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Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. I write this on behalf of all Canadians who voted anything but Conservative in 2011. And 2008. And 2006. And 2004.
This election need only focus on a single issue: Canadian democracy is no longer functioning. By merging the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative parties in 2003, Stephen Harper and Peter MacKay broke the electoral process of our country. The majority parliaments of the Harper Conservatives have been falsely obtained, and hold the support of a dwindling minority of Canadians. This is disheartening and depressing, and is the root cause of voter apathy. We implore you to set aside your differences and merge your parties for the sake of Canadian democracy. Not only would this surely have the support of voting Canadians, it would give the 40 percent of Canadians who do not vote a viable option to address our concerns about the way this country has been run for the past decade.
In watching the Maclean’s National Leaders Debate, there is a clear line separating the three of you from Mr. Harper. It is also clear that you are stronger when working together. A united left, pledging to work together amongst themselves and with the opposition after the election, keeping each other in check and restoring free votes on the parliamentary floor—that would be a beautiful democracy. Canada does not want a solitary figurehead to command us. We want leaders who are willing to work together to repair our lost Canadian values. Not to mention working with Perry Bellegarde of the Assembly of First Nations and Gilles Duceppe of the Bloc Quebecois to make amends for this country’s wounded past. And so, you call this new party The Reparative Party of Canada.
From Merriam-Webster:
“reparative
“1. of, relating to, or effecting repair
“2. serving to make amends”
By casting aside the nomenclature of our corrupted political past, you will gain the confidence of the Canadian public. Do we want to keep and conserve the current processes and policies of the Canadian parliament and senate? Or do we want to abolish them and repair Canadian democracy and values? Please consider this seriously and sincerely. Frankly, how could you not want to be a part of this revolutionary opportunity to change the future of our country for the better, together? Mr. Harper has given you the gift of time. Call your MPs and figure out a way to make this happen.
PS: I designed a logo for you. No charge.
PPS: Megan Leslie, please pass this on to Mr. Mulcair for me. Thanks!
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Voice of the City is a platform for any and all Halifax individuals to share their diverse opinions and writings. The Coast does not guarantee the accuracy of, or endorse the views of those published. Our editors reserve the right to alter submissions for clarity, length and style. Want to appear in this section? Submissions can be sent to voice@thecoast.ca.
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This article appears in Aug 13-19, 2015.
a++
if only trudeau played well with others.
Hey Isaac – We can make this happen! Totally agree –
time to end this juvenile crap. Tom
I’m sorry, but I can’t agree to this. As broken as our democracy has become under the leadership of Harper, creating what amounts to a two party system is not the solution. You need only look to the U.S. to see why this is the case; as broken as our democracy is, theirs is in much worse shape. With the exception of budgets, the only time bills have a good chance of making it into law is when the same party is in control of the House, the Senate, and the Oval Office. And if you do manage to do that, good luck in two years, because all that work will probably be undone. Oh, and it’s always election season, even a year before a party nominates their presidential candidate and 15 months before the election.
Now I realize that the American system of government is nothing like the Canadian system (or practically any other democracy), but it’s easy to see that the two party system exacerbates all the worst features of the American system, and it’s hard to imagine the same wouldn’t happen here too.
Canada needs change – not sure what the US needs:)
Its official – The Coast has now sunk to the intellectual level of the Dal Gagzette.
“Hey Kerensky, whaddya say we unite to run the Duma?”
“Sure Vladimir Ilyich, I see no possible down side to that……
In theory this idea is absolutely delightful. No split vote and some sort of unity between party lines, so that Canada’s centre-left comes together and has a great fucking time. Unfortunately, a two-party system restricts input and leads to gridlock.
An amalgamation of the NDP, Liberals, and Greens into the “Reparative Party” (awesome name by the way) would inevitably result in a single party that is dominated by one of the three. The party that commits the most to the caucus will come to dominate the proceedings between the three and determine party policy. This restricts the amount of dialogue that comes into play and the amount of different populist perspective. The Green especially would be very much shafted in such a scenario, as their input would be completely suffocated by the dominance of the much larger New Democrats and even larger Liberals. So what a collective progressive party does is just result in a less diverse dialogue and a subjugation of the parties involved that have fewer members. The Reparative Party would just come to be dominated by whichever of the NDP, Liberals, or Greens contributed the most members, meaning that the entire Canadian political climate has far fewer public opinions represented.
Secondly, a two-party system fuels gridlock, as it turns parliament into Government and Opposition, rather than Government, Opposition, and the Swing. Additionally, a two-party system means that any government will be a majority government, which is a rather dangerous game to play.
As great in theory as it would be to combine Canada’s left wing in order to reduce vote splitting, such a scenario would just mean that different opinions would fall to the wayside and a Parliament would be cut only in half, which is dangerous for a lot of reasons.
Yeah, um, I think we covered this on POLI3546 Political Parties and Democratic Change, did you skip a class, the one where we realize choice is good?
Good try but bad ideas. D-
Whatever.
You don’t have to change or merge the progressive parties. They just have to cooperate intelligently for one election by running the candidate from all their parties that polls best in each riding against the Conservatives. There are social organizations that are doing the poling right now. Then when the progressives win power they install a version of proportional representation. Proportional representation encourages more new parties to form covering a broader spectrum of political ideas.
If they could at least co-operate for one election campaign, and absolutely commit to bringing in proportional representation, we would finally see the light at the end of this tunnel…but those big egos on top can’t do anything but compete, co-operation is not part of their vocabulary/mindset/hormonal make-up (too much testosterone).