Moonbox

He's right, but he's also wrong. The way it should work, he's has it right. The House should be a group of representatives engaged in looking after the interests of their constituents, free of partisanship jockeying etc etc. In reality, the electorate is too ignorant and too apathetic about what goes on, what the issues are and what the effects are on them for that to be true. It mostly ends up being the opposite as a result. The party is a brand, and the representative is there to present him/herself and the brand in the best light to the constituency.

Which was one of the stupidest election promises anyone could have made. All he had to do was say he was going to eliminate Liberal waste. That's it. Don't elaborate, or be as vague as possible. He only needed to do that. Instead he went full fool with the debacle we saw. It made it hard for the Liberals to perhaps really twist the knife in them like they maybe need to, but even I believe that the unions are going to be disappointed in what the Liberals end up doing. They panicked and unconditionally backed the Liberals for fear of Hudak, and in so doing lost a lot of the bargaining power they may have otherwise had. Realistically, the public sector unions (particularly the teachers) haven't really given themselves a lot of options. They and the PC's are are naturally opposed to one another, and they still aren't interested in the NDP from the Bob Rae era. In essence, they're at the mercy of the Liberal government, who know that public resentment is simmering against the unions. Hard times for the province's public sector unions are on the way. It's just a matter of whether or not the Liberals make the first move, or wait for that resentment to boil over and return us Harris-era axing under the next government.

Britain

Anemic growth, coupled with a growing provincial debt load that will require larger and larger debt servicing payments as we go deeper in the red. A rather useless piece of information considering that public spending ballooned under Dalton McGuinty since he and the Liberals took over from the PC's. Virtually any spending decreases could have met that benchmark. Let's be clear once again, however, that a spending freeze is not a spending decrease. You can put whatever Keynesian spin you want on it to make it look like you're serious, but essentially what you're doing is nothing. You're committing to not make the problem worse and hoping time and the economy reverse your mistakes.

Yeah, a spending freeze might add up to something meaningful after 10 years perhaps. Problem is that often the political will isn't there 4 years from now to maintain that. The next party will promise a return to the gravy train and the spending freeze will be over. When you're badly over-spending as a government, a spending freeze is a mostly meaningless gesture. It's doing little more than admitting that spending got out of hand, and rather than actually fix it, you'll at least try not to make it worse. ~2.5% inflation - Whoopy.

as well as their official policies of genocide against their aboriginal peoples. The Americans kept things much more *ahem* tidy...

You misinterpret him. Maybe he termed it poorly, but he's not saying that natives don't have any rights sans Queen. Either way, I always find it funny to see bush_cheney on these native topics. If only Canada had handled it's aboriginals like the Americans did in the 1800's right?

It doesn't need an explanation. Your lack of reasoning in even asking the question is worrying. First, if the USA is launching missile interceptors in our airspace, it's because someone across the pond fired a strategic missile into our airspace. Regardless of whether the US fires interceptors, we still have foreign strategic missiles flying over us, which is never a good thing. Second, you clearly don't have a strong understanding of how close the Canada-US relationship is. Regardless of whether or not missiles are targeting Toronto or New York, Canada can't afford to let them hit. A nuclear attack on New York City would be heavy blow to Canada, just like a nuclear attack on Toronto would be a heavy blow to the USA. Neither countries can afford either to happen, and thus mutual defense agreements are no-brainers.

and despite the fact that and despite the fact that the Star is a joke of a newspaper, a completely partisan hack job, they do a good job here showing off the absurdity of Tim Hudak as a party leader and, it seems, as a human being, not to mention parts of his party. Laying off 100k+ salary hydro bureaucrats, for example, is probably a great idea. Suggesting that they be somehow publicly named and shamed in doing so, however, is not only just mean-spirited but also 100% certain to backfire. A Mike Harris type PC leader would have probably won the election. People didn't vote against Tim Hudak because they supported the teachers, or the overall public service sector. People voted against Tim Hudak because he's a wormy sloganeer who campaigned on what even casual understanding of the Ontario job market could determine was a deception. 1,000,000 jobs wasn't true, and his insistence that it was just insulted voters. Tim Hudak treated the average voter like an idiot, and while they might be ignorant of politics, they're smart enough in their own way to understand that Hudak was trying to mislead them and talk down to them. Who wants to vote for an unlikable, untrustworthy, bumbling loser? In essence, Tim Hudak's campaign was that of a fool and a loser, but worse, an arrogant one.

