Electoral Reform Survey

[Pat-Taporter]

Hi HG and GB,

Here’s one (apparently an indie) that you can start fighting over this Christmas but sorry, it looks like there might not be any others from this ‘Senate reform’ crop available for a while.

Huff Post Politics

Sen. John Wallace Quits To Fulfill Appointment Pledge, But Others Won't Follow Suit

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/12/13 ... 15308.html

OTTAWA — Eight years ago, 18 senators were appointed to the upper chamber after promising Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper they would support his Senate reform agenda — including eight-year term limits.

On Tuesday, New Brunswick Senator John Wallace became the first person to say he feels bound by that pledge and will step down.
The Conservative-turned-independent senator issued a short statement indicating his resignation:

“As January 26, 2017, will mark the completion of my eighth year of service as a Member of the Senate of Canada, I have advised the Governor General of my intention to resign from the Senate, effective February 1, 2017.”
- Senator John Wallace

Harper never passed any Senate reform bills and those 18 who pledged to support his agenda were never explicitly requested to step down after eight years.

<snip>

[Pat-Taporter]

The survey is so slanted and blatantly designed to fit government agenda that I did not submit it after completing. Will not give them another respondent who has been duped into filling a survey skewed to supporting a specific agenda and view of respondents' profiles. The horoscope like profile is absurd. Look carefully at questions and your specific answers and compare to profile generated. I see manipulation that will make good headlines for talking heads.

But-but-but the Vox Pop contract requirement, “. . . includes the provision of an educational experience and helping Canadians understand their own value preferences, (http://buyandsell.gc.ca/procurement-dat ... -019-71477).”

Did you send a followup email of dissatisfaction to the Minster like I suggested earlier?

Email: [email protected]

I find your post is so expressive that you would only need to copy and paste it.

[Rosemary1]

yes. Hopefully enough others will as well.

[jimmy4321]

Still far less money than spent fighter jet window shopping the last 10yrs.

[Merry]

So Trudeau has "dropped" the idea of Electoral Reform. What a surprise (NOT).

If he'd made an honest attempt to get the opinions of Canadians I could have forgiven him but, as he didn't, this is just one more nail in his coffin as far as I'm concerned.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is abandoning his long-held promise to change the way Canadians vote in federal elections.

In a mandate letter for newly appointed Democratic Institutions Minister Karina Gould, Trudeau makes it clear that electoral reform — once top of mind for the Liberal government — is no longer on the agenda.

"Changing the electoral system will not be in your mandate," the prime minister writes in the letter, released Wednesday.

http://www.castanet.net/edition/news-st ... htm#187609

[Glacier]

Here was my response a year ago...

[The Green Barbarian]

Still far less money than spent fighter jet window shopping the last 10yrs.

and also just as relevant - still less money than spent on health care. Wow, when you do comparatives like that, this giant waste of money for a problem that didn't exist in the first place seems really insignificant!

[jimmy4321]

Just under 7 yrs left,enjoy! The common thread is waste
Cry if they do,whine if they don't lol

[Merry]

Even though I don't always agree with Ms May , I wholeheartedly share her opinion on this:

“ I am deeply ashamed that our feminist prime minister threw two young women cabinet ministers under the bus on a key election promise, that he left them twisting in the wind and not fulfilling” she said.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2017/02/01 ... 59872.html

Trudeau lied about electoral reform merely to get elected. Then considered fulfilling his promise ONLY if he could get the kind of reform guaranteed to allow the Libs to win every election going forward. And when he got called out on that attempt, he decided to back out of electoral reform altogether.

Disgusting.

[Glacier]

Good article, Ms. May!

I'm not really a fan of proportional representation myself, but the excuse for this broken promise stinks to high heaven. The Liberals would lose out with proportional representation, and it has become increasingly clear that by "electoral reform," they meant "electoral reform that won't decrease the odds of the Liberals winning another majority government." Canadians who wanted electoral reform wanted proportional representation, not ranked ballot as they'd like, so they pretended that there wasn't enough interest in getting rid of first-past-the-post.

[Omnitheo]

I don't think the liberals would have even uttered the words "election reform" had they not been reduced to third place. Had they gotten a minority government it's entirely possible they would have worked with the NDP and other parties to come up with a new system. The night of the election when I saw the results tick past majority, I had the suspicion that electoral reform was no more.

I feel a large number of Canadians will be returning to their own stripes in the next election. But as we've seen from similar attempts in BC, and from the liberals own findings during this process, most Canadians either don't care, or don't see a problem with the current system (provided it's currently benefiting them).

this was a key issue for me and I'm not happy, but in the end, and for most Canadians, it's just a typical failed election promise. No different from promises any of the candidates would have made and failed to deliver on.

Here's hoping the NDP can capitalize on this though in the next election.

[alfred2]

cIf the ndp had a proper platform and a leader maybe the may get a few votes ,,but as a party they a pathetic/

[Merry]

I don't know much about the guy who wrote this article but, if he was my MP, I'd vote for him again:
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/nathaniel- ... 74512.html

Here are a couple of excerpts:

In the last election, we promised to reform our voting system and make every vote count.

That promise is now broken.

In the Minister of Democratic Institutions' new mandate letter, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau writes: "Changing the electoral system will not be in your mandate."

I am disappointed that we have broken our promise, and I strongly disagree with our government's decision to abandon electoral reform.

In my conversations with constituents on this topic, I ask a simple question: should a party with less than 40 per cent of the popular vote control 100 per cent of the power in our democracy?

There is an overwhelming consensus that the answer is "no." Democracy's legitimacy lies in its authority from the people, and the majority of Canadians are left unrepresented in governments under our current voting system.

[Glacier]

Here's another good one:

Next to “the dog ate my homework,” the prime minister’s explanation for un-committing to his commitment has to go down as one of the lamest excuses on record from any Canadian leader. Trudeau told the country that there was no “national consensus” on how to change the voting system. He even made a stab at the oldest political alchemy of all — turning his political bad faith into a virtue. The Liberals would not change the voting system, he claimed, because it would be “irresponsible” to do something that would harm Canada’s “stability.”

Interestingly, Trudeau waited until his cross-country selfie-orgy was over before making that announcement. If he had made it publicly in Vancouver when he dropped in for a Chinese New Year’s photo-op (carefully avoiding a town hall), they would have pelted him with wet noodles.

I have yet to talk to anyone who heard the prime minister say on the hustings that he would not enact electoral reform without a “national consensus” on which way to go. Nor is it a serious argument to say that polls now show Canadians are foggy on which way to take the electoral system. The biggest poll of them all — the 2015 election — saw enough Canadians vote for a changed electoral system, trusting Trudeau to deliver it.

http://ipolitics.ca/2017/02/02/bet-on-i ... roken-vow/