Culpability party. The whole point is to enact laws that make people culpable for the things they say. If a member of parliament accuse something, and it’s found not to be true, they get some sort of penalty. If they promise something during elections and it doesn’t happen after they get elected, they and their party gets a punishment.
And not just some sort of slap on the wrist, but something substantial enough that repeat offences can be career ending within the field of politics. Politicians need to be responsible for what they say, as words are their weapons of choice, and with the level of power they have, they should also carry that level of responsibility.
While there is something to be said about saying something wrong due to ignorance, it’s another matter to say something with authority on a subject one is ignorant about. You can’t just say something like abortions should be outlawed because women can just turn off their fertility (yes, a politician actually said that).
This was the purpose of the Australian Democrats party before they died out.
At a Melbourne media conference on 19 September 1980, in the midst of the 1980 election campaign, Chipp described his party’s aim as to “keep the bastards honest”—the “bastards” being the major parties and/or politicians in general. This became a long-lived slogan for the Democrats.
I like the idea that politicians are held to a higher standard, but I can’t imagine it would be easy to enforce. If it was a financial penalty, it would encourage corruption. If the penalty was an exclusion from running in the next election, the group that makes that determination could be weaponized. It would be difficult to structure.
I know. It’s just idealism at its finest. Just like how proportional representation won’t ever be implement because it won’t ever benifit the one who has the power to put it into practice, such a policy could never actually be enacted.
But I like to dream, even if I know it’ll never happen.
It has the stated objective of maximizing quality of life for all Canadians.
It doesn’t care what people think is the best way to do that, it looks at research to determine what is the actual best way to do that and commission’s research to determine the most effective policies when existing evidence doesn’t exist.
It flip-flops on any issue when new research supports a different policy.
No house parties! Once the election is over, people are seated randomly and every vote is a free vote.That way there is an organizational structure for the creation of platforms, but proposed legislation has to legitimately convince a majority of sitting members.
None of the above! This becomes a formal option on the ballot. If NOTB wins a constituency, there is an automatic by-election and none of the people on that ballot can run again. If NOTB is elected to the ruling party, well, that’s a pretty big do over that comes with a pretty strong signal that every party and every candidate is out of touch with reality.
Abolish FPTP! There are some legitimate arguments over the pros and cons of various electoral systems, but every honest person knows that FPTP is fatally flawed.
Citizens’ committees! I fail to see how a large enough collection of randomly selected people could possibly do worse than our current crop. We might never have true sortition and maybe true sortition is a bad idea, but a randomly selected citizens’ committee would let us test the waters and experiment with different amounts of “power to the people”. At the very least, a parallel structure with no party alignments might come up with different ideas than we have now.
I’m with you on most points but first and foremost abolition of party system has got to happen. Our politics just turned into tribalism, “us vs them” game that is being played at our expense. It’s got to stop. I don’t see any more of “lets compromise and work together” and constant “we’ll tear down what other party was building… because it has THEIR name attached”.
FPTP contributes greatly to the lack of political discourse and constant bickering with powergrab moves. It eliminates variaty forcing landscape to oscilate down to 2 options which over time become virtually identical and differ in optics only.
Instead of NOTA party, a quorum requirement. If not enough people vote to meet a quorum for a riding, the results are invalid and the election is redone. Further, due to the low engagement, all candidates who previously ran for said riding are barred from running again. Same idea as “None of the Above” party being formalized, but also increases engagement; sitting out means, literally, “meh, they all suck.”
I mean, FFS, my condominium needs a quorum to do something obvious like getting our AC chiller upgraded; and yet, only 18% of eligible voters can give someone like Doug Ford a fucking majority?!
Allow scary looking guns but require the gun and anything that goes onto or into it, anything that it attaches to and anything that attaches to it to be hot pink. Possession of anything that should be hot pink but isn’t automatically loose the privilege of owning guns for life. Allow a gun or anything that should be hot pink but isn’t into your range lose your licence forever. Sell a gun or anything else that should be hot pink loose your license forever.
Being hot pink does not in any way diminish the function of the gun. I’m perfectly happy to shoot with a hot pink gun. If you object then the only reason you want the gun is for how it looks and how it makes you feel. Those are bad reasons to own a gun in Canada.
They will only vote “Yes” to legislation to switch Canada to Single Transferable Vote for the next election, with details to be determined by Elections Canada.
They will then vote as a block in complete solidarity with the party that introduced the legislation until the next election, when the party will disband.
Then, more generally, they campaign about how broken FPTP is and how completely compatible STV is to Canadian politics:
Keep geographic representation as required by the Constitution.
Roughly proportional government, without allowing tiny fringe parties from derailing our political systems.