You have lots of interesting thread topics, to be honest. You're also right that there are different tastes and interests. I myself avoid the vast majority of topics, simply because they bore me. That still doesn't meant that everything warrants its own thread. Not every thought that pops into your head is worthy of discussion. The idea that Canada should be armed with nuclear weapons is, frankly, pure silliness on virtually every level. Even basic understanding of geopolitics would dismiss the idea as ludicrous. I apologize if I'm coming across as rude, but I don't think you needed the views and opinions of this forum to confirm that. Yes, this is something I'm often guilty of. What's nice, however, is how the forum now flags responses to your own posts. This makes it way easier to keep track of separate discussions and ensure your own contributions and those of people you're interested in don't drown in pissing matches. Regardless, I see where you're coming from with that. Even so, a little more reflection before posting a topic can keep the forum an overall more interesting place. Yes, poorly considered threads eventually make it to the archives, but sometimes that takes awhile. Sometimes you get several pages of interest based purely on people mocking the OP and then people defending him, then arguing with each other about how they're arguing.

I don't think that's a realistic assessment. The leaders were a lousy batch, but I'm not sure how you could argue that Hudak's campaign wasn't completely incompetent. It wasn't just ineffective. It was catastrophic. I'm not exaggerating when I say he would have probably done better without a campaign platform.

Maybe go for quality over quantity. Bringing up relevant news, current events, or thoughtful topics is one thing, but a brief glance reveals this board is swamped with Big Guy thread topics, some of them interesting, some of them on the wrong boards, many of them complete duds. Time for a nuclear Canada? Unpaid Internships = Slave Labour? Why are Charles and Camilla visiting Canada? Should Canada lower the voting age to 16? My favourite: India goes in a new direction (on Canadian Federal Politics board). The proper response for most of these topics is some combination of *eye roll*, *yawn* or "lolno".

No. Most 16 year-olds are not well educated. They're on their way, but they don't have an understanding of personal finances yet. I went into a high school in Oshawa as a guest speaker to talk about the banking and credit systems, and even 17/18 year-olds didn't have a clue. This is just another inane and pointless thread topic. Well done again Big Guy.

What, are you implying that Canada might actually WANT missiles flying through its airspace?

A nuclear attack on the USA by suspected terrorists would result in American hysteria (rightfully so). Believe it or not, you can trace a nuclear weapon back to where the uranium was refined, which greatly narrows down the possible perpetrators. This invites likely retaliation. An Islamic nuclear attack, for example, would likely result in much of the Middle East (Iran in particular) being turned to glass or, failing that, a brutal subjugation of the subcontinent. Once something like that happens, all bets are off.

Your wording was terrible, as was your question. What about my claim needs justification or clarification? Extremists, by definition, hold views or promote agendas so far out of the mainstream, or violate moral standards to such a degree, that the majority runs heavily against them. That's what extremism is. If you're asking what my justification is for not giving them representation, it's because the overwhelming majority is against them. That's all the justification that's required. Again, your naive belief in the good will of the opposition and their desire to cooperate is adorable, but also completely ignorant to politicking and partisanship that actually goes on. Take the NDP in the Ontario election, for example. The Liberals negotiated in good faith with the NDP and prepared an NDP-friendly budget, and the NDP voted against it because the polls seemed favorable. I don't need to define balance of power. It's pretty simple concept. Your confusion over it, along with a great many other things, is a hurdle you're going to need to vault all by yourself. Here's another great example of how poor your grasp is of basic argumentation. Linking three separate wikipedia articles defining various political theories literally does nothing to support your argument. You make it hard to take you seriously when you do stuff like that. My claim didn't morph. You're just getting yourself hung up on wording and having trouble processing simple statements in the contexts in which they're presented. Nothing about the system is unfair. It's a system and it's not designed to treat any specific party or group unfairly. Voters' failure to understand the system or make rational decisions pertaining to it isn't unfair either. It's just ignorance and stupidity.

