Castanet

Corneliousrooster wrote:

Smurf wrote:


EDIT TO ADD:

We should all thank GOD or the people with common sense the referendum went the way it did.

hmmmm..... it is FPTP that produced BC and New Brunswick's current power divide - so in your assessment what we have is the product of "common sense" .... surprised then that there is so much whining....

The difference would be that if the referendum went the other way Liberals might actually have some sway and the "free" votes might actually have some members brave enough to vote not necessarily out of their parties playbook but rather vote with a conscience that may best represent the constituents that voted for them..... but yeah that would be dumb, much better to continue with the system that would be best suited to lemmings.

No it is not a product of common sense because the Liberals actually won just not a large enough majority. It is the product of a bad decision that ever let this alliance govern in the first place. Looking around the world this is a perfect example of the mess you would get if the election had gone the other way. Having said that it would probably be worse if that is possible.

If we look back through history our current system has only produced a minority government 3 times including the present one. That is the "common sense factor. Too bad we blew it this time by not giving the winners a majority.

Provincial and territorial level
Of Canada's 10 provinces, only Alberta has never had a minority government. The territories of Northwest Territories and Nunavut do not have political parties and are instead governed under the consensus government system.

British Columbia (1924–28, 1952–53, 2017-present)
Manitoba (1936–41, 1958–59, 1969–73, 1988–90)
New Brunswick (1920–25, 2018–present)
Newfoundland and Labrador (1971–72)
Nova Scotia (1970–74, 1998–99, 2003–06, 2006–09)
Ontario (1867–71, 1943–45, 1975–77, 1977–81, 1985–87, 2011–14)
Quebec (1878–79, 2007–08, 2012–14)
Prince Edward Island (1873–76, 1876–79, 1890–93)
Saskatchewan (1929–34, 1999–2003)
Yukon (1985–89, 1992–96)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_ ... _in_Canada

Looks to me like Alberta has the most common sense of all

This guy hits the nail on the head, imho.


Coddling the malcontents

Contributed - Dec 30, 2018 / 9:00 am | Story: 245487

Re: Media Let Us Down

I beg to differ. This media outlet (Castanet), the Kelowna Courier, Capital News and CBC, all – ad nauseum – covered this waste of money referendum, for well over three months.

The provincial government went down this road (not once, not twice, but three times), spending this time $15 million in this fool's errand, so you and all your malcontents could have a say about how we elect the government.

And what happened? None of you bothered to vote!

Unlike in a normal election, you did not even have to go stand in line to exercise your democratic right. All you had to do was check a box, and put the "vote" in a mailbox. You even had weeks to do it.

And still you whiners could not get that feeble effort together. And yet, we flushed away $15 million to coddle you malcontents. And this is the best you can come up with: "the media is to blame."

Go back to bed. There will be no more wake-up calls for you and your fellow malcontents.

The gravy train is so over!

John Skae

Reading an article in Dec. 8th Economist it looks like Spain is no longer the exception in Europe.
Dec. 2 regional election in Andalusia now has the Vox party wining 11% of the vote and now has 12 of 109 seats. Vox opposes immigration, feminism and is Eurosceptic. Wants to make Spain a centralized state as under Franco.
Hailed by Marine Le Pen of France's national Rally as a far right party is back in Spanish Parliament.

Who says far right parties would never show up in BC if we ever went to PR?

Glad BC voters are smarter than Horgan, Eby and Weaver...

seewood wrote:Reading an article in Dec. 8th Economist it looks like Spain is no longer the exception in Europe.
Dec. 2 regional election in Andalusia now has the Vox party wining 11% of the vote and now has 12 of 109 seats. Vox opposes immigration, feminism and is Eurosceptic. Wants to make Spain a centralized state as under Franco.
Hailed by Marine Le Pen of France's national Rally as a far right party is back in Spanish Parliament.

Who says far right parties would never show up in BC if we ever went to PR?

Glad BC voters are smarter than Horgan, Eby and Weaver...

no one is bold enough to say that far right seats wont be won. but they are bold enough to say that the small amount of seats they win will never be enough to sway power for their agenda. certain things may be implemented from negotiation that society can swallow - but not the concentration camps that people imply.

burned - the threat to democracy from the fringes has always been there. Both from the far left and the far right where ideologies trump thinking and reason. It is that dark place where Stalin meets Mussolini.

If you look at Germany, it is instructive. In 2013 the AfD far right got 0 seats, the Left got 64 seats. 4.7% and 8.6% of the vote respectively. In 2017 the AfD got 94 seats, the Left got 69 seats. 12.6% and 9.2% of the vote respectively.

