Friday, February 10, 2017

Dear Justin. Better Inside the House Than Outside.


Justin Trudeau has come up with yet another explanation of why he turned tail on electoral reform.

The Dauphin says it was his decision to make and he made it.

"This was my choice to make and I chose to make it with full consequence of the cost that is possibly going to come to it. But I will not compromise on what is in the best interest of Canada."

In his 7½-minute answer, Trudeau outlined his own preference for ranked ballots and said either a referendum or proportional voting would be too divisive for Canada.

"Too divisive for Canada." That's pretty rich. What were we going to do - explode, burst into flames? Where did Slick come up with that idea? Have we been smouldering again? 

As for his previous excuse - that proportional voting might let extremists gain seats in the House of Commons, where better for them than in Parliament where they can be exposed and denounced? 

5 comments:

Northern PoV said...

Now apparently he's saying something about not letting Kelly Leitch get power via PR.

An outcome much more likely under fptp.

And I thought he was at least intelligent.

The only good thing? Honeymoon is finally over...
now he's just another putz.

UU4077 said...

While I kind of like the guy, he's become just another pretty face. How disappointing.

In the day, I despised his father. Later, I actually came to respect him. Justin? It's not looking good. As I said ... disappointing.

Anonymous said...

Not a Trudeau fan. But the Dipper position was literally: our way our political nuclear war. Trudeau was going to do ranked ballots until these infants pulled out the nuclear codes.

Don't care anymore. Just can't wait until O'Leary steamrolls over Prince Charming in 2019. Maybe Dippers will make OO again. (To those sad sacks a big deal. Not bright enough to realize it doesn't amount to anything.)

In fact, I'm going to sign up for the Conservative party, campaign for O'Leary and even pretend vote for him. (I guess people in this country vote for a prime minister, don't they? As silly as all the rest of it.)

I want to be a part of it. The Liberals and NDP are worthless (and Dizzy Lizzy, which goes without saying.) If I can't be a part of something constructive, I want to be a part of the destruction! Burn this rotting house right down to the ground! OH YEAH! LET'S GET THIS PARTY STARTED! FIRE UP THE MOLOTOV COCKTAILS AND HUMAN HAND GRENADES! BURN BABY BURN!

Unknown said...

I wonder how Canadians like being condescended to by this smug prig! When he voted for the Anti-BDS motion, put forth by the Conservatives, he showed his true colours. "But I will not compromise on what is in the best interest of Canada." The motion violates Canadians freedom of speech rights and the freedom to peacefully protest protected under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

His cowardly dogmatic support of Israel supersedes Canadians rights. His neoliberal policies are actually a betrayal of Canadians interests. He mainly supports domestic and global corporate elites interests.

I don't know if he believes what he's saying or if he just makes it up as he goes along.

Anonymous said...

I've never been a fan of PR and for the reason Trudeau cites. It advantages little fringe groups. Of course Trudeau favoured it when he was one, and of course the NDP and Greens favour it now. They are all being self-serving. Electoral reform would have simply made us all complacent, satisfied that our problems were solved, when what we need is real democratic reform.

For instance, why not get rid of open leadership conventions and have MPs choose their leader? As it is now, leadership contests are a matter of who can sign up the most new members to vote for them. Leaders are chosen largely by strangers not committed to the parties, and as a result are accountable to no one.

If leaders owed their position to MPs it would empower them, and us, because MPs are still accessible to constituents. We would all have just one degree of separation from the PM. This would be more democratic.

As it is now, the media love leadership conventions because they are a big circus they can turn into a sports event and make money from, so they dub it "more democratic". It's not.

We have turned a position that was initially "first among equals" into a presidential one, but without the checks and balances. If MPs chose their own leaders, it would put a brake on the now almost unlimited power of a PM in a majority government. It would result in a more collaborative approach. Isn't this what we want?

If we want democracy, we need to either re-adopt a parliamentary system, or drop all pretence of being an independent culture and adopt the American system. The hybrid we have allowed to evolve is not serving us.