babble is rabble.ca's discussion board but it's much more than that: it's an online community for folks who just won't shut up. It's a place to tell each other — and the world — what's up with our work and campaigns.
Support rabble | Advertise with us | Contact our staff | About rabble | Log-in or Register for a new account | Corrections | Privacy policy | Newsfeeds | Mailing lists
rabble: Features | Columnists | In Cahoots | Blogs | Books | Photos | What's Up | Polls
babble: Forum Topics | Active Topics
The rpn: About the RPN | Become a podcaster
rabbleTV: Program Guide | Features | Indie Inside | Best of the net
Copyright © 2001-2013 the authors
Syndicate
thanks for the information on how the BofC worked before. i'll need to look more at that.
I still think there needs to be more public dialogue about this issue, by all members of parliament, the media, educators, unions, progressive economists, farmers, students, everyone. If we've lost a significant mechanism of democracy,we need to regain it.
Use of the Bank of Canada for inter-governmental zero-interest loans instead of borrowing from private bankers is necessary.
The other issue is the commercial Bank Act which gave private banks the ability to create money simply by entering 'deposit' on one side of their ledger, and 'loan' on the other. That law needs to change so that banks only circulate money created by government. One way to do that is to implement 100% reserves, I think, with the reserves in government-created money, not recycled private bogus derivatives. The other way is to turn banking into a public service, democratized.
People need to know there are alternatives to more budget and service cuts, and alternatives to hypocritical economic arguments which attempt to argue against budget cuts based on debt numbers which were the result of budget cuts.
[edited to change "'withdrawal' on the other" to "loan' on the other.]
The COMER case filing (linked through www.comer.org) says (p.13) that it was in 1974 the Bank of Canada stopped issuing interest-free loans to provincial and territorial governments and municipalities, in favour of loans from private banks with interest.
The filing also says that in 1974 Canada became a member of the Bank of International Settlements, wherein an agreement was reached that none of the central banks loan interest-free money, and instead use borrowed money through the BIS. The Bank of Canada is the only 'public' bank in the G8. The other central banks are 'private' banks.
No wonder Greece has a problem.
No wonder Canada now has a problem. We need to uphold the Bank of Canada Act.
and democratize banking.
I have been an advocate for a proportional representation system for some time. I now believe this scandal shows that it is now essential in a high tech society where widespread electoral fraud is currently so easy to accomplish. Instead of targeting several thousands or tens of thousands of voters to greatly change to the distribution of ridings among parties, a party would have to engage in hundreds of thousands or even millions of cases of voter suppression in order to make a major change in the distribution of ridings among parties. While this would not eliminate voter suppression, it would significantly reduce its potential damage to a fair electoral process and increase the risk of the perpetrators being caught because of the enormous volume of the fraud.
There is no doubt that our democracy is being abused in this country like never before. Its hurting. But even if we get to the bottom of the Robocon scandal and punish those responsible, we are only treating a symptom and not the disease. So long as there exists a razor-thin popular vote margin between the absolute power of a majority, and absolute powerlessness in opposition, there will be people desperate enough to come up with new and creative ways to abuse democracy to win.
The other parties have never been interested in real electoral reform. The NDP is the only party ever in Canadian federal politics that supports proportional representation and has come this close to winning. If the new Leader becomes Prime Minister one day, she or he must move to improve our ailing democracy at the first opportunity. We may not get another chance.
while we have parliament, we need to have representatives of equity-seeking groups in parliament.
proportional representation helps not only diversity of party representation, it also helps women, the differently-abled, LGBT, and others to participate in decisions.
Very interesting comment.
In a thread related to this one, Wilf Day wrote this:
"In Quebec, Levesque was set to proceed with PR after 1980 when his caucus veto'd it. Trudeau's 1980 throne speech promised a parliamentay committee on electoral reform but his caucus veto'd it. More recently, Charest promised a draft bill for a PR system which then took about 12 months to get through his caucus, and his MNAs polluted the model to the extent that everyone else rejected it as a partisan poor version. So it's possible that the caucus are the problem, not the solution; they were elected from the party strongholds, and "if the party's voters in other regions got no representation, why should I do them any favours if it may hurt me?" (No one said that on the record, but dozens thought it.)"
If caucus members (NDP included) will not go to bat for PR, whether or not it is party policy, will they be at all thrilled at the prospect of having members of equity-seeking groups, perhaps from newly-minted minority political parties enabled by PR, sitting at desks in parliament?
I thought PR was supported by NDP members, leadership, and was party policy.
I thought Greens included PR as well in party policy.
the Liberals, and Conservatives, if they don't already, ought to include PR in their policies.
All the members of opposition in parliament ought to work together - together they could implement PR perhaps and other good policy.
True, at the federal level. Greens like to point out that NDP governments in Manitoba, Nova Scotia, and BC have never done anything about PR, and the Saskatchewan NDP government did nothing about it for 14 years, and decided too late to start moving on it.
In the Liberals, Bob Rae and Carolyn Bennett support PR, but the party convention just voted for AV instead, partly at the urging of Stephane Dion who said he would have something to say about PR soon, but not at that convention. And now Dion finally has:
http://wilfday.blogspot.com/2012/02/stephane-dions-favourite-proportiona...
