End monarchy to build a better canada !

[Bakunin]

I really think that the only way to save canada would be a major reform to get rid of our ridiculous archaïc system. And since many doesnt seems to know why we should change, ill tell you why i think we should. Not only i think we should, if its not done, canada will die.

Just think about it, right now we have a minority government choosing a GG wich is suppose to be the main canadian head of states... In reality she has no power except to spend millions of $ to visit and shake hands of ppl in other country. ITs all she can do.... she won't talk politics issue or discuss with the world leaders, a GG is just like a dummy, it doesn't have any authority, opinion or power...What is the point of having someone to represent the country if nobody knows her outside of canada... We need someone with real power. It could be someone like the supreme diplomat of the country a bit like its working in france. Someone with prestige and that evryone will know outside canada. Someone who would be in charge of the foreign affairs.

What visibility in the rest of the world the GG has ? NO visibility at all. What visibility the French president Jacques Chirac or the american presidant George Bush has ? They are problably the 2 most know politician on the planet!

But thats not the most ridiculous thing, we have a federal government wich can pretty much do anything he wants... The federal government is the only one that can interpret our constitution. And by the way, we NEVER voted for that constitution wich is totally undemocratic and absurd. But even more absurd is that quebec never signed it... A constitution wich its own people doesnt even want has no reason to exist...If something as much important as a constitution, the base of the country isn't universally accepted, then its sure we will have a hard time keeping our unity....In other word, our constitution worth absolutly nothing because it doesnt protect us at all from our government and its not even legitimate.

But thats not all about our outdated system, we have one of the worst and useless senate system in occident... Our supreme court judge are being choosen by the government and they are often not based on their efficacity but on their friendships with the government.

Another thing that is totally unacceptable is the way the government are elected. Even though the liberal doesn't get vote in the west, they rule over the whole country... It is unacceptable, how can this government represent the west with almost no deputy ? There is trully something wrong and not fair when we already know who won the election before the west vote has not been counted yet...Canada became a real monarchy where ontario decide pretty much by itself who is gonna rule canada and the other provinces even when they massivly vote against, won't have the choice but to deal with them and in the best scenario, will end up with a minority government.

We need to grow up, act and stop this monarchaic system before its too late. You know what it make me think of ? a bunch of children playing "the queen" dressing like her, playing to the senate when we all know its just a stupid game, we all know its bullshit but we keep acting like children and continue playing like if it was funny... When we where child it was funny but we must grow up and go for a modern republic system. A truly democratic and effective system. Im not saying to copy exaclty the system in france or in the united states but at least take their sample to build our very own modern republic system wich would fit us like a glove and please evryone.

A system where the democratically elected senate that would have a true role, with a drastically more just and democratic selection of our supreme court judge. A true democratically elected and usefull head of states with prestige and a world wide reputation. We also need a true constitution which seems fair for all the part of the country and not only the liberal trudeau vision...A constitution strong enough to defend us against the government and a referendum to enact this constitution and make it a democratic and legitimate one. We need a central government that deal with the reality of today, evry province is unique and some are pretty damn different... We need a government that can respect and reflect this reality, a smaller and decentralized government.

Our government system has to adapt to the new world ! there is no place for arrogant central government or useless unelected people like the GG and the senate. I know some people doesn't understand why we should change, well its because it keep us from having a real head of states and legislative system. If we don't change, its just gonna get worst and worst and the country will desintegrate.

All this can be done if we really want it ! if we don't well with the presure its gonna happend one day anyway but it may not be called Canada anymore.

[Canuck E Stan]

Bakuunin, from my other GG thread,

With a history of Quebec French hating the English in Quebec, wouldn't doing away with the Queen and things like her face on coins plus all the other "English Monarchy" traditions bring back a lot of the separatist Quebecers into Canada. I believe many of French Quebecers and Immigrants too, resent having ties to the English monarchy for so long and believe Canada should after 137 years give it up.Has anyone thought about what getting rid of the GG and the Monarchy connection in Canada would mean to the popularity of the Separatists in Quebec?

What do you think?

