimized again and again. Imagine somebody raped you. Other people actually love watching you get raped, and even though the pain has gone away, how do you feel knowing many people are still getting pleasure from watching your pain on an ongoing basis? A market does not only need to refer to finances. For example, politicians trade in the market of self-importance all the time. Regardless of money, the demand for the pictures is there, and therefore that will encourage further production of them.

I see the logic in it, I also think that candidates in less voter-dense ridings would be at a disadvantage, and the party could place its friends and loyalists in voter-dense but unlikely-to-win ridings. Or would this be purely on a percentage of vote/riding basis? There is also the issue that obviously, with PR you will get unending minority governments that get little done and constantly lurch from confidence crisis to confidence crisis. Another issue I see is that essentially what would be happening is voters from some other part of the country would be helping a candidate of their party and not necessary their own candidate. Perhaps they actually really love their candidate because that candidate stands up for values they like even in the face of the party. Well if votes transfer to the 'best loser', that eliminates that independence and increase lock-step party line loyaly which diminishes representative democracy.

I guess that's where the reading stops, you're not making yourself very much worth the time. Could use a refresher in communication skills as well. If you're interested in saying something intelligent, please do so.

They are not left without representation, they are just left without the representative they want. Even if every person got to elect the MP they wanted 100% of the time, people still would not be perfectly represented because there are as many opinions as people. Whenever a single person represents more than just him/herself, they are not necessarily representing their constituents. Nature of the beast This might confer representation if the votes went directly to the candidates, not the party. For example you login online and spend your vote on whichever MP you want (not party), and the top MP's sit.

I live in a major city, and have 12+ years of post-secondary education including 6+ years of post-graduate. I am work daily in academia Perhaps its you who are from the 'backwater', or at least the intellectual backwater, as your quickness to make judgments you know literally nothing about demonstrates aptly. The fact that you deride the backwater in any case, supports that further as you have just demonstrated yourself to be willing to paint with the widest brush and the least thought. Or maybe you're just an angry person, who's to say? You've made no argument, just veiled insults. In any case, your post has nothing to do with mine, so I'm unsure why you made it....other than to indulge your emotions. If you're interested some particular point, maybe you'll let us know.

Wrong. When you a person who repeatedly claims ei for months at a time, year after year, every year, your premiums don't even come close to covering what you get paid. Its everyone else who is paying for you. Insurance programs in the real world do not insure people who continuously make claims year after year. Any insurer who did that, would quickly go out of business. Employment insurance is a completely fine concept, but it shouldn't be run at the expense of people who do not want it. In other words, it might make sense of it was in private hands and premiums or approval were subject to normal real-world risk assessments. Forcing everyone else to contribute just reinforces false markets and encourages inefficient allocation of human resources in the country. The best solution would be to lower the payouts or eliminate them, and let people adapt. Most likely, idle laborers in the east would move west which has a DESPERATE need for labor, and the remaining laborers in the east would see their wages go up (because of demand from fisheries, etc) during on-season such that they could make more to carry them through the year. That is how a healthy market operates.

Just a quick note. For those trying to tie this to Harper or the CPC in some way, maybe you did not read the actual full contextual quote. Immediately before his wrong statement, Flannigan specifically identified the issue as one he disagreed with the CPC on. He specifically identified the conservatives as having a 'jihad' against pornographers, and that he felt they were wrong in that regard. True however, that Harper has more than his fill of appointed clowns recently.

Still not an argument for why my tax dollars should be used to make sure people do less work on the side.

And yet even where they don't have the same EI system as us, tradesmen still exist and work. It's too bad that you will have a tough time, and will have a hard time finding skilled workers. But that's not an argument for why my taxes dollars should go to make sure you have an easier time. We all make choices in life, you made yours, and your workers made theirs. Different jobs have different levels of pay, and different risks. I didn't put a gun to your head to make you do carpentry, nor should I be forced to hand out so that workers in your industry don't have to look for work as often. So now the tree has fallen and crushed my house. Dang. What happens when there are less tradesmen? Exactly what has always happened in any industry when there is less labor.....the price of labor increases. So now its most costly for my home insurance company to cover the repairs. Well....that's why I have insurance. A year later I want to remodel my bathroom just for fun, so I have to pay for that Because of less EI, and therefore less carpenters, its going to cost me more and maybe take longer to complete. Well that's my choice to make, and my decision to live with. There's no reason the government should artificially mess with the labor market to change that decision for me. If its too much....well I just don't do it. That's life, and the natural ebb and flow of the market. The government should not exist to make sure we can all continue to live the way we want. Life has hard times and good times, it should not be up to me to pay for you to have more of the good times, nor vice versa.

The article does not appear to support the OP. Canada's economy is not soaring....just like everyone else's. But compared to everyone else's we're doing quite well. Forbes rated Canada the best place in the world to invest last year. Our currency is strong, our debt/GDP ratio is low, our banking sector is solid, and Flaherty is widely regarding as a great finance minister worldwide. There seem to be a lot of clowns in the CPC nowadays but people appear to think this automatically means government policy has been bad. Actually its been quite good and we are in a better position for it. Clowns aside, the overall trajectory has been as good or better than expected. If I could vote to kick out Brazeau Peter Mckay I would, but I would definitely vote for Flaherty again.

The system you want would IMO not produce a parliament Canadians voted for. Most people vote, if on anything, based on local or regional issues, not grander ideology. That's the whole point of geographic representation. Issues are different for farmers in the prairies, auto workers in Hamilton and fishermen on the coasts. That's why regional representation makes the most sense. If you elect MP's based on national votes from everywhere, the MP's elected would actually have no clue how to represent their constituents since they have no idea who their constituents are. Democracy at its core implies that you consent to the fact that you may not get the person you want. Misunderstanding of this is exactly why failing middle eastern states are having so much trouble setting up Democratic governance. They believe, mistakenly, that democracy means you vote and then the person you want wins. Then they get upset when it doesn't happen and things fall apart.