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electoral reform

Green Party undemocratically shut out of national election debates

Apr 17th, 2025
by Craig.
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I am incensed!

As if Canadians needed another example of why the electoral system in Canada is biased — and indeed rigged — towards maintaining the status quo of the first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system where the Conservatives and Liberals take turn governing, look no further than the Leaders’ Debates Commission’s decision yesterday to rescind their most gracious (pardon my sarcasm) invitation to the Green Party of Canada to participate in the Leaders’ Debates.

Yet, the Bloc Québécois, WHO ONLY RUN CANDIDATES IN ONE PROVINCE, were allowed — and will be tonight — to participate!

This is supposedly based on these three criteria, two of which must be met:

  1. on the date the general election is called, the party is represented in the House of Commons by a Member of Parliament who was elected as a member of that party.
  2. 28 days before the date of the general election, the party receives a level of national support of at least 4%, determined by voting intention, and as measured by leading national public opinion polling organizations, using the average of those organizations’ most recently publicly-reported results.
  3. 28 days before the date of the general election, the party has endorsed candidates in at least 90% of federal ridings.

This is a classic case of the difference between pedantry and mastery, as espoused by George Polya, a mathematician who lived between 1887 and 1985:

Pedantry and mastery are opposite attitudes toward rules. To apply a rule to the letter, rigidly, unquestioningly, in cases where it fits and in cases where it does not fit, is pedantry … To apply a rule with natural ease, with judgment, noticing the cases where it fits, and without ever letting the words of the rule obscure the purpose of the action or the opportunities of the situation, is mastery.

The Leaders’ Debates Commission are, without question, pedants, not masters.

Let me also remind everyone that Canada is in an unprecedented war situation, with the President of the United States of America declaring a trade war on Canada, and coming within a hair’s breadth (so far) of declaring actual armed conflict.

The Green Party were ejected from both the French and English debates on the morning of the French (first) debate because they had apparently not met the second criterion above, yet there is absolutely no way that the Bloc can come anywhere close to meeting either the second or third criterion because the most candidates they can field are 78! That is 18% of federal ridings! And I, in British Columbia, cannot even vote for their party because they “intentionally” don’t run any candidates here! (The word “intentionally” was pointedly used in the Commission’s justification for barring the Green Party from the debates.)

If that isn’t hypocrisy — and pedantry — then I don’t know what is.

The Commission alleges that because the Green Party is now polling at below 4%, they no longer qualify, despite the fact that on 31 March (28 days before the election) they were indeed polling at or above 4%. Let’s also remember that the polling numbers in this election have changed wildly due to the war being waged against us. But more importantly than whether or not the Greens were polling at or above 4% on 31 March, is the fact that the Green Party of Canada is a national party competing in a national election, while the Bloc represents a very narrow slice of Canadian society, and therefore cannot ever hope to form an actual government, especially as Canadians in 82% of Canada’s ridings cannot vote for them!

It’s not too late, Leaders’ Debates Commission, to change your minds and DO THE RIGHT THING before tonight’s English debate. Show us that you are indeed not pedants, but masters of this undemocratic situation you have created.

Christy Clark is NOT a Liberal!

Jan 6th, 2025
by Craig.
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Christy Clark.

Christy Clark

I should let the title stand on its own, especially after the comments I made at the end of “OMG, the entire continent of North America is a joke!“, but I really don’t know what the pundits in the media are smoking when they keep suggesting that Christy Clark is a contender for the leadership of the FEDERAL Liberal Party! I’d sure love to know whether or not she has ever been a card-carrying member of the federal Liberal party, but her politics are very clearly Conservative! Among other reasons she’s not qualified for the leadership of anything bigger than the neighbourhood cookie club is the fact that she put the Province of British Columbia in the position of defending itself for her and the BC Liberal Party’s anti-democratic and unconstitutional decision to ban collective bargaining (or parts of it) by teachers in BC; this resulted in millions of dollars being spent on lawyers and court time that could have been spent on BC citizens and their children, which was lost when the Supreme Court of Canada handed Clark and her government their asses on a silver platter when they decided against the government (and therefore Clark) in the case!