[Guest eureka]

You have one thing right, Bakunin. That is, that "we must grow up." By we, I accept that you mean all those who think like you and do not know what they have and would tear down participation in the best system of government in the world to assuage the fweelings that have been bruised by their own ignorance.

I have destroyed every claim you make and you know it. Rather, you should know it but it can't get through the defensive wall you have erected around your brain.

You really are a sad case.

[SirSpanky]

Why do you say the best system? What points are you referring to?

[Yaro]

See this time of stuff I just don't get, I see people here getting mad a the supposed waste of the office of the GG but I never hear anyone talk about the bank of Canada or any of the dozen other systems/institutions that waste 100x as much money as the office of the GG.

[canadian_conservative]

I really think that the only way to save canada would be a major reform to get rid of our ridiculous archaïc system. And since many doesnt seems to know why we should change, ill tell you why i think we should. Not only i think we should, if its not done, canada will die.

I wouldn't really care if we had a GG so I am kind of neutral on this but Canada would not die if we dont change.

Just think about it, right now we have a minority government choosing a GG wich is suppose to be the main canadian head of states... In reality she has no power except to spend millions of $ to visit and shake hands of ppl in other country. ITs all she can do.... she won't talk politics issue or discuss with the world leaders, a GG is just like a dummy, it doesn't have any authority, opinion or power...What is the point of having someone to represent the country if nobody knows her outside of canada... We need someone with real power. It could be someone like the supreme diplomat of the country a bit like its working in france. Someone with prestige and that evryone will know outside canada. Someone who would be in charge of the foreign affairs.

Wow you reall are power hungary, so you look up to Bush??? It would not be a supreme diplomat that ran this country it would be a president that would become supreme head of Canada if we abolished the monarchy. I would hope Canada woulndt have a president like Bush.

What visibility in the rest of the world the GG has ? NO visibility at all. What visibility the French president Jacques Chirac or the american presidant George Bush has ? They are problably the 2 most know politician on the planet!

Like i said above Bush is known world wide for his stupidity and his dumb quotes! "they are always finding ways to harm america, so are we"

But thats not the most ridiculous thing, we have a federal government wich can pretty much do anything he wants... The federal government is the only one that can interpret our constitution. And by the way, we NEVER voted for that constitution wich is totally undemocratic and absurd. But even more absurd is that quebec never signed it... A constitution wich its own people doesnt even want has no reason to exist...If something as much important as a constitution, the base of the country isn't universally accepted, then its sure we will have a hard time keeping our unity....In other word, our constitution worth absolutly nothing because it doesnt protect us at all from our government and its not even legitimate.

True very true, but we elect are leaders to represent us so in a way we do chose are consitution.

But thats not all about our outdated system, we have one of the worst and useless senate system in occident... Our supreme court judge are being choosen by the government and they are often not based on their efficacity but on their friendships with the government.

Thats exactly why Paul MArtin was found innocent at the Gomery Inquiry because he chose the judge. I absolutly agree with you are senate is useless when their is a GG it would be very usefull if we did get rid of her

Another thing that is totally unacceptable is the way the government are elected. Even though the liberal doesn't get vote in the west, they rule over the whole country... It is unacceptable, how can this government represent the west with almost no deputy ? There is trully something wrong and not fair when we already know who won the election before the west vote has not been counted yet...Canada became a real monarchy where ontario decide pretty much by itself who is gonna rule canada and the other provinces even when they massivly vote against, won't have the choice but to deal with them and in the best scenario, will end up with a minority government.

Thats how democracy works I am afraid, and I hope to god we don;t change it because it sound slike you really want to change how things work I think you want Canada to become a dictatorship. I hope you don;t run for "supreme diplomat"

I am neutral on this subject and dont care if we have a GG or not but your accusations are absurd you want to almost change this country around into a dictatorship.

[Bakunin]

Bakuunin, from my other GG thread,

With a history of Quebec French hating the English in Quebec, wouldn't doing away with the Queen and things like her face on coins plus all the other "English Monarchy" traditions bring back a lot of the separatist Quebecers into Canada. I believe many of French Quebecers and Immigrants too, resent having ties to the English monarchy for so long and believe Canada should after 137 years give it up.Has anyone thought about what getting rid of the GG and the Monarchy connection in Canada would mean to the popularity of the Separatists in Quebec?

