Monday, November 2, 2015

'Inclusive Election' : exclusion vote

Halifax, Canada says it wants to follow many other municipal government worldwide and let every permanent resident - not just Canadian citizens - vote in municipal elections.

Stifle your praise.

Because while most people in Halifax don't vote and only a tiny portion of the pitiful portion who do bother to vote actually see their vote represented by a voice at the municipal council chamber, the non-voters at least have a legitimate excuse.

Elections in Halifax combine the worst failings of FPTP with the additional fact that many of its municipal (lowest level) districts have more residents than provincial (medium level )legislative districts, sometimes even more than some national (highest level) districts.

Thus the level of government supposedly closest to the public is actually anything but !

Naturally - by design - it costs at lot to run and win in such large districts - not something for working people.

And to this the fact that donations can be unlimited in size, are effectively secret to the electorate, and derived mostly from the well to do property developers these well to do elected officials are supposed to ride shotgun over.

To call these sorts of exclusion-by-design elections, even if they are open to non-citizen voters , 'inclusive' is not government PR at its worst.

Its total BS, at its best....

No comments:

Post a Comment