Any suggestion that Christy Clark is qualified for the position of the leader of the federal Liberal Party is ill-informed, apparently by people (political pundits on TV and radio) who have never been to British Columbia and are probably still of the opinion that BC is still some political backwater.

Trudeau finally reads the writing on the wall

We’re talking about Christy Clark because Justin Trudeau has finally (and predictably) seen the light and set a time for his resigning as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and as the Prime Minister of Canada. I don’t “hate” Justin Trudeau as the weirdos with their “F🍁CK TRUDEAU” flags and bumper stickers that have infected this country like a virus do; I just strongly disagree with his virtue signalling and the extent to which he is a hypocrite, as is evident in how he treated Jody Wilson-Raybould and a number of other female ministers in his so-called gender-balanced cabinet.

The coming federal general election

In previous posts I have predicted a majority win for the Conservative Party in the next election. Although I used to be a conservative, I no longer recognise the current Conservative party and am never likely to vote for it or one of their candidates. That doesn’t make me a liberal, or a communist.

The only reason I predict their forthcoming sweeping majority is because that is how elections in Canada have worked for decades, if not for their entire existence. For as long as I have lived in Canada, power has swayed back and forth between the Liberals and the Conservatives. And usually power switches simply because whoever today’s prime minister is falls out of favour with the electorate, as Justin Trudeau and Stephen Harper before him have done. It’s not because I fervently desire for Justin Trudeau and the Liberal party to be consigned to the dustbin of history.

What I do fervently desire is a new electoral system that actually makes the outcome reasonably unpredictable! And that brings me to one of the main reasons I so fervently dislike (but not hate) Justin Trudeau, and that is his electoral promise in 2015 that the general election that year would be “the last FPTP election in Canadian history”! And yet here we are, a decade later, with two more general elections under our belts (both of which Trudeau won using the system he swore to end), and we’re still using the antiquated system from the Middle Ages!

Updated, 2025-01-06: Minutes after posting this I ended up on Clark’s Twitter/X feed where she stated on 21 October 2024, “I am a proud Liberal voter, registered Liberal, and former Liberal Premier.” Hmm, so there you go, I am supposedly wrong. And yet, I stand behind every word I wrote above (and have written in the past) that her politics are conservative, despite her calling Pierre Poilievre (Conservative Party leader and future Prime Minister) “divisive” and making other negative statements about him … which I completely agree with! As for her claim of being a “Liberal Premier”, I take issue with her understanding of liberalism.

OMG, the Canadian government is in a completely PREDICTABLE shambolic shambles!

Dec 16th, 2024
by Craig.
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Justin Trudeau.

Justin Trudeau

In 2015, Justin Trudeau blithely and mockingly informed us that it was 2015. Among other things — the most noticeable and consequential to me and to Canadians in general — he put on his pink “I’m a feminist” T-shirt and promised that the election he had just won would be the last first-part-the-post (FPTP) election.

Within about six months he had conjured up some lame excuses for why he was completely and incontrovertibly going back on the completely fake promise that he would change the electoral system. Next!

As for the world’s biggest feminist label he assumed without the consent of any actual feminist on the planet — except, perhaps and laughably, his now ex-wife — he has long exposed the truth, that he is anything but. This was clear in the way in which he cast Jody Wilson-Raybould aside like yesterday’s trash, and now, how he has done exactly the same with the last female cabinet minister of any consequence, Chrystia Freeland (see below).

But I’ve been mulling this blog post over in my mind for weeks. The crux of it is that, with reference to Trudeau’s going back on his promise to replace the FPTP electoral system, he has an electoral system in which his defeat is pretty much guaranteed. Guaranteed! The rats are abandoning ship, and those that are too stupid to jump are rearranging the deck chairs! Trudeau could (and should!) have resigned the leadership of the Liberal Party a year or months ago to allow a successor the ability to have a chance to maintain a reasonable Liberal presence in the House of Commons, instead of being left with the same two seats with which the Progressive Conservative Party were left after the 1993 election.

