Voting based on issues rather than "catch-all" parties?

[Moonlight Graham]

Our current democracies in Canada, US, UK, etc gives voters very few choices.  We're forced to choose between for 3 or 4 parties who have any chance of power, while in the US voters only have 2 realistic choices at the ballot box.  If you are ie: conservative on immigration but left-wing on the environment/climate change you have no valid choice at the ballot box since parties are "catch-all" entities in terms of policy so you have to vote for a party based on which issues you prioritize as most important & match it with the party that agrees with you the most, while other issues fall to the wayside.

Wouldn't it be great to vote on actual issues come election time and have more control over our government policies?  In the US, local & state referendums on different issues are common & are done the same time as regular elections.  Why can't that be done at a country-wide level?

Another option is some kind of system where you vote for cabinet ministers.  Foreign policy might be run by a politician who is left-leaning while economic/budget issues may be run by someone right-leaning from a different party etc.  Politicians/parties running for the minister posts can campaign on each issue, and voters choose who they agree with most.  This way, issues that don't typically sway elections are still under control of the population. Obviously there's a lot of issues to work out, but I'm more concerned with the spirit of being able to have more of a say on broad or even specific issues instead elite representatives making those decisions for us.

Direct democracy on all issues is unrealistic since people don't have the time to study every piece of legislation.

Edited August 12, 2019 by Moonlight Graham

[Michael Hardner]

You're getting warm - the thing to encourage is more direct democracy.  

 

Organizations like IRPP do research on how to consult with publics, but it's more than a one-off vote on a referrendum issue.  We need to find groups that are passionate about politics and recruit them to assist with policy discussions through online engagement.  Such discussions would/should be longer term than one vote.

[scribblet]

Direct democracy, as in theT rudeau regime triggering the "electoral urgency clause” which I suppose means they aren’t really that interested in democracy.

 OK..  so…

By abusing the "electoral urgency clause", the Liberals have unlimited authority to bypass rules for the nomination of candidates which is obviously a move meant to fast-track 100+ candidates without due process.   

 Apparently they are short on candidates, partly I suppose due to their ethically challenged PMO.     19 Liberal MPs are not running for re-election which is a bit unusual, but also speaks to the shortage of candidates.    It appears that  they could be sneaking in puppets who only be there to support the PMO and his puppeteer. 

[Moonlight Graham]

8 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

You're getting warm - the thing to encourage is more direct democracy. 

Organizations like IRPP do research on how to consult with publics, but it's more than a one-off vote on a referrendum issue.  We need to find groups that are passionate about politics and recruit them to assist with policy discussions through online engagement.  Such discussions would/should be longer term than one vote.

Discussion is good and needed, but discussion is different than actual decision-making.  Direct democracy takes a lot of time for voters to educate themselves on every single issue.  Direct democracy in the form of referendums on big issues i'm definitely for, but not direct democracy on every single piece of legislation.

Why not add referendum questions on an assortment of issues to federal and provincial elections?  Why not give us voters actual power instead of only voting to decide who gets to have actual power?

[Michael Hardner]

1 hour ago, Moonlight Graham said:

1. Discussion is good and needed, but discussion is different than actual decision-making. 

2. Direct democracy takes a lot of time for voters to educate themselves on every single issue.  Direct democracy in the form of referendums on big issues i'm definitely for, but not direct democracy on every single piece of legislation.

3. Why not add referendum questions on an assortment of issues to federal and provincial elections?  Why not give us voters actual power instead of only voting to decide who gets to have actual power?

1. Ok I wasn't elaborate enough.  Information gathering, prioritization, design all need to be done by a collaborative and representative group.

2. I thought you were touting direct democracy.

3. This sounds like direct democracy.

[Moonlight Graham]

On 8/12/2019 at 4:38 PM, Michael Hardner said:

1. Ok I wasn't elaborate enough.  Information gathering, prioritization, design all need to be done by a collaborative and representative group.

2. I thought you were touting direct democracy.

3. This sounds like direct democracy.

1.  How?  This is vague.

2. I am.  But simply as one possible solution to my over-arching idea, that somehow we need more democratic input on issues and policy.  One of my ideas was to directly elect cabinet posts, or have referendums on general policy direction.  We don't need to have total control of very piece of legislation, but we should have some say in the overarching direction of different issues like budget debt, the environment/climate change, immigration, foreign policy etc. Instead we leave it up to these elitist politicians who have a very specific partisan and ideological slant of every piece of policy.