What do you think?

.... The French doesn't hate more the english than the english hate the french... But one thing is sure, English monarchy is not something popular in quebec. Its more something related to colonialism than a symbol we can be proud of and its alot widly spread in both faction, the separatist and federalist.

You have one thing right, Bakunin. That is, that "we must grow up." By we, I accept that you mean all those who think like you and do not know what they have and would tear down participation in the best system of government in the world to assuage the fweelings that have been bruised by their own ignorance.

Best system of government ? 2 provinces wants out and the house of common became a circus with this conservative vs liberal war...

See this time of stuff I just don't get, I see people here getting mad a the supposed waste of the office of the GG but I never hear anyone talk about the bank of Canada or any of the dozen other systems/institutions that waste 100x as much money as the office of the GG.

Well honestly wasting money always makes me mad either its 20millions or 200millions but the thing is the GG is a joke and could be easily fixed... nobody knows her outside canada and she his supposed to represent us ? and we can't even vote for her...

Thats how democracy works I am afraid, and I hope to god we don;t change it because it sound slike you really want to change how things work I think you want Canada to become a dictatorship. I hope you don;t run for "supreme diplomat"

I am neutral on this subject and dont care if we have a GG or not but your accusations are absurd you want to almost change this country around into a dictatorship

I don't get it, how can you imagine i want a ditactorship. I said i want an elected senate, head of states and better selected judge. I want a central government smaller to appease the fact that the government is already elected before we start to count the west vote. And you didn't understood, I didn't say i loved bush or i wanted someone like him for president, actually when i was talking about the president with some kind of supreme diplomat function, i was refering to France that has a system like that. You see, all i want is more democracy and a better adapted government.

[canadian_conservative]

Bakuunin, from my other GG thread,

With a history of Quebec French hating the English in Quebec, wouldn't doing away with the Queen and things like her face on coins plus all the other "English Monarchy" traditions bring back a lot of the separatist Quebecers into Canada. I believe many of French Quebecers and Immigrants too, resent having ties to the English monarchy for so long and believe Canada should after 137 years give it up.Has anyone thought about what getting rid of the GG and the Monarchy connection in Canada would mean to the popularity of the Separatists in Quebec?

What do you think?

As much as you make a good argument that is not the reason why quebec wants to seperate, The war between Britain and France ended hundreds of years ago. The reason Quebec wants to seperate is because after all we have given them they still think they are not represented by a fair government or treated fairly within Canada.

[kimmy]

See this time of stuff I just don't get, I see people here getting mad a the supposed waste of the office of the GG but I never hear anyone talk about the bank of Canada or any of the dozen other systems/institutions that waste 100x as much money as the office of the GG.

Well, I think the difference might be that people view the Bank of Canada as being an important part of our monetary system, while the GG just jets around and attends parties and ceremonies.

-k

[Bakunin]

Bakuunin, from my other GG thread,

With a history of Quebec French hating the English in Quebec, wouldn't doing away with the Queen and things like her face on coins plus all the other "English Monarchy" traditions bring back a lot of the separatist Quebecers into Canada. I believe many of French Quebecers and Immigrants too, resent having ties to the English monarchy for so long and believe Canada should after 137 years give it up.Has anyone thought about what getting rid of the GG and the Monarchy connection in Canada would mean to the popularity of the Separatists in Quebec?

What do you think?

As much as you make a good argument that is not the reason why quebec wants to seperate, The war between Britain and France ended hundreds of years ago.  The reason Quebec wants to seperate is because after all we have given them they still think they are not represented by a fair government or treated fairly within Canada.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The unity of the country is wounded, why not fix it ? isn't that called a compromise. Id like to see something that can truly represent the whole country and make it stronger.

All i see is ppl that want to fix it and ppl that doesn't understand why we should fix it. Maybe they think it would be easyer to change others peoples mind that to actually fix the problem.

