I'm sick of the game-playing. I'm sick of the whole lot of them. I think I'll be voting for the Green Party
The Green Party as repository for the protest vote. A Green Party vote as the guiltless equivalent of voiding one's ballot.
You needn't listen too long or too hard to hear the message repeated.
Certainly there are those who vote Green earnestly -- but there are increasing numbers who do so as a way of parking their vote with someone who isn't "them".
Is there actually good reason to believe that Jim Harris and company wouldn't act similarly to the other parties should they someday have the good fortune of finding themselves in Parliament?
Rick Salutin was lamenting in his most recent column that the pressure for electoral reform seems to have dissipated. Ed Broadbent has a letter in Saturday's Globe & Mail reminding Mr. Salutin that
"Last spring, we did achieve a comprehensive all-party agreement on electoral reform that included proportional representation. The reform process was scheduled to start by Oct. 1. Unfortunately for the country, the Liberals reneged on their commitment and killed the initiative"
Proportional representation means different things to different people. There are many different systems to be considered, with varying levels of complexity and differing benefits and drawbacks.
Electoral reform means different things to different people.
Democratic deficit resonates - we know it to be true - but points towards nothing specific at all.
Yet all the major parties, to my knowledge, are on record as supporting at least the discussion of electoral reform and the creation of citizen's councils, BC style, to come up with proposals for change. Should we end up with another minority Parliament, it may be our best and last chance for some time to take the necessary first steps towards substantive progress in this area.
Electoral reform isn't going to take the politicking out of politics. It won't be - and can't be - a cure all for voter cynicism and apathy. But at the least it can be an invigorating step towards re-engaging and re-empowering the electorate.
Fair Vote Canada website
This post tagged as: Green Party, Canada politics, Canadian politics,Canada election
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posted by williamNPH @ 6:08 AM
1 Comments:
I didn’t realize when I wrote that letter to the editor that the last sentence was going to be what would get people stirred up. (I got a rebuttal regarding the Green Party thing in the Citzen as well.) I thought it would be my opening line about blackmail and bribery. But then again, I guess no one could argue with the blackmail and bribery part. :-)
Interesting thing since I outted myself as a potential Green party voter – a few other people have outted themselves to me. Left wingers? Nope. Blue-blood conservatives who have never voted anything left of Conservative in their lives. Fiscal conservatives who can’t bear the thought of religious conservatism. They’re voting Green this time around – one of them already did in the last election. Of course, one of those people has become quite the environmentalist in recent years. I guess he’s figured that all the tax savings in the world won’t do him any good if pollution kills him.
For the record, my remark about voting for the Green Party wasn’t completely off the cuff. I will vote for them. Unless of course there’s a real threat of the Conservative candidate winning my riding. Then I’ll have to vote Liberal. And that strategy, my friends, is what will keep the Liberals in power for years to come. Millions of people like me who may be sick of the untouchable Liberals, but being more left than right, don’t feel like we have much choice in the matter if we hope to keep the Conservatives out of power. People who aren’t willing to vote for their first choice if it means their last choice might end up with the big prize.
So what have we ended up with in Canada? A Conservative party that conservatives don’t want to vote for. A Liberal party that liberals don’t want to vote for. An NDP party willing to align itself with the Conservatives to force another election where we’re going to get the same minority government we had before.
Is it any wonder people are pushing for electoral reform? The current situation is ridiculous.
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