redmos

I am talking about the mainstream media. And yes, I think you do have to go fishing between news channels to get a few sides of a story and put it together. I think we have an enormous information gathering capacity available at the click of a few buttons. Now sure, there are problems with the public being uninformed. One of the severe criticisms in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 was that very few Americans actually realised that they were so unpopular in the world. And sure, there are some serious problems in the tendency of news towards infotainment, but on the whole (and maybe I'm being optimistic here), I think we're not that poorly informed. Out of the people who watch the news regularly, I think most have a good idea that there are troubles in Iraq, what has been the fallout of the Canadian and American elections, etc. I think the problem generally lies in the fact that many people just don't bother with the news, and media literacy is lacking among those who do. There is a post in the Canadian/Federal Politics forum about the introduction of Fox News to Canada, where someone is comparing Fox News to CNN and essentially claiming that CNN is biased, but Fox isn't. I think it's a matter of everyone thinking about what they watch. Fox is biased. CNN is biased. The CBC is biased. The BBC is biased. Every paper, every media outlet has some point it tries to get across. People will claim the journalism shouldn't be about opinion, but that can't be true. Every news desk has an editor who decides what will make it to air, so the selection of stories itself is biased. In North America, the war in Iraq still garners more headlines than the more serious problem in Sudan. Why? Because someone has decided it's more newsworthy. Is that right or wrong? Is the media doing its job? I think they're doing a lot of good to put the issues they can out there, but we still have to put in the work to figure out where they're coming at it from, why, and he we should take it. If Fox prints something flattering about Bush, I'll ignore it. It's expected. It's when they print something critical of him that you have to watch. It's the same with the Toronto Star and the Liberal Party. I think we expect too much in terms of objectivity from a media that does have its own agenda, and its own concerns.

The Senate has not been emasculated by the PMO or cabinet or anyone else. What has happened is that the political culture of Canada has changed since Confederation. People are unwilling to have an unelected body wield as much power as this one has. The Senators have realised this and ceased to challenge the Commons. Consquently, they don't do much anymore. While having an elected Senate would lead to gridlock and a diversity of opinion and some messy democracy, that should be an upside, rather than the overarching control of the PMO that we have now. I also fail to see how an elected Senate (and I do mean directly elected by the same people who are voting for MPs, not by legislatures) would place any more power in the hands of provincial parties and premiers at all. Suddenly you would have another body in Ottawa with its own political mandate, specifically one that's separate from that of the Cabinet as well as the premiers. Yes, and the idea here is that we should have one body that represents the opinion of the nation, which would be in this proposal the Commons, and one to represent local/provincial/regional issues, the Senate. The current system, not that it's disadvantageous to me, has been set up so that anyone who can pander to the whims of Ontario can form a national government without opposition. It's possible that the legislative oversight that I'm looking for - ie. real debate - could be achieved simply by adopting some form of pr in the Commons, but again there is the possibility that elections would only come down to attracting votes in the largest segments of society and igoring the rest. I disagree. The fundamental problem with the Senate is its lack of democratic accountability. As much as I like the idea that we should have a body that is more insulated against the political "thought of the day", the problem is that any body that won't react to said thought is going to be seen as unresponsive, not stable. Until recently (and possibly still, I don't know), Conservatives had been trying to make government even more accountable through referenda and recall votes. The trend is towards more democracy, not less and any reform that doesn't reflect that ideal will fail. And I thought Albertans were supposed to be out for more say in Ottawa. The idea behind reforming the Senate is that it's supposed to give the west a stronger say. But then that's why I ask these questions. I haven't been out of Ontario in a while, and never west of here. And as for Bakunin, I generally agree with you. More or less on all of it.

Kissinger.

Wow. So I'm the only one out there who thinks that we have access to reliable media information sources, eh? Think about it this way. If the media were as bad as everyone says it is, no one would be able to have a reasonable discussion on this forum. Were there no media, we wouldn't have an opinion. Were the media entirely polarised, everyone would simply divide into factions and spout brilliantly worded rhetorical arguments that essentially just insult the opponents and win arguments by making them personal. A tale full of sound and fury, told by an idiot, signifying nothing. Since this isn't the case, the media, while not perfect, is doing something right, because I'll bet few people in this post visited a newsroom today to form their own opinion.

I don't know what to say. Watch Outfoxed. Lovely documentary. Of course, a bit slanty to the left. On the other hand, if you're leftwardly-biased, they show a lot of clips from Fox News, which is disturbingly (and some would say dangerously) biased to the right. Let's say that objectivity isn't why it's number one. Possibly because the right-wing slant includes a business agenda that attracts more people who buy premium cable. Possibly because the appeals to jingoistic patriotism go over so well in the U.S. But it's worth asking yourself a couple of questions: Why is it that Fox News is biased something like 3 to 1 towards inviting Republican over Democratic guests? Why is it that a significantly higher proportion of Fox News viewers than the general population believe that WMDs (which, by the way, is an appallingly misleading term) were found in Iraq? And why is it that the majority of Fox News viewers believe that Saddam Hussein was directly involved in the 9/11 attacks, despite the glaring lack of evidence? Fox News appears less to be news, and more to be propaganda. And the facts seem to support it.

