Tuesday, October 20, 2015

"The Two Thirds want IN, not AV"

Any Canadian prime minister with a majority of the seats in Canada's parliament is probably the most powerful figure in democratic politics anywhere in the world but all that power is (ironically/perversely) based upon the narrowest victories at the ballot box in the whole world !

By constitutional convention, virtually all power in Canada at the national level runs directly through the PM's office.

In a country where the concept "backbencher revolt" simply does not exist and could not exist, given Canadians' notorious 'deference to authority', the PM's authority is never challenged.

One Third Solution not strong enough 


And as usual, the massive majority for the new all-powerful national government in Canada was based upon  the very slender reed of just one third of the voters --- just 39%, in this case.

The other two thirds of the voters have no real say in the decisions made by the all-powerful Prime Minister --- if they are truly lucky, a minority of them might see their vote help elect an opposition MP free to criticize the PM's decisions but not really to stop them.

But for most of the two thirds, they see themselves as having "lost their vote" and having lost a chance to see that their voice, their ideas, their solutions having any sway in Parliament for the next four years.

Canada needs the full strength 100% solution in Parliament


But relying on a highly diluted 1/3 solution is today a luxury Canadians simply can't afford - it needs the full strength solutions of 100% of Canadians represented in Parliament, if Canada is going to pull its weight on combating climate change.

Only PR (proportional representation voting) will see enough green-minded MPs elected to the Canadian parliament to force its government to get serious about climate change action in a country that is one of the worst carbon belching countries in the world.

The new government is leaning towards peddling a different voting system (AV or Alternative Voting), a system deliberately designed to ensure that it will actually be harder, not easier, for the two thirds now left out to have a real say in decision making.

That means no real move to climate change stopping actions, as opposed to much hot air on reducing Canada's share of the world's hot air.

Global effort of Civil Disobedience to see PR voting universal


The only way to save the world form a Sixth Extinction might just be a GLOBAL campaign of civil disobedience.

Not the traditional local acts of civil disobedience, designed to stop local forests from being clearcut or local pipelines being built, but rather a global effort to force all the nations in the world without PR voting, the nations in the world that clearcut and pipeline-build the most, to move to PR voting.

Count me in, on this global effort.

And as usual, as for all my long voting life, I remain part of the two thirds of voters that still wants in......

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