No more “safe seats” for incumbents, so everyone is truly accountable to their constituents.
Very good chance that you will have a local MP that aligns with your political views to represent you.
Can vote for parties or for individuals within the parties, so it can be simple to vote, but can also scale to political knowledge level and interest.
I could go on. Like that it’s been a successful system in Ireland for over a century.
I love this, but shouldn’t they vote as a block, but proportionally for the parties who sponsor the bill? :p
I’d change a couple things though:
Allow members to vote independently on issues not impacting PR. While shooting down all legislation might force someone’s hand, it would likely turn the party into the bad guys and possibly hold back positive change.
Call the party the “Reform Party” (will sound more palatable to the right).
Run on the promise that if they form government, they will enact PR, immediately call a new election. Not sure if they should disband as there are tons of other problems with our democracy than just PR.
Re: 1, that would destroy their only leverage. The only way the party works is if they get enough seats that they’re needed to form a coalition government. Otherwise, their votes are irrelevant: it’s either a majority government or a coalition government that excludes them.
2, can they call themselves that? The Reform Party presumably still owns that name, I would have thought? Still, good idea. “Reform Canada Party” maybe would work?
Re: 3, the problem is that it will take time to get Elections Canada ready for an election with an entirely different voting system. They’ll need to procure voting machines, create policies and training manuals for everything (including how to manually recount physical votes), define the ridings, design the new ballots, etc. They’ll need a full election cycle to prepare for it.
The NDP already represent a lot of what the majority of Canadians want, but fearmongering about sOciALiSm, and the party having to move more towards the center to try and meet the Liberals halfway has diluted their brand.
The people who would never vote for them anyways think that they’re too far left, and the people who used to support them see them as too-eager-to-please to the current Liberal government.
If you could magically snap away people’s preconcieved notions and team mentality towards politics, and had them read party policies carte blanche, I think a large portion of Canadians would go NDP, especially if they went back to their traditional policies and mindset.
If you could magically snap away people’s preconcieved notions and team mentality towards politics, and had them read party policies carte blanche, I think a large portion of Canadians would go NDP, especially if they went back to their traditional policies and mindset.
You could say the same about any of the parties. Their platforms all sound great, it’s the implementation and actual outcomes that differ.
The People’s Party (I know, kinda cheating) Platform is pretty easy to tell which party it is. It’s pro conversion therapy(shock treatments, “pray the gay away” camps/prisons), including on children, and anti-trans. It even name-drops Jordan Peterson.
Remove the ban imposed by Bill C-4, the so-called “conversion therapy bill”
Repeal Bill C-16, the bill that added gender self-identification as ground for protection against discrimination.
That’s pretty easy to spot and avoid.
The cons say that they don’t believe that Canada should have a carbon tax, or a carbon cap as a national policy as #31 of their Policy Declaration.
That’s also pretty easy to avoid.
I could see someone looking the NDP and LIb platforms and not being able to tell which is which, though they could pretty easily figure out that they are not right-wing.
Whatever system it is … it has to be more socially minded to helping individual common people across the country of all backgrounds, races, cultures and genders
You also have to figure out how to disconnect it from wealth and corporate influence. Once its allowed to have too much money affecting it … whatever changes you want will just devolve down to what we already have. Money corrupts and money will corrupt every system no matter how socially or equitably minded we want it to be.
want what’s best for their families, friends, neighbours, and the country.
Okay, so caring for one another is in and the blue party is out.
Saving money through consolidation and single-payer services? Again, blue’s out. Orange has it here but can’t get into power without vote reform and the courage it gives us to vote our hearts.
One’s obligation to friends, family, and the country, directly proportional to one’s income, so our most at-risk can focus on improvement? Blues still out. This seems to be a red thing.
I don’t know whether there’s enough there to get a new party. Who’s convinced you that one of the existing ones are no good; and tell us which blue it was too.
Return to red toryism. Specifically fiscal conservatism and progressive social values, which is what currently fractured PC parties are supposed to be. List of some items I had in mind:
Higher progressive taxes on the ultra-wealthy
National pipeline strategy from coast to coast to New Brunswick refinery so Canada can increase its energy independence from the US and other malicious geopolitical partners like Saudi Arabia
Greater focus on nuclear and renewable energy through subsidies and tax credits
Fix health care system by increasing funding to schools, opening up more residency spots, and giving health care staff more bonuses or perks to prevent brain drain
Higher military spending to surveil and protect Arctic waters from Russia, also make it a prestigious employer that people want to work for with greater advancement opportunities and opportunities to retain experienced staff
Temporary shutdown of immigration system except for highly skilled workers in high demand industries
Gun buyback and confiscation programs, specifically in urban centres
More infrastructural projects to better urban transportation systems
Justice system should be less lenient towards repeat and/or high severe crimes - they should be locked up for a long time
Increase spending onto education system to produce more skilled and more productive members of society, perhaps instill an artificial quota on low demand industries on post-secondary schools to prevent young adults from choosing unproductive majors
EDIT: Allotocate more subsidies/tax credits to developer who take on building higher density housing, allow apartment/condo boards to be fascist-like to ensure health living spaces for its residents
National reformation program to round up all the substance abusive homeless people and reform them into productive members for training in landscaping, skilled trades, cooking, warehouses, clerks
Reward First Nations tribes accordingly who have put more emphasis into improving their social issues through more social workers, compliance with the national reformation program, etc.