Nope. By my count, and I'm using StatsCan's numbers for 2001, Ontario has a Senator for every 513 000 people. Both Alberta and B.C. are more underrepresented (in the Senate, anyway) at 533 000 and 699 000 per Senator. And in any case, the Senate was designed that way. Even initially, Ontario was underrepresented in the Senate vs. Quebec as a trade off for getting representation by population in the Commons. The idea in having the second House is to underrepresent Ontario and Quebec and to make sure that the two of them can't force through a bill that the rest of the country is hostile to. Well. Sort of. Around 1980, Quebec proposed what's known as the Beige Paper, which was their idea for Senate reform. To be honest, I don't know that much about it. I can tell you that the distribution would have reduced Quebec's current weight by a slight amount. The guess was that Quebec could be enticed by allowing (and I seem to have neglected this, I think) a double-majority of anglo- and francophones on any bills about language/culture. It's a little optimistic, I know, but then increasing Quebec's weight in the Senate was in Ontario's plan. And Ontario didn't decide to increase its own. I concur, absolutely. So, would Quebec accept a lower proportion in the Senate if they've already been guaranteed 25 % in the Commons in perpetuity, the get the federal government off their backs, plus language protection? It'd be hard to turn down, I think. But then, they don't like anyone's ideas but their own...

I think that it's less a matter of what we're assuming, and more of a matter of Day refusing to outright deny it initially. He was asked by a reporter what he meant by it and didn't clarify. At that point, you worry that he's trying to cover his posterior. And even if he isn't, it's almost as if he's telling everyone [wink, wink] "it's okay that he's dead anyway, because you know what it means if he has AIDS, right?" I'm not saying that he is, just that it's not an unreasonable assumption to make from his actions.

I promised I'd throw my two cents in. I'm from Ontario. And I just finished my paper (more or less). It's too long to include in its entirety, but here are the main points. The Senate should be elected. Because any method of appointment (even provincially) will make it seem like a corrupt, and therefore illegitimate, institution. The idea of provincial equality is unfeasible. If you do the counting, then you find out that the six poorest and least-populated provinces can outvote the four big ones. While that seems like a reasonable check on the majoritarian nature of the Commons, it means you get 15% of Canadians who get to call the shots, essentially. So the Senate should be based regionally, similarly to now. However: the West is currently underrepresented vastly, so my solution was to add another 24 seats to the West, 8 each to Alberta and BC, and 4 each to Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The territories would get two each. I was also thinking some aboriginal representation would also be a good idea, as a basis for some measure of aboriginal autonomy within the federation, perhaps 1 or 2 seats per province. Elections in time with the elections to the Commons, to avoid problems with cohabitation (Liberal Commons, Conservative Senate, etc.). But the Senate should be semi-proportionally elected, accomplished by four member districts. This gives everybody a rep they'd like, plus distances Senators from the party machinery (opposite effect of a pr-list). Other added bonus is that if territory is already represented, then it wouldn't be that hard to justify putting the Commons on a pr-list system, which would make sense since they already all vote by party anyway. And it would break a Liberal stranglehold on power in this country. Powers would stay as is, since the Senate would have legitimacy, plus veto over legislation of linguistic or regional significance, and the ability to ratify PMO's appointments. That covers more or less everything I threw in there. Abolition? Not a good idea. The Senate apparently does a lovely job of legislative review, although you could argue that it could be done by bureaucrats. However, regional representation would still be a great problem. Harper's suggestion? (I know it's not really his) I like it. It's a start. Only thing that I'd worry about is that it undermines efforts to make more meaningful reform. But if no one else is going to do anything, electing Senators-in-waiting is better than nothing. There is still the issue of elected Senators for life, though. But they're still better than appointed Senators for life. My own critiques of my plan? I have trouble seeing a Liberal government ever trying to pass a plan that would severely limit its own authority in certain areas. I don't envision Ontario or Quebec objecting too strenuously, since they have both proposed Senates with similar seat distributions in the past, and the protection of a Senate against federal encroachment probably doesn't hurt them. So there's the whole thing. Obviously I've omitted some of the detail in some of my arguments, but I'd love to know what you think I got right and what I got wrong. Thanks for playing along!

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, I'm new to this website. Happened across it as I was researching a paper on Senate reform! Exciting, no? In any case, I know this has come up in the past under general government reforms, but right now I'm looking for some opinions. So, if you could state your province of origin and some views, that would be handy. So as not to be prejudicial, I'll throw in my own later. Thanks, and let's get the ball rolling!