With the possibility of
an election once again (still?) in the news it was good to see that
Gov. Gen. David Johnston has been busy brushing up on constitutional
governments in case he is called upon to navigate a choppy political
crisis. That he
has s…
Tag: Electoral Reform
Pop The Stack: Hypocrisy Has a New Definition in Senate Defeat
OK, I thought I was just going to read a little news, have my coffee and get back to work. I was fine until I saw this on twitter: @stephen_taylor Speaking of unelected… @elizabethmay has an opinion about all of thishttp://bit.ly/a1VIQK #cdnpoli Of course I have to stand up to defend Elizabeth, so I go […]
Pop The Stack: The Real Toronto Election Map
Note: this post is about the Toronto Municipal election that Rob Ford won. But you know, you can apply the feeling here to more recent elections, sigh. I’ve been very frustrated with the media’s story that the Toronto election was a landslide and that it was all downtown vs uptown. Ford won fair and square […]
Pop The Stack: Democracy Around the Galaxy: A Hitchhikers Guide
In celebration of 42 day this Sunday here is an entry I offer from Pop The Stack for inclusion in that most remarkable of all books ever to come out of the great publishing corporations of Ursa Minor, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The subject is an introduction to some democratic systems in use around the galaxy. This should […]
Pop The Stack: Nanos Has No Idea
Pollster Nik Nanos, who gets quoted in the media because he runs a polling firm, has no idea what his statistics about Canadians means. His latest poll shows that Canadians are fed up with minority government and have no faith in any of the leaders or parties. True. Apparently Mr. Nanos thinks this means that […]
Pop The Stack: Can Iggy and Jack Learn to Work Together?
You should read this interesting article at Macleans by Peter C Newman on the trials of the Liberal leader this summer. It sounds like Iggy really has come a long way in understanding Canadian politics, good for him. (Of course, if they’d picked leader, ahem…Bob Rae…ahem, who already knew all this they could have recovered […]
Pop The Stack: Vote, Check, Stalemate
Just saw this post about NDP-Liberal Coalitions by Gregory Morrow over on democraticSpace and my comment was getting so long it might as well be a blog post. Greg makes the point that with all this talk of how the NDP and Liberals should form an alliance or coalition before or after the election one […]
Pop The Stack: Spectorvision is Skewed on UK Election Lessons for Canada
I’m not sure what Norman Spector of the Globe and Mail is trying to get at with his recent article about the coalition situation in the UK. He points out that the coalition seems quite stable for now given their agreement on a fixed term election: So Britons have been spared the leaks and jockeying […]
Pop The Stack: Democracy is a Canadian Tradition
Just a housecleaning post with a bunch of random stuff I’d like to get out there. Canada is awesome and Vancouver’s not bad at all, at all. This site went over 8000 reads today due to a post from last year entitled Canadian Traditions. It shows the big human flag from Victoria’s Canada Day celbrations […]
Pop The Stack: Could Coalition Be Used to Get the Bloc to Stop Being Separatists?
Great point by Chrystal on Lessons on Framing – Coalition Governments As important as the question regarding whether the Liberal Party and NDP would consider being part of a coalition government is whether the Conservative Party would. Why are virtually all media, journalists, other writers and democratic reformers ignoring this? Just because Canadians won’t vote in […]
Pop The Stack: Ibbitson Gets Some of it Right and Some of it Wrong
I have to respond to the Globe and Mail’s article today by John Ibbitson “Parliament takes another step toward being a true arm of government”. It has a lots of good facts, a couple good points and a few misleading and incorrect conclusions. Friday’s accord on releasing Afghan detainee documents… marks the rise of Parliament as a genuine […]
Pop The Stack: Lib-Dems Should Consider Tory Proposal, But be Wary
News now that the Liberal-Democrats have two offers from those courting them to form a coalition, and both involve a referendum on electoral reform. In brief: The Tories offer a referendum on Alternative Voting, basically the smallest step up from FPTP you could get. Not really proportional but better nothing. Important question (reply in comments […]
Pop The Stack: Future of Democracy Lies in Hands of Cleggy Weggy
So the old mother country has practiced democracy once again and wow, it was a doozy. With a hung parliament and a very distorted result returned by their First-Past-The-Post voting system, the Conservatives and Liberal-Democrats are now in talks to see if they can form some kind of coalition. Nick Clegg has said before that […]
Pop The Stack: Time to Come Together Around Democratic Reform
Today I’m going to tell you my vision for creating a national discussion about Democratic Reform. If you’re a regular reader of PopTheStack you know that one of the things I’m really passionate about is fixing our democracy in Canada. There are lots of things wrong with the way that voices of Canadians are heard, […]
Pop The Stack: Andrew Coyne speaks to the Liberal Party, but will they listen?
I’m just growing more and more fond of Andrew Coyne as time goes on. Maybe I’m getting older and more conservative, or maybe he’s getting less so. Or just maybe, the old templates of “conservative” and “liberal” aren’t nearly as useful as they once seemed to be. That is essentially the point of Coyne fantastic […]
Pop The Stack: The Simplest Argument for Electoral Reform
Take a look at this simple and clear article on Democractic Reform from Fair Vote Canada. This is what Canadians need, a clear argument why our democracy is broken. There are some great basic arguments here that anyone interested in fixing our democracy should be repeating over and over to everyone they talk to about […]
Pop The Stack: Liberals Need to Stand Out and Stand Up
Gordon Gibson has a nice piece today in the Globe and Mail today on how the Liberals can differentiate themselves in the next election and help the country with a big problem at the same time. It turns out, Gordon agrees with me, that Electoral Reform is the safest and most exciting issue for the […]
Pop The Stack: Canada 2.0
Today’s protests around Canada against the Conservative’s reckless abuse of power were a great success, look here, even the Globe and Mail is impressed. So, how did a little ‘internet protest’ turn into over 25,000 feet on the ground in over 60 locations across the country today? Two reasons. First, Canadians are awesome! Second, Facebook […]
Pop The Stack: Michael Ignatieff Talks at UBC – but will he Say anything?
UBC is being visited today by the Liberal party road tour, Michael Ignatieff will be talking about his and our dreams for Canada’s 150th birthday in 2017. I’m planning on going, hopeful there is room for questions from the audience. If so I’m going to ask him this: Will your party commit to working with […]
Pop The Stack: Canada Needs to Become a Real Democracy
Full repost of letters from Fair Vote Canada to Stephen Harper and Opposition leaders about the importance of democratic reform now, more than ever. FVC sends open letters to Harper and opposition leaders: it’s time to fix the problem Jan 12, 2010 Fair Vote Canada sent and issued open letters to the Prime Minister and […]