Machjo

The Premier must be able to get the support of the house to remain so, and the cabinet must still work on establishing consenus among its members for anything to get done. And even cabinet still needs a majority vote to pass a law. As for confrontation, we need to take some cultural factors into account too. Some communities raise their young to seek consnsus and not confrontation. Such voters are likely to be turned off by much of the partisan bickering that goes on in a confrontational system. It could be interesting to study the cultural factors that can play a role in determining voter turnout in a democracy too. Some people might also come to feel that there's no point in voting if parliament is just highjacked by party politics anyway.

If so, then there's no such thing as Nunavut and the NWT.

If so, then there's no such thing as Nunavut and the NWT.

Yet even in a non-partisan system, consensus itself must still be built. it doesn't just appear miraculously. In fact, it might make the government more accountable. In a party system, party stricture ensures that party members will tow the party line; seldom does a member cros the floor to the other side. In a non-partisan system, the premier has no party to take for granted. Each member of the legislature is free to vote his own conscience. Clerly, that would keep any premier on his toes.

You can read more about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-partisan_democracy By the way, the idea is not so foreign to Canada. Here's a quote from the article above: The Canadian territories of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut have nonpartisan democracies. The populace votes for individuals to represent it in the territorial assembly without reference to political parties. After the election, the assembly selects one of its number to form a government and act as premier. This system is in deference to the system of consensus government that predominates among the indigenous Inuit and other peoples of northern Canada. The municipal government of the City of Toronto, Ontario (Canada) is the fifth largest government in the country, governing a population of more than 2.7 million. It consists of a nonpartisan, directly elected council. The public may have a general idea of the candidates' political affiliations, but their parties have no official recognition or privilege in the functioning of City Council. Councilors are free to vote on each motion individually, freeing them from party discipline. Until the mid-20th century, a Canadian politician's political affiliation was not shown on ballots at any level of government. The expectation was that citizens would vote according to the merit of the candidate, but in practice, party allegiance played an important role. Beginning in 1974, the name of the candidate's political party was shown on the ballot.

I guess I'd likely vote either Green or Libertarian. The Conservative Party had social conservatism as a plus, but now that it's not nearly as social conservative anymore, I might as well look at other parties. The Greens are for international law, which is a conservative principle if you ask me. The Conservatives are way too liberal in their interpretation of international law. And I admire the Libertarian party for its valuing relatively transparent borders for trade, immigration, travel, working abroad, etc.

I can't vote on this one since first off I don't vote for parties but candidates. I can say that last election I'd almost voted Green, but handed in a blank ballot instead. Now that I think about it, maybe I should have voted Green. I'm honestly not sure.

As for myself, I'm an incrementalist decentralist world-federalist libertarian-leaning social conservative.

Of course no policy is neutral, and different people wil have differing opinions as to what policy is right and what policy is wrong. However, whether we agree with the policy or not, we do have a right to know that the policy's ability to achieve its intended objectives, whether we agree with either or not is a separate issue, is backed up by an analytical study of how its to achieve it. In a democracy, we have a right to that. If you look at the policy examples above, the policy itself is there, but we see no statistics showing its rate of success, or research showing that it is feasible, etc. Nothing. How can we possibly know if the policy is effective or not if it has no scientific basis for it? I understand that not all policies are motivated by science but on some moral ground. Fine. In that case, replace the scientific analysis of the policy with a phylosophical or other one that backs it up so that we know what the real motive behind thepolicy is.

How do we not have policies? If I ask the government what its environmental policy is, let's say, it's fine if they say that their policy is one of non-interference with the market, for example. But if they say they don't have a policy that tells me that they really don't know what policy means. Even 'no policy' is a policy. As far as I'm concerned, a policy statement shoud include at least the policy itself, its objectives, and an analysis of how the policy is to achieve its objectives, along with any studies that might back up the analysis. When we consider how important educatio is, for an education policy to include but the policy itself and a few flimsy objectives with no analysis of how the policy is to achieve the objectives, never mind any studies to back it up, that's truly shameful. That tells me the Ministry of Education really doedsn't know what it's doing. That is sheer incompetence.

Yeah, it really would be a shame to have to analyse a policy either on scientific or moral grounds and then have to include that analysis in an official policy statement made available to the public. God forbid, it might make it harder for politicians to pass new laws without making their real intentions that much more explicit.

