Molly

See, this I disagree with. Benz, your English is fine, but I would also propose that you've had a great deal more opportunity to learn to speak English well than most Canadians have to learn to speak French well. (That's also a bit of a herring, but....) so the demand for bilingualism seriously reduces the size of the pool, does it preferentially, and does those things for no good reason. I'm going to mess with your words just to point out that competent learning of a language isn't necessarily so easy as you say, that there's little to be benefitted from second-language studies when compared to competent translators. A reasonably thorough editing would completely rewrite your final sentence, at very minimum, because it's off to the opoint that I don't really know what you are trying to say with it. Most of the paragraph should be restructured. Conversational second languages are easy enough to attain for many people, but the lingusitic mastery that would prevent, rahter than cause translation errors is much more rare and difficult to attain.

Any one of them claiming that they wouldn't, Bryan, is either an admission of stoneheaded stupidity, or an outright lie. The entire argument and set of poses is preposterous. The only leader showing any integrity at all over the issue is Gilles Duceppe. The rest, Layton, Harper and Ignatieff are all madly shovelling horse pucks.

Those would be the ones, yes. The ones - the several for which he was convicted. The ones that were *coff, coff* missed by the security checks. (If I fell off a turnip truck, I'd have wa-ay more bruises.)

Poobah Extraordinaire... Head Biggie... the Right Worshipful Lord Lump of Us All (RWLLUA for short))...

Here I went and judged him for his past performance and present associations. Silly me.

Am I being punked? Is this just some wierd performance art thing? Federal proxy voting was discontinued in 1992, upon the introduction of special ballots, which made it redundant.

A collossal ... problem/error/misstep/chasm... to have ruled out formal coalition. I truly wish he'd simply said, "We might. Get used to it. This is Canada, and that's part of how this country works. " It was being made an issue, and dominating all conversation, but a little more faith in the wits of voters might have been in order.

But we are talking about federal elections now, dear.

Perhaps you should read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lynch-Staunton Lynch-Staunton was the very first leader of (drum roll........) the Conservative Party of Canada! Yer welcome.

Of course attempts to change the role can be successful, but automatically voting independent (in effect, treating 'independent' as a preferred party) is as dumb as voting any other party line, right or wrong. Independents can be as dopey and useless and crooked as any partisan toad. Parties were created because they can be an effective tool. So long as they serve, instead of attempting to rule, they are still extremely useful. Voting for the best candidate- refusing to vote for a doofus or a crook or an incompetent, regardless of affiliation- holding that representative fully accountable by rewarding good conduct and punishing bad ones... those things make the party affiliation less essential to (re-)election. If we elect wankers, crooks and fools based on their loyalty to their party, then we will be governed by wankers, crooks and fools who act on their party's interests and not ours. If we elect the best and brightest, then we will be governed/served by the best and brightest. Makes me want to chew on rocks and spit sand to hear our prime minister babbling that his party was elected and should have the run of the place. In this nation, no party is elected. Ever.

Proxy, eh? Right.

And voters choose the MPs, and continue to back them when they set aside constituency interests and even national interests in favor of the interests of the party. Voters, too, could fix it any damn time they pleased, but they do not.

Maybe you should find out what I may or may not have done about finding solutions before you chastize me for doing nothing.

Ga-ack! We can hardly expect to strip parties of their power by giving them even greater standing!!!! Let's start by removing party affiliations from ballots. It's a small and simple act that will force attention onto local candidates and away from national campaigns, just a bit. Every bit counts. Then we can refuse to provide one red cent of refund for 'national' election expenses. If it can't be clearly shown to be a local expense, then it's just money gone, because no MP runs nationally....

I believe they are a very good idea. Joe Average has a four hour break, personal transportation, a quick and simple process and a poll just 'round the corner, for his convenience, but students generally have whatever time they can grab, access to public transportation only, a complex and time-consuming process to prove their place of residence that is accomplished by mail, or in person across town ... or two towns over, at the EC office... Not so easy. Stumbled across this from 2008. It's denlightening.: http://www.mapleleafweb.com/blog/melanee-thomas/special-ballot-why-young-people-dont-vote

For pity sake... name me some group that has reasonably requested accommodation that has been turned down. This is not something reserved for students or the young. In fact, other than for the military where it's just administratively easier to do it as a group thing instead of having everyone chase it down individually, it's pretty much the first time I've heard of it being used for the young. As a rule, it's more often pulled out to accommodate the old and the sick! It's not new, or odd, or any stretch of the rules at all. Making voting possible is the returning officer's JOB. If you reasonably request that EC staff comde to your home to accept your vote, it will be done. Voting is important- important enough to do everything reasonable to make it possible.

You are .. ahem... unclear on the concept. (All the concepts.)

As have I. The parties are the problem. Every single thing we do that further empowers them weakens our nation, undermines democratic principles, and diminishes our own rights.

Mr. Persichilli's assertion is that there is no citzenship test in establishing the voters list, and implies that voter cards are sent about willy-nilly empowering the unqualified to vote. In the first place, the voter cards are irrelevant to the right to vote. In the second place, one is not placed on the voters list without answering in the affirmative to "A) Are you a Canadian citizen?". On income tax forms (the most common list information source) that is followed by: "Answer the following question only if you are a Canadian citizen."

Don't thank her for a load of horsecrap unless you are only interested in citing a source for bizarro world disinformation. Why not look it up yourself? Start here for the easy read: http://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=res&dir=ces&document=part2〈=e#31 and then if you want to check it out without the dumb-down, here's more of the poop: http://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=res&dir=loi/fel&document=index〈=e Track down the news reports that directly address the actual votes on your own, since any that do comment note that they were divided between Guelph and other ridings. None of it is any special secret.

I must ask... what form would this 'large scale abuse' take? How would it be accomplished? (Do you know about some loopholes in the Elections Act that I don't? 'Cause IMO it's a pretty ingenious process. Filled with extraordinary, but well-placed, trust.)

How old are you? 18? You might want to give EC some criterion a little clearer than 'people with Dementia' to work with. EC is, after all, a legal, not a medical entity.

20 years ago or more some of the politicos in our area were floating the idea of posting no signs, but spending most of the saved money advertising that in lieu of posting signs, a donation would be made to (whatever charity). No one actually did it, but it was weighed quite seriously. Problem is, the signs reach more people for less cost than any of the alternatives. No signs? You disappear from conciousness.

They're the very best bang for the buck... (sad to report).

I'd be darned interested in knowing how many of those votes were cast for that constituency. Some were, certainly... but equally certainly, many were for other ridings. Not so long ago there was thread after thread in here talking about the desperate need to increase voter turnout. Insecure, home-based voting systems; fines for non-voters... anything would do to get more folks to vote... Now, doublespeak says that more people voting is undemocratic. Go figure.