Democracy is the greatest sport on Earth. I feed on elections and leadership contests but I’m kind of glad I don’t have a vote this Saturday in the NDP leadership convention. Since I don’t have a vote I haven’t spent as much time researching all the leaders as I could
Continue readingTag: fairvote
Pop The Stack: For Once, I’m Glad I’m Not Voting
Democracy is the greatest sport on Earth. I feed on elections and leadership contests but I’m kind of glad I don’t have a vote this Saturday in the NDP leadership convention. Since I don’t have a vote I haven’t spent as much time researching all the leaders as I could
Continue readingPop The Stack: Electoral Reform on the NDP Radar
The NDP leadership race is heating up and the most interesting development to me is that there seems to be a competition growing for who can be the most concerned about the sorry state of our democracy and the most committed to fix it. Take Peggy Nash, her website has
Continue readingPop The Stack: Electoral Reform on the NDP Radar
The NDP leadership race is heating up and the most interesting development to me is that there seems to be a competition growing for who can be the most concerned about the sorry state of our democracy and the most committed to fix it. Take Peggy Nash, her website has
Continue readingPop The Stack: Demanding Leadership on Democratic Reform
I’ve been offline and travelling for a while if you’ve been wondering about the radio silence (I know, unlikely). But I’m back now, living for the next two years in the self-declared “Greatest Democracy on Earth™”. We’ll see if they have any better luck than we are having up in
Continue readingPop The Stack: Demanding Leadership on Democratic Reform
I’ve been offline and travelling for a while if you’ve been wondering about the radio silence (I know, unlikely). But I’m back now, living for the next two years in the self-declared “Greatest Democracy on Earth™”. We’ll see if they have any better luck than we are having up in
Continue readingPop The Stack: Happy Democracy Day, Canada! Or Is it?
Happy Democracy Day Canada! Wait, what? That’s not even…huh? That’s right, Sept. 15 is the International Day of Democracy. The fourth annual! Apparently. I know, I hadn’t heard of it either. I only heard about it because Fair Vote Canada is holding events all week discussing democracy. So, for my first
Continue readingPop The Stack: Happy Democracy Day, Canada! Or Is it?
Happy Democracy Day Canada! Wait, what? That’s not even…huh? That’s right, Sept. 15 is the International Day of Democracy. The fourth annual! Apparently. I know, I hadn’t heard of it either. I only heard about it because Fair Vote Canada is holding events all week discussing democracy. So, for my first
Continue readingPop The Stack: Hobbits for Electoral Reform
Dear Wise Races of the United Kingdom of Middle Earth, Please forgive a humble Hobbit for bothering you but I just wanted to write about an urgent matter of democracy. Here in Hobbiton we have just had a Shire-wide election. Let’s just say that I’m fairly miffed about the results.
Continue readingPop The Stack: The Liberal Nuclear Option
I’ve suggested this before but here it is again in brief, can anyone explain to me what the downside of this would be for the Liberals? Nuclear Option: The Liberal party makes a statement in the last two weeks of the campaign such as If we form government, our party will put forward legislation to […]
Pop The Stack: Tyranny of the Majority
Ok, some somebody doesn’t know what Tyranny means or actually, what democracy means. That somebody today is Scott Armstrong. Here’s the quote from the Globe and Mail article regarding this week’s committee about obtaining government estimates of spending: Fellow Tory Scott Armstrong suggested opposition parties are abusing their dominant position in a minority Parliament, making unreasonable […]
Pop The Stack: Tyranny of the Majority
Ok, some somebody doesn’t know what Tyranny means or actually, what democracy means. That somebody today is Scott Armstrong. Here’s the quote from the Globe and Mail article regarding this week’s committee about obtaining government estimates of spending: Fellow Tory Scott Armstrong suggested opposition parties are abusing their dominant position in
Continue readingPop The Stack: In Which I Get Outraged at…Oshawa?
If you read me regularly you may have noticed I’m writing less, well, regularly, recently. I’ve promised myself to cut back on political blogging while I try to finish my thesis so the bar is pretty high for a political/democracy story to force me to comment with a full blog post. I have to say, […]
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: Another Poll, Another Disclaimer
I’d just like to point out once again the most important thing missing in analysis of the latest poll is how little the amount of support relates to power in parliament. Here are the number of seats won in the last election. The results would be a bit different but nothing has fundamentally changed: Filed […]
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: I Believe in Toronto
As a temporary exile from the Centre of the Universe I don’t get a vote in this week’s upcoming municipal election. But I do have a stake. Toronto is my home, it’s where my heart lives and I intend to return and live the majority of my life there. So here’s what I believe about […]
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: Can Canadian Democracy Begin A New Era?
There are a couple things I’ve had on my writing stack for a while that have yet to be popped, but time is an ever contracting resource. So a call out to ask for people’s opinions on how to fix our democracy, a rant about my frustration over the 5-way train wreck that is the […]
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 […]