Yes. Zero. Read that sentence again. If you can't see why it's stupid, there's little hope that anyone is going to get through to you on this forum. It could be any number of parties. The fact that I had to explain the whole balance of power thing to you in the first place is a good indication of how little you know about minority governments. If you need your hand held and to be taken step by step through every scenario, I'll just quit with you right now because you're not worth the time. Minority balances of power aren't something I made up. If you're saying that extremist parties should be given representation in the House, then those extremists could potentially find themselves in a situation where they hold the balance of power. You seem to think that things would magically be better. Voting for anything other than the best option available for your views is the only reasonable criteria. Your insistence otherwise is foolish. Blame the system all you want if it makes you feel better. Just don't expect a lot of people to listen, care or have any sympathy for you guys when the vote doesn't go your way.

It's not just the majority that doesn't buy what they're saying. It's something like +90% of voters. That's a pretty good reason for them not to have any representation in parliament. Extremists now? Terrorism? That was the logical progression of this argument for you? Sure, I'll bite. Extremists shouldn't be represented in parliament because their agendas are so strongly opposed by so large a majority of Canadians. When 90+% of voters are fully opposed them and their desires, it's democracy at work making sure they don't come to fruition. Go back and read what that quote was responding to. You asked how a fringe party can end up holding the balance of power in a PR system. I gave a simplified (but plausible) response to highlight the danger inherit in such a system. Whether they hold 48% or 38% is completely irrelevant to that. Change the numbers to 38% for the PC's and 13% for the Tea Party if it pleases you. You assume that the opposition is ready to cooperate, which is more often than not unlikely. More like your critical thinking skills. Yes. Extremists are generally dumb, hateful, or just plain ignorant. If they're too dumb, hateful or ignorant to understand that can't push their views on the overwhelming majority of voters who are completely opposed to them, that's their fault, not the system's. Again, your poor logic and critical thinking skills are really highlighted here. PR doesn't favour the left or the right. Your hangup on this is indicative of your bias on the issue. Can we assume that you're pretty young? Your unite-the-right comment seems to forget the fact that your so-called 'right' was 'united' for 100 years before it briefly fractured after Chretien took over. The only thing you've done is proven that you're a weak debater and don't have a strong grasp on how to argue effectively. There's a perfect example of how childish your thought process is. When you can boil it down to the simple statement that everyone who disagrees with you is trying to somehow suppress democracy, we get a pretty clear picture of the type of mind we're dealing with. You can vote however you want. For the record, there's no such thing as a truly 'altruistic' vote, but that's another debate altogether. Regardless, all of the voting determination examples you gave there are frankly just plain stupid. The system in no way should be designed to cater to the stupid. Being stupid and ignorant about your vote is a choice. No, I don't want PR. I made that clear. Strategic voting isn't nonsense either. It's common sense on the most basic level. The people that fail to realize this have nobody to blame but themselves. Wetting your bed over it after the fact doesn't change anything.

I made this thread. 168 pages! Neato!

That's funny. People in Ontario don't have to deal with the environmental risks of a pipeline going through BC, nor with the oil tankers shipping it away to China.