In her letter of resignation, Freeland referred to “costly political gimmicks”. This has to be, possibly among other things, the “GST holiday” that came into effect on 14 December. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) referred to it as a “gong show”, and it is. It has forced businesses to invest an inordinate amount of time and energy — during the busiest time of the year — in reconfiguring their point-of-sales systems to zero the tax rate on the limited number of goods on which the tax has been removed. It’s a joke! It shows a complete ignorance of the part of Trudeau and his government of how business works. It’s a sad, sad situation in which Canada finds itself.

The plans I had for this post were pushed up and significantly truncated as I thought I had more time. I find it bizarre that the Government of Canada finds itself in almost the exact same situation today as the governments of Syria, Germany, and South Korea! We’re a joke!

Here’s Chrystia Freeland’s resignation letter:

Chrystia Freeland

Chrystia Freeland. (Brian Ferraro/NPR)

Dear Prime Minister,

It has been the honour of my life to serve in government, working for Canada and Canadians. We have accomplished a lot together.

On Friday, you told me you no longer want me to serve as your Finance Minister and offered me another position in the cabinet.

Upon reflection, I have concluded that the only honest and viable path is for me to resign from the cabinet.

To be effective, a Minister must speak on behalf of the Prime Minister and with his full confidence. In making your decision, you made clear that I no longer credibly enjoy that confidence and possess the authority that comes with it.

For the past number of weeks, you and I have found ourselves at odds about the best path forward for Canada.

Our country today faces a grave challenge. The incoming administration in the United States is pursuing a policy of aggressive economic nationalism, including a threat of 25 per cent tariffs.

We need to take that threat extremely seriously. That means keeping our fiscal powder dry today, so we have the reserves we may need for a coming tariff war. That means eschewing costly political gimmicks, which we can ill afford and which make Canadians doubt that we recognize the gravity of the moment.

That means pushing back against ‘America First’ economic nationalism with a determined effort to fight for capital and investment and the jobs they bring. That means working in good faith and humility with the premiers of the provinces and territories of our great and diverse country, and building a true Team Canada response.

I know Canadians would recognize and respect such an approach. They know when we are working for them, and they equally know when we are focused on ourselves. Inevitably, our time in government will come to an end. But how we deal with the threat our country currently faces will define us for a generation, and perhaps longer. Canada will win if we are strong, smart, and united.

It is this conviction which has driven my strenuous efforts this fall to manage our spending in ways that will give us the flexibility we will need to meet the serious challenges presented by the United States.

I will always be grateful for the chance to have served in government and I will always be proud of our government’s work for Canada and Canadians.

I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues as a Liberal Member of Parliament, and I am committed to running again for my seat in Toronto in the next federal election.

With gratitude,

The Honourable Chrystia Freeland, P.C., M.P.

It’s past time for electoral reform in Canada

Feb 13th, 2022
by Craig.
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I don’t want to draw too long a bow here, but the current protests in Canada highlight the fact that our electoral system is broken. The current government is in power despite not winning a majority of the votes in the last (2021) election. The Liberal Party won only 32.62% of the vote, while the Conservative Party won 34.34% of the vote. (And while the New Democratic Party won 15.98% of the vote, they won only 25 seats, while the Bloc Québécois [who only run for seats in one province!] won 32 seats with only 7.63% of the vote, less than half as many votes!) Anyone with a brain would tell you that a system which produces these numbers is flat out broken!

So while the majority of Canadians have been vaccinated, and understand short-term pain for long-term gain, it’s not rocket science to figure out how the noisy band of malcontents that have descended on Ottawa, Coutts, Emerson and Windsor (among a number of provincial capitals) have managed to attract such a following. I still believe that the majority of Canadians do not support them, and I also still believe that these protests are being driven by right-wing extremists from both Canada and the United States, but this doesn’t change the fact that the vast majority of Canadians, 67.38%, did not vote for the party currently in power.

