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 […]
Continue readingTag: fairvote
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 […]
Continue readingPop The Stack: The Myth of the Conscious Political Party
Two links to the growing discussion about suggestions that the Liberals and NDP form some kind of coalition to win the next federal election. First, the Globe. Scott Reid asks that we “Don’t sacrifice the Liberal Party for a coalition of the centre-left”. He makes some good points that the idea of a formal coalition […]
Continue readingPop 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 […]
Continue readingPop 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 […]
Continue readingPop 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 […]
Continue readingPop 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, […]
Continue readingPop 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 […]
Continue readingPop The Stack: The Next GG Should be Elected
News today that Prime Minister Stephen Harper is looking for a new Governor General. A number of names have already been suggested for possible replacements. I won’t speculate but my guess is we won’t get another former CBC employee. But I’d like to suggest to the Prime Minister that he think creatively about this choice. […]
Continue readingPop 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 […]
Continue readingPop 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 […]
Continue readingPop The Stack: Today, we stand for democracy.
Throughout our land today, we raise our voices for democracy. We march in peaceful protest to send a message to you who claim to lead us, be you blue, red or orange. The message: This shall not stand. We raise our voices today to remind you that you serve at our leisure, not your own, […]
Continue readingPop 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 […]
Continue readingPop The Stack: Liberals stand out like a raisin in a raisin muffin.
Its clear that the with the prorogation of parliament the Conservative party has wasted most of its ‘benefit of the doubt’ support that was keeping it ahead of the Liberals. A new poll shows the two parties are neck in neck in national support. Just as clearly, this statistical tie has not come about because […]
Continue readingPop The Stack: Senate and GG Reform : A Simple Solution
A great article on the Globe and Mail about Harper’s Senate reform plans. As always, Senate reform is a more complex issue than it first appears. Harper likely knows this and knows that his overly simple solution will never be implemented anyways because as the author points out, there are a lot of drawbacks to […]
Continue readingPop The Stack: You should read this about senate reform
You should read this about senate reform, espeically Jim Q’s comment on a PR solution http://ow.ly/TKs3 #cdnpoli #senatereform #fairvote
Posted in Politics Tagged: democracy, fairvote, parliament, Politics, reform, senate