[canadian_conservative]

We have completly united this country and fixed it Trudeau did that when he made this country Bilingual and than in the 90's we let them have a referendum asking them if they wanted to stay in the country and they did so they have been treated fairly. But the only way to get them happy would let them seperate theirs nothign else we could do besides leting them do that. I personaly woudltn let them ahve a referndum if I were PM because I say they joined confederation they darn well should stay in.

[Bakunin]

We have completly united this country and fixed it Trudeau did that when he made this country Bilingual and than in the 90's we let them have a referendum asking them if they wanted to stay in the country and they did so they have been treated fairly.  But the only way to get them happy would let them seperate theirs nothign else we could do besides leting them do that.  I personaly woudltn let them ahve a referndum if I were PM because I say they joined confederation they darn well should stay in.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

... Ok then lets wait and see.

[canadian_conservative]

Whats wrong with that kind of idea your is rediculis your idea is to abolish the monarchy and create pretty much a dictator ship a "supreme diplomat as you said it. With no one that can get rid of this suprmee person for example with the GG she can disolve parliment say if Paul here wanted to dictate the same with the PM could get rid of the GG and also the Provincial leaders as somone in another forum said it are a firewall against dictatorship and can protect us if the day ever arrises when Canada is threatend by it this way we here in Canada are guaranteed a democracy. Your idea i am sorry to say is absurd.

[Yaro]

Well honestly wasting money always makes me mad either its 20millions or 200millions but the thing is the GG is a joke and could be easily fixed... nobody knows her outside canada and she his supposed to represent us ? and we can't even vote for her...

Im not saying that we shouldn't change the way the system works, but as far as the money aspect its like dealing with the pinhole next to the huge gaping one thats actually causing a problem.

[Argus]

Whats wrong with that kind of idea your is rediculis your idea is to abolish the monarchy and create pretty much a dictator ship a "supreme diplomat as you said it.  With no one that can get rid of this suprmee person for example with the GG she can disolve parliment say if Paul here wanted to dictate the same with the PM could get rid of the GG and also the Provincial leaders as somone in another forum said it are a firewall against dictatorship and can protect us if the day ever arrises when Canada is threatend by it this way we here in Canada are guaranteed a democracy.  Your idea i am sorry to say is absurd.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm leaning more and more towards this person being a troll. I think his absurd postings are deliberately inarticulate.

[canadian_conservative]

im not a troll im putting in my oppinion, your the troll trying to make me figth with you for stating that I am the troll

[Bakunin]

It is such absurd...

the GG protecting us from a dictatorship ? is this a joke ?

Did you already forget that the possible dictator wich would be the prime minister in the current system is the one that choose the GG.... the one that choose the supreme court judge and the senate...

[Riverwind]

Just think about it, right now we have a minority government choosing a GG wich is suppose to be the main canadian head of states... In reality she has no power except to spend millions of $ to visit and shake hands of ppl in other country.

Personally, I think the Irish model is worth looking at. They have an elected president that does not really have many powers but is responsible for being the face of the country. The advantage of the Irish model is, I believe, we could move to an elected GG without a radical reform of the country's constitution.

Bakunin, do you have any suggestion on what voting mechanisms we could use? I was thinking of an electoral college system similar to the US instead of going for a pure rep by pop.

[Yaro]

Why Electoral College? The electoral collage is at its base a perversion of the democratic principle.

1 man, 1 vote.

I think the real problem here is that we view federal elections through the lens of local representation. Federal politics should be about the nation as a whole, provincial politics (and all the powers that should flow to them) should be about local representation.

Federally it should be popular vote with lists.

Provincially it should be mixed popular vote where popular vote determines the base for each district and then the remaining uncounted votes(votes for losing candidates) are used to determine a per list remainder of representatives.

[Riverwind]

Why Electoral College? The electoral collage is at its base a perversion of the democratic principle.

The entire problem with this country is people in different regions do not like the idea of one person one vote. They want their 'region' to have electoral clout that exceeds their population. An electoral college system allows for better regional representation.