Far right populism simply blew past the left. The end fracture of the vote by far left and far right populism weakened the center enough to create a weak coalition government, arguably at a time when Germany needs a strong centrist government.

It is simply impossible to say where this leads in a PR system. In a FPTP system, it is very difficult for fringe parties to gain a relevant foothold. In fact, the AfD were able to win only 3 constituencies, the Left 5, and the Green* only 1. Yet between them, they gum up the works with 230 seats - and in the end, all 3 fringe parties were excluded from government - which begs the question: what good are they doing just being noisy seat warmers?

burnedatstake wrote:no one is bold enough to say that far right seats wont be won. but they are bold enough to say that the small amount of seats they win will never be enough to sway power for their agenda. certain things may be implemented from negotiation that society can swallow - but not the concentration camps that people imply.

Bet you would have your knickers in a twist if a far right party garnered 3 seats in the last provincial election and joined forces with the Liberals giving them enough seats to form government..

This debate is still going on... got news for everyone. The voters of BC (those who actually gave a damn) filled out there ballot sent it in, majority said they want FPTP.

i dont deal in the fearmongering what ifs of right wing cheerleaders. that is a tried and true tactic of theirs. as such - i wont give time to what is happening in germany. that is there. things here would be a totally different voting block than germany has. and if pr happened - there would have been a completely different flavor of system than germany has here. we live in canada - putting our own spin on things is what we do. and its usually better than other places. but hey - sell us short if you want. thats what happened when we decided to keep FPTP. we settled.

burnedatstake wrote:i dont deal in the fearmongering what ifs of right wing cheerleaders. that is a tried and true tactic of theirs. as such - i wont give time to what is happening in germany. that is there. things here would be a totally different voting block than germany has. and if pr happened - there would have been a completely different flavor of system than germany has here. we live in canada - putting our own spin on things is what we do. and its usually better than other places. but hey - sell us short if you want. thats what happened when we decided to keep FPTP. we settled.

Yup. Go ahead and just keep your head in that ostrich hole and pretend politics is any different in Germany than it is here.
Lordy, why can you not wrap your head around the reality that PR actually spawns and emboldens fringe thinking that adds absolutely squat to effective governance. Then if the outside edges of the voter bell curve pass a min percentage of whacko following votes, then actually get taxpayer funding?? That is the beginning of the end of democracy.

burnedatstake wrote:i dont deal in the fearmongering what ifs of right wing cheerleaders. that is a tried and true tactic of theirs. as such - i wont give time to what is happening in germany. that is there. things here would be a totally different voting block than germany has. and if pr happened - there would have been a completely different flavor of system than germany has here. we live in canada - putting our own spin on things is what we do. and its usually better than other places. but hey - sell us short if you want. thats what happened when we decided to keep FPTP. we settled.

"What if's" ?? That's all the three PR choices consisted of. The only concrete, complete choice was FPTP.
Time to look for another line of work.

burnedatstake wrote:i dont deal in the fearmongering what ifs of right wing cheerleaders.

Great. Bookmarked for the next time you venture into environmental 'what-if X happens' topics.

mikest2 wrote:

burnedatstake wrote:i dont deal in the fearmongering what ifs of right wing cheerleaders. that is a tried and true tactic of theirs. as such - i wont give time to what is happening in germany. that is there. things here would be a totally different voting block than germany has. and if pr happened - there would have been a completely different flavor of system than germany has here. we live in canada - putting our own spin on things is what we do. and its usually better than other places. but hey - sell us short if you want. thats what happened when we decided to keep FPTP. we settled.

"What if's" ?? That's all the three PR choices consisted of. The only concrete, complete choice was FPTP.
Time to look for another line of work.

I find it amusing that the staunchly pro PR types, keep vehemently defending PR, yet not one of them can honestly claim to know, what type of system this clown car government might have invented. If they say they do, then the only thing certain is that they'd be lying, given that not even current MLA's could explain it or give adequate answers to media.

So basically they are 100% convinced that an unknown system is unquestionably better than FPTP. Here I always thought that in order to make a fair comparison, and educated decision, one would need to know all the fine details of options presented.

Urban Cowboy wrote:So basically they are 100% convinced that an unknown system is unquestionably better than FPTP. Here I always thought that in order to make a fair comparison, and educated decision, one would need to know all the fine details of options presented.

Keyword highlighted. Left wing peanut chuckers skipped class and juggled the bong way too much to meet the definition. Who else would vote NDP, or buy into the BS Horgan was peddling on PR?

I think changing the underlying system of voting should be 65%

Too many gov funded lower mainland folks may show up.

Tunnel the next ref where the sun shines less brightly ;-)

Hopefully there is NEVER a next ref. It is just a huge waste of our money.