Dion's system seems pretty proportional and very original. But why doesn't he just support 4-6 seat STV? If this is the kind of ideas coming up within the Liberal Party, there's a lot of room for coperation on this front between the NDP, Liberals and Greens.
Wilf, your lightning fast indebt analysis on Dion's system was very impressive. Is there such a thing as an electoral system savant?
the different kinds of PR seem very complicated. it would be helpful to outline the components of a good model.
i also think PR, marking ballots, is necessary but insufficient. It needs to accompanied by the kind of gatherings and forms of decision-making that were used in 'occupy' events.
and forms of economic policy which allow people at the grass roots to control money;
perhaps community gatherings like 'occupy' then are directly part of decisions through electing 'spokes' to gatherings with others ie) 'parliaments'. policies like using the Bank of Canada and other policies can be implemented.
communities like Indigenous councils, and other communities, could intersect with all the different levels, their councils as their own 'parliaments', if they choose to.
if a Swedish model includes 'regional' lists, perhaps a improved model could also include 'community' lists- not only geographic lists , also communities of those who wish to identify themselves as equity-seeking groups, and diverse 'direct democracy' groups.
It doesn't matter what Dion's pet system is. The Liberal Party isn't peddling it. They are pushing something called preferential voting, which is more commonly called the alternative vote. It is not proportional representation and actually it is worse than first past the post for distorting the popular vote. With all the vote supression and electoral fraud going on, an even greater distortion of the people's vote is the very last thing we all need.
Granpa_Bill raised the fact that more equity-seeking groups would get elected under proportional representation, which is true. But not under the Liberals alternative vote: it would in fact be worse for electing women and visible minorities. The only group alternative vote would help are parties in the centre of the political spectrum (surprise! that's the Liberals) because they often tend to be the second choice of more voters.
Where is Debater to defend the Liberals' naked self-serving electoral reform scheme when you need him?
LeadNow has just come out with their rankings for the candidates on cross-party co-operation and electoral reform.
Two candidates in particular did very well.
Although their campaign's gambit is well-known and gets all the attention, the ultimate campaign objective is not known by everyone (Survey Question 3). But the amount of momentum and support they have been able to build in such a short time shows how important it is for many.
you meant "in depth", right?
Whoops!
Wilf is owed a debt of gratitude for his impressive leadership on the electoral reform front.
It should be familiar to everyone here. It's the system being used right now by the NDP to choose the new leader. All the parties use it as their electoral system of choice.
AV's huge flaw is that it is not proportional when electing multi-member legislatures. It's no more or less proportional than FPTP. AV's only redeeming value is that it deals with the problem of vote splitting endemic to FPTP.
Cullen's joint-nomination plan is a jerry-rigged version of AV in that it is an attempt to solve FPTP's endemic problem of vote-splitting. Cullen and the Liberals are both proposing plans to deal with vote splitting. Both plans are not long term solutions. To solve the FPTP proplem of vote splitting AND to establish fair voting, AV is not adequate. To have fair voting, a proportional system is required. Something like MMP or STV.
For electing a single position like a mayor or party leader, the alternative vote is fine. There can be only one winner anyways.
But for electing a legislature like a parliament or assembly, it is total crud. In fact is sometimes worse than first-past-the-post, as Lord Jenkins wrote in his 1998 Report of the Independent Commission on the Voting System commissioned by the UK Government: "Far from doing much to relieve disproportionality, [AV] is capable of substantially adding to it." The report called results of elections under AV "disturbingly unpredictable" because it can exaggerate the seat total of the winning party even more than first-past-the-post does. Thus AV is often less true to the popular vote than first-past-the-post. It is no wonder that UK voters resoundingly rejected AV in last years referendum there.
But that's hasn't stopped the Liberal Party of Canada from adopting it as official party policy on electoral reform this January. The big argument advanced by Liberals and a few others promoting AV is that it eliminates strategic voting. As we can clearly see from the way most of us are carefully ranking candidates in the NDP leadership race, and how we are all calculating the order and likelyhood each has of being eliminated, this is not the case. I may strategically rank a second or third choice much higher than my first choice, in order to stop someone I really don't like from winning. That is essentially the same as strategic voting under first-past-the-post.
Putting lower ranked candidates ahead of your first choice could backfire and help elect an unwanted 3rd candidate. People should remember that their first choice is the only one that counts until that person wins or is dropped off. If many people rank their favorite candidate in 3rd place and put the same "also-rans" in first and second, an electoral disaster could take place.
Strategic voting is not the same for FPTP and AV. If both systems were the same, political parties would just stick with using FPTP instead of using AV. Unlike FPTP, AV does not penalize the voter for voting for their favorite candidate when their favorite candidate is an "also-ran" that has little chance of winning.
The NDP isn't using FPTP to choose the new NDP leader because AV is far better than FPTP. FPTP is only suited for two-candidate elections for a single position like mayor or president. In all other types of elections FPTP should not be used. AV should only be used in multi-candidate elections for a single position like mayor and president. Multi-member assemblies should use proportional representation to fairly elect their representatives.