Regionalism is a fact of life in Canada, and it's not necessarily a bad thing. We don't have a largely homogeneous population spread out (relatively) evenly across a (relatively) small landscape with largely similar geography. We're not Germany. There are way too many differences from region to region and in a FPTP system, this regionalism can serve to moderate party platforms. A party too far out of line risks alienating the rest of Ontario/Canada, and will find itself on the outside looking in, with no input. In PR, no moderation is required. The regionalism intensifies and you end up with extremely focused party platforms that are looking to promote very specific agendas that, in some cases, the rest of the electorate might by zealously opposed to. I didn't say that. I said that a PR system allows parties to run partisan agendas that make no pretense of appealing to the majority of the province/country. I'm saying they COULD. Let's say, for example, that an Ontario Tea Party is born, and somehow manage to garner enough support across the province to give them a couple of seats in the legislature. Let's assume as well that the Liberals in Ontario finally fall out of favor due to scandal or whatever, and you have and an unpopular PC minority government just two seats shy of a majority. In this case, the Tea Party holds the balance of power. The amount of power those two Tea Party holds is now immense. Without their support, the PC government topples, so perhaps much-needed banking regulations get nixed to ensure the Tea Party supports the PC's, or maybe anti-coal legislation gets axed. That's the sort of stuff that can happen in a broken-up legislature. So...the amount of representation is proportionate to the population of the voters that voted for them. Yeah, thanks. I get it. Maybe you need to read what you just wrote there. No, they work together to form some sort of consensus that makes laws for the whole country. If one MP puts a bill forward, he needs the support of the majority of the rest of the regions in the country. The mistake that most anti-FPTP'ers make is that politics is all about getting specifically what they want, and that if that doesn't happen then the system is broken. It's not. That's just called being a baby. When you vote, you need to vote for the person who has the best chance to do the most good (or least bad) for you. I like, and hate, parts of every party's platform. I wish I could take the parts I like from each party, combine them together to form a super-Moonbox-friendly party, and have them win an election. That is, unfortunately, never going to happen, in FPTP or in PR, so instead I just choose the party that's going to suck the least.

Our representatives need to work with each other to promote the interests of their ridings. The landscapes of Ontario and Canada, are so diverse in terms of geography, economy and culture, that FPTP is necessary to ensure outlying regions don't get shut out by the majority population in large urban centres. There's a reason that rural Ontario is largely a wasteland for the Liberals and, to a lesser extent, the NDP, and it's because those ridings get taxed to pay for services they don't receive even under the current system. Proportional representation would take what little power they maintain from their concentrated vote and essentially erase it in favor of the majority in GTA/Golden Horseshoe. On top of the mish-mash of special interest group parties like the Greens, or the Communists, you'd now have something stupid like the Ontario equivalent of the Wild Rose promoting purely rural interests, fracturing the legislature into dysfunctional series of minority governments. What's worst about the whole thing is that one of these fringe parties may end up holding the balance in a key budget vote, and we may end up with truly stupid concessions counter to +90% of the population. Stephen Harper isn't controlling Parliament Hill because the electoral system is unfair. He's controlling Parliament Hill because the people who zealously opposed to him are too stupid to vote for the most reasonable alternative.

People in BC need to get something significant out of this project, otherwise it's going to bury the Conservatives there.

It's a throwaway term like 'terrorist' or 'fighting for freedom' are these days. As for internships, I think it's hard to argue the system isn't being abused. As the young graduates find it harder and harder to earn gainful employment, employers inevitably become aware of this and, knowing that these desperate young folk need the experience, hire them to do work for free that they'd otherwise be paying Canadians to do. Regulation for this, in my opinion, is long overdue.

100 million? You sure you don't want to check those numbers...maybe divide them by like...20-50? Anyways, sure people have to move away from flood plains when a hydro project is built. The benefit of the project, however, usually vastly outweigh the consequences. I highly doubt the Chinese government fairly treated the millions of displaced families along the dam's flood plain, but that's more an issue of a corrupt and oppressive regime. As for the James Bay project, there were maybe 5000 Cree natives that lived ANYWHERE near the project, and much fewer still that lived along the hydro project's flood plain and needed to relocate. The Quebec government was also forced to negotiate long reaching settlements with them. People who complain about things like the James Bay project are the people who are going to complain about everything, all the time, no matter what.