Electoral reform, at all levels. Start with municipal governments by offering tax dollars to help with the transition and to educate citizens. Once a municipality has successfully held their first election under the new system, they get some more money to continue their education plans, then move up to provincial, federal, etc.
Boost healthcare. The state of all healthcare systems is shameful. Bonus transfer payments for strengthening the healthcare system with higher wages and benefits, lower wait times, more equal access to care, and fewer people without family doctors.
Get serious on the environment. Nothing else matters once you can’t drink the water and breathe the air. Stop subsidizing carbon, collect carbon taxes, and direct the collected money back to individuals. Big rebates for energy efficiency projects, electric cars & charging.
Kickstart housing. It’s not rocket surgery that cities and suburbs need higher density housing, with accessible public transit nearby.
I think it’s a false division, which is stoked by far-right leaning politicians. I’d like to believe that even people who lean right politically are still for functioning public education and health care. The issue is that people aren’t doing as well as they remember doing 20 years ago for a variety of very solvable issues.
A labor or workers’ party that unifies anyone who works for a living, whether as an employee or a small business owner. The platform should focus on shifting the balance of power from capital to labor via clearly social democratic policies with strong emphasis on workers rights and reunionization. This party should go out of its way to advertise and educate the public on why and how these policies benefit the majority. Lon-term future policies might revolve around reforming corporate ownership structures or promoting alternative worker ownership structures, among other things.
Seconding a labour party. Focus on affordability for the common person. Make the process to set up employee owned businesses easy, cater to business of all sizes regardless of how much lobbying/influence money provided. Give unions better negotiating tools. Promote democratic reform so individuals can feel more active in giving input to civic reforms (when was our last referendum?), and not just for the well-connected and wealthy. This is different than a policy by Twitter-poll (what populists like Premier Doug Ford tend to do) but a visionary party to reinforce the notion that the government is us. Not a team sport to be played.
Centre Ice Canadians are building the “Our Canadian Future Party” (real name TBD pending elections Canada approval) – target audience is centrist, with largely reasonable statements so far. In particular, they’re heavily pro nuclear, which is a huge selling point for me…
Heh… I like the idea of a ‘blue line’ ‘centre ice’ party… Every Canuck should know what it means, and it’s a nod to our Hockey heritage, but I can totally see it getting mixed up with the nazi police ‘thin blue line’ bullshit.
What does a brand new political party platform look like to appeal to an overwhelming majority of Canadians?
Empty set. The overwhelming majority of Canadians (and voters in general around the world) don’t follow policy that closely, which is why spin, kissing babies and brand loyalty is such a huge part of politics.
Then what’s the spin you want to hear from a politician that would make you vote for them? (That is, spin that isn’t full of racism and rhetoric about the other side.)
So, spin is rephrasing something so it seems more palatable when you don’t have the full context, but if you’re asking for my personal policy wishlist I can certainly give you that!
Basic income would be great, and should probably be about where minimum wage is now. At the other end, a hard wealth cap at 10 million or something is overdue. If you’re a skilled professional and you save heavily you can absolutely save up a few million before you retire, but nobody makes it to 8 digits without being some sort of bigshot, and at that point it becomes self-perpetuating. Not making it gradual should prevent most flight of capital.
I recently learned Norway has a party list electoral system like several other countries, but uniquely doesn’t allow snap elections. If the government loses confidence, they just form a new coalition from the existing parliament. That sounds like it would avoid a lot of the problems we have in both FPTP and proportional systems.
Those are the big two, but there’s other less fundamental issues I have opinions about. We should keep legalising drugs, because they were largely banned for stupid reasons in the first place. Most forms of zoning should probably be thrown out too, because if anything the cities they’ve produced are even more soulless, now with a side of being impractical. I’m glad we have a carbon tax, and I think we should keep raising it.
Edit: Publicly funded elections are up there, too. We don’t have a terrible situation right now in Canada, what with strong donation limits, but it just makes sense to go all the way and leave no ambiguity that could cause problems down the line.
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