Another possible name for it would be a Policy-Objective Clarification Act.

I beleive such an Act could force our politicians to become more accountable. For instance, this would require the Ontario Ministry of Education to study the policy scientifically and report on its real rate of success, and add that to its policy document to be made available to the public on-line. This would also force politicians to be more honest. This way, when a politician supports a policy based on a certain objective, yet scientific studies show that particular policy to be ineffective in achieving the officially professed objective, the politician is then forced to either modify the policy to fit the objective or the objective to fit the policy. Either way, it forces him to be more honest in his real intentions, and also forces him to ensure that he choose the right policy to achieve his profesed objectives. This thus makes it harder for politicians to keep their real intentions secret while promoting a policy.

I was researching the Ontario Ministry of Edcucation's second-language teaching policy, and heres' waht I got: http://edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/elementary/fsl18curr.pdf http://edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/secondary/fsl910curr.pdf http://edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/second...fsl1112curr.pdf If you look at these policy statements of the Ontario Ministry of Education, they include no research-based evidence that their policy is proving successful (just look at Statistics Canada's surveys of French knowledge among Ontarians). We would think as citizens that the government has a duty to inform us not only of its policies and their objectives(which it does already), but also of the research base on which the policy is based, proving the likelyhood of the policy proving successful. Do you think a law requiring Ministries of Education, or any Ministry for that matter, to make not only their policies and policy objectives available to the public, but also a scientific study of the likelyhood of the policy to attain its objective? One exception might be if the policy is based on a particular moral principle rather than on science, in which case that that moral principle must be made esplicitely clear in th epolicy document. What are your thought on this?

I'd also be open to compulsory world religions classes, as these coudl also help show the fundamenal unity of the world's great religions, and so break down religious prejudices that can often be a source of conflict.

The thead has moved from evolution to values education. If by values is meant morals, then I beleive moral education should be included, not as a separate course, but as a part of all courses. One possible way to do so is to promote more critical discussions of moral issues in society while allowing teachers and pupils to bring up sources, both religious and secular, for discussion. Examples could include: Biology class: studying moral arguments for and aginst the the argument that human life begins at conception, or euthenasia, hman cloning, etc. Maths class: I don't know, but maybe in accounting classes, the moral dimentions of cooking the books. English class: Discussing moral uses of language, lying, using manipulative lanuage, etc. PE: Discuss good sportsanship Nutrition class: the vegetarian debate, animal rights, compassion for animals, moral responsibility to remain hearlthy, etc. Foreign languge class: Discuss the issue of languge imperialism in the world. Etc. But I do believe that these critical isssues wought to be discussed; we should not teach our children to be nothing more than economic machines.

Seeing that the Constitution affects the laws we pass, it would seem that any responsible voter should have read it. Just to take an example, recent Ontario elections have brought up the issue of special treatment for Catholic schools. In the debate, the Liberals defended such special treatment to the exclusion of other religions on Constitutional grounds. Well, a voter who's never read the Constitution cannot respond adequately to this owing tohis ignorance of the Constitution. With this ignorance in mind, a government can continue to maintain such a discriminatory policy by bargaining on the ignorance of the population relating to the Constitution. Without knowledge of the Constitution, what is democracy?

Of course I was simplifying my ideas for brevity, but I thought it wouldbe understood that by 'compulsory education' is not meant to suggest teachers carrying batons, but simply education for those at legal age to attend school compulsority. I do believe that basic education must be compulsory. As for making pupils read the Constitution, gain I wasn't implying the use of batons, but simply finding ways of making it interesting for pupils to read. Like any other piece of writing, it could stimulate debate in class. In fact our Constitution would likely be fascinating for high school pupils. Few might be aware of the religious content of it for instance.

But do yo think the entire constitution should be required reading before the end of compulsory education, seeing that we all become voters?

I didn't. Yet one would think that in a democracy, it should be a required document to read, no? I'd done most of my compulsory education in BC.

Why not offer studies in the Bible as literature instead? That way they can debate whether God understood such concepts as symbolism, and whether He would know how to use literary techniques skillfully.

J'en suis bien d'accord. Que pense-tu de la politique d'enseignement de langue seconde du Québec?

2008?

Who every talked about extra taxes? Have you ever considered that there could be ways of at least slowing down the decline of those languages at no extra cost to the taxpayer?

I see. Might makes right?