Harper's Defence on Senate Reform (it's a poor one)

Harper, while not confirming his nine Senate appointments, did attempt to defend the 27 appointments he has made to the Upper Chamber in the last year. Unfortunately for him, it's a laughable defence at best:

"I’m willing to appoint elected senators, but so far only one province has held an election and that’s Alberta," Harper said in Quebec.

"Until senators are elected, this government will ensure that we have in the Senate people who will work hard and will support the elected government of this country. And that includes passing our anti-crime legislation and passing our democratic reforms which have been blocked in the Senate."

Sound inconsistent with Harper's pontifications on Senate reform? That's because it is. To hear Harper tell it a while back, he was ready to bring real reform to the Senate. The Conservatives were going to make significant changes to the gravy train that is Canada's Upper House, according to Harper.

However, once in power for a while, Harper has realized that having a Senate with a majority in his favour would be highly beneficial, and would streamline his legislation. So now, instead of senate reform being a federal responsibility, one that Harper partly campaigned on, it is now provincial.

It's not Harper's fault there's no reform. It's those backward provinces that don't set up elections for the senate. Let that sink in. Harper is saying that provincial governments should organize elections for federal posts.

Instead of being principled and accountable, two virtues on which he campaigned mercilessly, Harper is thinking up the most ludicrous excuses for his lack of principle.

Just wait. Perhaps the provinces are responsible for more than you think.

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Obama's opponents on Health Care Reform

Patients United Now, an advocacy group opposed to the reforms to healthcare envisioned by Obama, has enlisted the help of a Canadian in one of their ads that greatly distorts the issue.

Shona Holmes, who had an unusual brain tumor, was told that she would have to wait 6 months in the Canadian system before she would see a specialist. She decided instead to go to the US, while mortgaging her house to pay the $100 000 to see the American specialist. Now she is speaking out in a Patients United Now ad claiming that if Healthcare a la Canadian were attempted in the US, "deadly" waiting lists would ensue.

What people like Shona Holmes and the good ol' conservatives at Patients United Now don't seem to want to understand is that it is equally deadly to not have proper healthcare that is available to all, regardless of financial situation. How are people in the lower classes to get access to even simple healthcare, let alone treatment for brain tumors when they cannot pay the prices demanded in the US without seriously compromising their already precarious situations?

This is not to say that there are not problems with the Canadian system, but it is considerably superior to that in the US. In Canada, medical setbacks do not mean that your whole life is setback. In the US, you have to be quite wealthy to escaped unscathed financially.

The problems brought up by these ads, notably the long waiting lists, need to be addressed, and all parties in Canada recognize that (although I doubt the Conservatives track record). Proposals have been put forward for more doctors and nurses to reduce severe shortages in the sector, and thus reduce waiting times.

However, in the grand scheme of things, I would much rather have the Healthcare system we enjoy in Canada than the mess in the United States. Our system benefits more people, harming less than the American one does with its deadly prices to the average citizen.

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Canadians don't like elections: force them to have elections

Amid all the ado surrounding the potential election last week, one phrase kept being repeated: Canadians do not want a summer election. Come to think of it, Canadians never like elections. Fall is a bad time because the school year has just started, winter is bad because it's Christmas, spring is bad because who wants to think of politics when everything else is in bloom, and in summer it's quite difficult to vote when you'd rather hang around the barbecue.

It would seem that Canadians never want an election. This is paralyzing politics in this country as the reason constantly given for not going to the polls is that no one wants an election. Ignatieff's sad capitulation to Harper over EI and other issues was due to advice that centered around Canadians do not want election.

Now, this of particular concern to Liberals as whenever voter turnout is low, there is a greater probability of a Conservative majority. However, the facts remain that each party uses it, the Conservatives even to their advantage. In fact, this is integral to their attacks on the Liberal party.

So the solution is pretty clear. To avoid all this strategic pandering to Canadians' adversity to elections, we can eliminate that adversity, or rather, circumnavigate it. In other words, force Canadians to vote, by enacting such a law. Not voting would become an offence.

This is a system that is used in in other regions worldwide, to quite significant success. In such systems, voter participation, such as in Australia, exceeds 90%.

Maybe, if we had had this reform, we would have less strategic fear mongering in Parliament. And Ignatieff would have forced an election.

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Why we should be paying more taxes

One of the reasons that we have been led to these deficits is the Conservative cuts to the GST. With this in mind, Robert Smol's article on CBC.ca Why I should be paying more taxes proclaims a truth that many politicians do not want to face. Instead of lowering taxes, if anything they should be raised.

Simply a great article.

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Fearmongerers are wrong: Electoral reform is not dead

The results are in, and BC-STV failed miserably, winning only 40% of the vote and failing to garner the majority of voes in 78 of the 85 provincial ridings. According to STV advocates, this has effectively killed any chance of electoral reform in BC, let alone the country, for at least a generation. These people are wrong.

They are being blinded by their commitment to STV. The fact is that they are assuming that all of those of us committed to electoral reform would vote for STV. Although I am not yet old enough to vote, in the BC student vote I voted against STV, and this for a perfectly good, reform minded reason. If we selected STV, it may have been a generation until we changed to a more proportional, less problematic system. The one I would advocate is MMP.

There is no reason why electoral reform cannot happen, and relatively soon. Carole James alludes to this, as she said that if the referendum were too fail, she was still committed to a referendum on MMP if we so desired.

So there is will on the political side of things to continue this process of electoral reform. Just because STV wasn't chosen doesn't mean we cannot advocate, and pass, MMP soon. We need to make it known that our will for electoral reform has not died, and that we want a referendum on MMP.

And, this time, why not bring forward the referendum to a separate day. There is no law that it must be on election day. Let's push for a referendum on MMP within two years, and that way, we can use MMP in the next election.

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STV is not better than MMP. MMP is much more proportional. Citizens' Assembly Wrong.

Upon reading through the British Columbia Citizens' Association on Electoral Reform's explanations for choosing STV over MMP, I was sorely disappointed.

The BCCAEF maintained that the proportionality obtained in STV is the same as in MMP. This, however, is not the case. There is plenty of documentation of cases in which parties under STV actually won more seats than they were entitled to on a purely proportional basis.

In Ireland's 2007 election, Sein Fein won 6.9% of the vote and elected 4 TDs while the Green Party won 4.7% of the vote and elected 6 TDs. Ireland's long governing party, Fianna Fail, won 41.6% of the vote and elected 78 TDs (47.0%). This is clearly disproportional. In fact, it accomplishes something FPTP does. Giving more seats to parties with less votes.

Here is an explanation of MMP. As you can see, in MMP, as close to proper proportionality as possible is achieved. This is not the case in STV.

On the BCCAFEA website, they maintain that MMP retains problems from FPTP. However, they do not mention any of these. In contrast, it is clear that STV retains the problems from FPTP of electing people solely based on their riding. This is what allows for the disproportion that it has seen.

Is the BCCAFEA so desperate to push through their brainchild that they will distort facts, and tell us that STV is equal to MMP in terms of proportionality? If they are, that is all the more disconcerting.

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