Much ink has been spilled on the assertion that the only ones to gain from a change in the electoral system to one that includes some form of proportional representation would be the NDP and the Greens. There’s no doubt about that, but (a) opposing electoral reform for that reason is short-sighted (and mean), and (b) that doesn’t imply that the two major parties (Liberals and Conservatives) can’t benefit themselves.

I also believe that Justin Trudeau and the Liberals don’t want to enact electoral reform, not because it would help the NDP and the Greens, but because they see how fractured the Conservative Party is, and that allowing proportional representation would allow the Conservative Party to split (the People’s Party of Canada already did), yet ultimately form government because two or more conservative-leaning parties could easily win a majority (or at least the biggest bloc of seats) and form a coalition government. So ironically, if the Conservative Party would just take their collective heads out of their ass and stop parroting the Liberal line that they can’t do electoral reform, they might actually gain from it … and significantly!

The beginning of civil war in Canada?

Feb 13th, 2022
by Craig.
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I’m not trying to be alarmist with this title, but the actions of a minority of Canadians are having very negative effects on their fellow Canadians. Some have gone as far as to refer to it as “terrorism”, and if you’re in Ottawa in the middle of it and you can’t sleep at night because of the blaring of horns, that adjective is all too real to you. It’s a classic torture technique to deprive your captive of sleep, and the residents of Ottawa in the vicinity of the occupiers of the city are indeed captives, as are the people being laid off because their employers can’t receive the deliveries they’re expecting across our borders.

So if your actions go beyond simple “peaceful” protest and start very negatively affecting the lives of your follow citizens — whether that effect is death or something slightly less drastic, like depriving them of sleep and income — how is that fundamentally different from an actual shooting civil war? The protestors make the point that if they don’t have this great an effect their point will be ignored. Well, they may be right. However, if you’re such a small minority and your demands are so great — as seems to be the case here — then your point, your demands, should be ignored! Every single one of us in a civilised society has to live within the confines of behaviour accepted by the majority. Anyone who has ever read Lord of the Flies learnt the alternative in high school!

How did we get here? As I said in my last post, this ostensibly started out as a trucker protest by people who opposed “vaccine mandates”. However, it has clearly morphed. The thousands of participants are clearly not the 10-15% of truckers who refuse to get vaccinated against COVID-19. Others have glommed onto their protest. Who are the others? That seems to be the biggest unanswered question here, and I sure don’t have the answer. The current federal government is a minority government, which means that most Canadians didn’t vote for them, Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party. Personally speaking I am one of them, but as much as Justin Trudeau irks me, and as much as I have written against him and his leadership on my blog, I support his stance against this array of yobbos, and I think their calls for him to be jailed are abso-fucking-lutely ridiculous.

But why do these people honestly think that they can make this demand? Because they’re extremists who all talk to each other in their own little social-media bubbles. People on both sides of the political spectrum make this mistake and come to different extremist conclusions. In addition to coming to the conclusion that they can call for the overthrow of a duly elected government before the next scheduled election, they advocate for the jailing and execution of the politicians, and the “lying media”, the “fake news”. It’s just bizarre. No matter what beliefs you hold, you cannot reasonably come to the conclusion that you can effectively segregate the population and eliminate every last person who disagrees with you. That guy standing next to you on the protest line likely has a slightly different position to you on any number of issues, so should he/she be executed too? If you answer “yes”, who will be left standing next to you?! Nobody, that’s who.

I used to think that America was on the verge of civil war, and we reasonable people in Canada would be watching the refugees streaming across the border into our civilised country. However, it’s becoming clear that many Americans, mainstream politicians (e.g., Trump, Cruz) and underground right-wing extremists, are treating Canada as the fifty-first state. And we may actually be! The people behind the protests are the sheep of the American right-wing movement (and they even carry their flags!), and they are blindly (and very rapidly!) importing American civil-war politics into a country that simply doesn’t need that garbage!