You can try to sell one person one vote but I am pretty sure that people in the West are not going to be any happier with a GG that is always elected by the 15 million votes in Ontario and Quebec.

Could you clarify your suggestion about the lists?

[Bakunin]

Just think about it, right now we have a minority government choosing a GG wich is suppose to be the main canadian head of states... In reality she has no power except to spend millions of $ to visit and shake hands of ppl in other country.

Personally, I think the Irish model is worth looking at. They have an elected president that does not really have many powers but is responsible for being the face of the country. The advantage of the Irish model is, I believe, we could move to an elected GG without a radical reform of the country's constitution.

Bakunin, do you have any suggestion on what voting mechanisms we could use? I was thinking of an electoral college system similar to the US instead of going for a pure rep by pop.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well actually thats what i would like too, a prime minister dealing with internal affaire and a President to deal with the world. I never heard about the irish model but it must be similar to the french one. They should both be on the watch list.

About the voting mechanism, well thats the problem, democracy is about a majority voting for someone but when the majority is all concentred in one place, and with 2 other concentred party like the bloc in quebec and the conservative in the west, i just think that the most interesting compromise would be to let more power to the province cause it would mean evryone would be happy. quebec would have a social democrat province, ontario would have a liberal province and the west, conservatives province's.

Between Rep by pop and electoral college, id prefer electoral college any time cause its all about fair play, else it would mean the less populated regions would always be penalized and left out. But the problem is that Canada is such vast and regoup such different ppl that even with an electoral college, any elected government would be seen as disconnected from the reality in one or more provinces.

So here is a solution, even with an electoral college, we would have result that wouldn't be fair for all or it would be an unwanted government somewhere. It lead me to think that the 2 party system like in usa could help us get rid of that. I would consider it the less worst system. But since it would mean 2 centrist national government. To make it less boring, we could vote a President that would be our visiblility in the other country. We could vote him with an elimination style election with more than one round to make sure its someone well representative of the country( a bit like when party members vote for their new leader).

To make diversity still a possibility, we would give more felxibility to the province like the possibility to opt out of a federal social program, give them more flexibility for healthcare and anything that could be done to make it possible for a province to live in the confederation and have divergent opinion with the central government.

[Canuck E Stan]

Interesting stuff, how do we get these ideas through to Ottawa to even consider? I'm afraid any ideas that the main parties don't like won't go far. The Liberals would never go for something democratic. They love the democratic deficeit, it keeps them in power.We the people want democracy in this country and our politicians won't give it to us:(

[Guest eureka]

We cannot get the ideas "through" to Ottawa becuase they are bad iseas that were discarded long ago and are well known to Ottawa.

The Electoral College is, as Yaro said, a perversion of the democratic principle. It was instituted in the US deliberateley to curb a possible excess of democracy. The College was to ensure that an unsuitable winner of the popular vote could be denied the Presidency and the nation kept safe for the landowners.

That is not quite so significant in modern times with universal franchise but the possibility is still there of the loser in the popular vote winning the Presidency.

Election of the GG, or any other head of stae, in that way would merely politicize the office. The elected choice would inevitably be beholden to a party instead of above party politics as the office is now.

[Riverwind]

Election of the GG, or any other head of state, in that way would merely politicize the office. The elected choice would inevitably be beholden to a party instead of above party politics as the office is now.

It really depends on the electoral process - you can try to set up rules that make the GG seperate from party politics. For example, anyone who has every associated themselves publically with one party or another would be disqualified. Another option would be to create a 'rotating' GG which is elected from different regions at different times. Both of these criteria are the de-facto criteria that are used in private today.

You can argue that there would be be flaws with any electoral system, however, I don't see how they can be any worse that the flaws that exist in the current arrangement. I think it is time to look for areas in our gov't that can be modernized and find a creative solutions instead of living in the 'thats-the-way-we've-always-done-it' mind set.

[canadian_conservative]

The GG does protect Canada from a dictatorship sice the GG has the power to disolve Paul Martins Minority if he ever tries to dictate and if the GG ever tried to dictate the PM could fire the GG and also the premiers are, are firewall against dictatorship as stated in another forum about this.