3. Sure.

[Michael Hardner]

7 hours ago, Moonlight Graham said:

1.  How?  This is vague.

2. I am.  But simply as one possible solution to my over-arching idea, that somehow we need more democratic input on issues and policy. 

2b. One of my ideas was to directly elect cabinet posts, or have referendums on general policy direction.  We don't need to have total control of very piece of legislation, but we should have some say in the overarching direction of different issues like budget debt, the environment/climate change, immigration, foreign policy etc. Instead we leave it up to these elitist politicians who have a very specific partisan and ideological slant of every piece of policy.

3. Sure.

1. I would *suspect* that standing groups of stakeholders composed of: users, government, and workers that are cultivated to become expert in how things work - and are directed towards specific citizen-problems.  There was a study in how this was done for something simple - an infrastructure upgrade in NB I believe and it worked well.

2. Ok, I agree.  'Democratic input' should be deeper than just checking off a box, though, IMO.  

2b.  Interesting - how about if you elected a specific government group to deal with one large problem, eg. e-Health records, or border crossers ?

Another idea I would like to pursue is de-politicizing areas of activity.  Canada Post was somewhat de-politicized when it was made a crown corp, for example.  

[Moonlight Graham]

On 8/14/2019 at 6:46 AM, Michael Hardner said:

 

2. Ok, I agree.  'Democratic input' should be deeper than just checking off a box, though, IMO. 

2. How are you going to get democratic input from all majority-age Canadians in ways other than checking a box.  Even opinion polls are checking a box.  You're not going to fit tens of millions of Canadians inside a focus group meeting room, and if you only take the opinions of some voters and not all then is it really democratic and representative?

[Michael Hardner]

12 minutes ago, Moonlight Graham said:

2. How are you going to get democratic input from all majority-age Canadians in ways other than checking a box.  Even opinion polls are checking a box.  You're not going to fit tens of millions of Canadians inside a focus group meeting room, and if you only take the opinions of some voters and not all then is it really democratic and representative?

First of all, only a fraction of people will participate and you can facilitate opinion sharing and gathering via online means.

[Moonlight Graham]

4 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

First of all, only a fraction of people will participate and you can facilitate opinion sharing and gathering via online means.

Well i'm fine with that but for the masses to participate it would probably be conducted by some kind of online polling, which does mean checking boxes.  There's nothing wrong with that, at least it means Canadians have input.  Adding a section for comments would be fine too, but also take up resources to plow through the responses if there's tens or even hundreds of thousands if not millions of them.

I think we should govern more by nationwide polling.  Government should generally not be governing against the wishes of the public in a democracy.  Most MP's aren't any smarter than you or I, and are usually bullied into taking their cues from the leadership anyways, so I doubt most MP's even read the legislation they're voting on. Give power back to the people instead of keeping it in the hands of the PM whose party usually only captures 36-39% of the popular vote anyways.

[Michael Hardner]

7 hours ago, Moonlight Graham said:

1. Well i'm fine with that but for the masses to participate it would probably be conducted by some kind of online polling, which does mean checking boxes. 

2. There's nothing wrong with that, at least it means Canadians have input.  Adding a section for comments would be fine too, but also take up resources to plow through the responses if there's tens or even hundreds of thousands if not millions of them.

3. I think we should govern more by nationwide polling.  Government should generally not be governing against the wishes of the public in a democracy.   

4. Most MP's aren't any smarter than you or I, and are usually bullied into taking their cues from the leadership anyways, so I doubt most MP's even read the legislation they're voting on.

5. Give power back to the people instead of keeping it in the hands of the PM whose party usually only captures 36-39% of the popular vote anyways.

1. That's a revealing choice of words: 'masses'.  In fact, you and I grew up in an era of 'mass communication' however this approach would be a throwback to the era of 'publics' wherein an individual opinion mattered and was not just a ticket box or a Neilsen rating.  Polling would indeed be part of it but moderated discussion such as we have here (but different obv) would be a much bigger part.  We can't really know the full details of how it would work as you would need an aspect of design into this process, and that is done by experts with specialized skills that we can't pretend to have.

2  For sure it would take up resources, but actually asking Canadians what they want would produce a new kind of responsiveness, and value.

3. To be honest, they actually poll behind the scenes much more than anyone talks about.  Those phone surveys that call you are all about this.

4.  Most MPs are dumber than me, IMO.  Yes, they are bullied into taking the party line.   They DON'T read the legislation and for something like the TPP they wouldn't even understand it if they did read it.

5.  You are getting it.  There is a revolution coming, which follows what is happening in business and the first party leader that gets it will go down in history.