Politics
So election day is coming up pretty soon. I figured I’d better do some homework, so I went to a debate today organised by the student’s union at U of T. Some of the candidates came out and all that.
You know, it’s amazing how quickly political parties are forgotten about, if they aren’t mentioned in the media. Not that I watch TV or any of that very often. But I forgot the Green Party even existed, and I voted for them in the last provincial election.
I’m just fed up with the standard parties. When I’m looking at the NDP and thinking they’d be a pretty good choice, you know something’s wrong. ;) I used to be all about the PCs but now that the party has swerved off wildly to the right, I find their policies… distasteful.
Details of current policies aside, my main problem with the whole electoral system is that it’s undemocratic. It just doesn’t make sense that a party that gets say 40% of the vote, gets most of the seats. That’s kindof a tyranny of the minority, isn’t it? It’s rather… undemocratic. The system here has the same problem as in the states – because it’s divided into districts, and onlly #1 in each district matters… it basically sucks. No prize for 2nd place. But this isn’t some sick sporting event, it’s the running of a nation. If a party gets 2nd place in every riding, they get no seats. That’s just silly, when clearly a significant proportion of people like their policies.
It also leads to other silliness like voting AGAINST a party / voting for the ‘lesser of two evils’. And the thinking that a vote for a non-major party is a vote that’s thrown out. (Well, because practically, it is). And we wonder why the polls have such abysmal turnout rates.
It SHOULDN’T be like that. And it doesn’t have to be. The current system works… for the established parties. It keeps people thinking “oh NO I don’t want party x in power! Therefore I have to vote for party y!”. Of course, party y is party x with a different colour hat. Ok, so that’s the states, it’s a little bit better here.
The parties have different patterns on their ties, too.
As far as I know, there’s only one political party advocating major electoral reform to help with this problem. Check out the Green Party.
I don’t even need to touch the topic of a sustainable economy…
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