What would the NDP leadership election look like if the NDP was using FPTP instead of AV?
- Opinion polls would be used to determine which candidates are contenders and which ones are pretenders who should step down in order to avoid vote splitting.
- There would be pressure on some candidates to step down to avoid vote-splitting.
- The new NDP leader would most likely become leader with minority support.
- In a 7 candidate field, the new NDP leader could become leader with less than 25% support.
This disproportionality point is correct but overdone. Both FPTP and AV are disproportional but there is an important difference between AV and FPTP regarding their lack of proportionality. AV can only exaggerate the victory of a generally popular party while FPTP can exaggerate victories of a much loathed party with good geographical concentration.
FPTP allows a party like the Conservatives to take the side of 30% of the electorate and neglect more than half of the electorate and still win elections. Unlike FPTP, to win AV elections, the Conservatives would have to appeal to 50% of the electorate. AV would force the Conservatives to appeal to people beyond their right-wing base that represents little more than just 1 in 3 voters.
AV results in fewer women and minorites getting elected.
Strategic voting under AV is different from under FPTP - but it still exists. It is just institutionalized.
Neither system is true to the populr vote (they are not proportional), with AV being, at times, less proportional than even FPTP.
I agree with you that "Multi-member assemblies should use proportional representation to fairly elect their representatives."
Fewer than FPTP?
The difference between the systems is still significant. Under FPTP the NDP, Liberals, and Greens have to contemplate formally cooperating with each other or even dissolving their parties and merging into one party in order to end vote-splitting. AV does not put parties into this undemocratic position of having to dissolve in order to make up for the inadequacies of an electoral system. If we had AV, the PC Party would still be with us today. Wouldn't that be more democratic?
It's important to remember that FPTP is a two-candidate majoritarian system while AV is a muti-candidate majoritarian system. If we had just two parties, FPTP and AV would be equally bad but because we have more than two parties, FPTP is worse than AV.
FPTP is based on 2 basic contentions:
1 - Politics is best served when there are two big-tent parties that bring people together to the greatest degree possible while still maintaining politcal alternatives.
2 - Politics is best served when governments are administered by single-party majorites that have had their platforms clearly approved by the voters in an election.
AV supports contention #2 but, unlike FPTP, it does not support contention #1. So arguing that AV is worse than FPTP is equivalent to arguing that a two-party majoritarian system is better than a multi-party majoritarian system.
I understand why people don't want the diversion of AV to hurt the chances of getting real electoral reform, namely fair voting/PR. But that shouldn't lead people to minimize the weakness of FPTP vis a vis AV.
Discussion of AV is a diversion. But if you want to argue that AV serves political diversity, compare India with Australia. With First-Past-The-Post, India has 39 political parties. In the last election they tended to be in four Fronts. FPTP let a diverse range of candidates get elected with less than 50% of the vote. Australian voters have two choices: Labor, or the Liberal/National Coalition. AV offers the illusion of accommodating diversity, while in reality funneling voters into two choices. Actually even worse than FPTP. Not that I want to waste any time debating which of two winner-take-all systems is worse.
I also don't want to get caught up in unnecessary diversions regarding inferior electoral systems but in India political parties avoid vote splitting by not running candidates in all constituencies. Maybe this is where Cullen got his joint nomination plan from? Indians seem willing to do what Canadians are not willing to do to accommodate the flaws of FPTP. That's why FPTP may work for Indians but not Canadians. And that's why FPTP is even worse for Canada than AV.
If Australia used FPTP instead of AV, the Liberal/National Coalition would have won the last election because of vote splitting on the centre-left. But fortunately, Labour was able to win the election because AV did not allow vote splitting between Labour and the Greens to unfairly hand the Liberal / National Coalition a phony FPTP majority government. Sound familiar?
That being said, Canada should evolve beyond 19th century winner-take-all systems and establish PR / fair voting.
http://wilfday.blogspot.com/2012/03/how-to-get-to-fair-voting-system.html
in addition to dialogue about PR, and public money creation, power can be 'devolved' to the grassroots ie) away from the 1%, by clearly denouncing the investor-state provisions of 'trade' deals which allow wealthy bankers and their affiliated corporations to sue governments for laws which support the 99% and the earth.
I agree with you Leigh. Which is why we need to change our trade deals.
I'm satisfied all the contenders have similar positions on proportional representation and give it similar priority. However, credit where credit is due: in today's Hill Times are interviews with all the candidates. Peggy Nash mentions PR four times. None of the others do.
It's great that a political heavyweight like Nash is supporting PR. Even if she doesn't become leader, she'll be able to press for fair voting from the front bench.
Nash understands that fair voting is the best way to give social democrats a voice within Canadian politics.
"getting rid of the monarchy" would be a disastrous idea for a party trying to become the government and even for the first years of an NDP government. Too many monarchists in Canada, and the monarchy has stepped up its propaganda big time to keep the plebes in their ideological fold. A foolish and divisive battle to initiate, I'd say.
Lots of good educational and organizational work can be done around the issue of consolidation of power (unaccountability) in the PMO, and around P.R. You mentioned two very practical,useful things the party could work on first.