Trudeau abandons pledge to end first-past-the-post.

[The Romulan Republic]

It's related to what probably sunk Hilary Clinton. Nothing offends an electorate like the impression that you've arranged to be their "only viable option" in the backrooms and are asking them to rubber stamp a fait accompli.

Entirely agree.

We need more Canadian politics threads here. What's going on in the CPC campaign is absolutely facinating for one thing. 10 or so Harper acolytes all blocking each other from the spotlight so a Libertarian, a social climber who has made a Faustian bet on Trumpism as her way upward and a television personality who still lives in the States are taking the lead. Then there's poor Michael Chong, a classic liberal, darling of pundits and probably the only one whose thought about how to win a national election of on the sidelines trying to talk about real ideas and not getting anywhere.

Its very disturbing to see the rise of Trumpian politics spreading to Canada, especially given the increasing dissatisfaction with Trudeau and the utter inability of the NDP to ever win an election.

Worse still is the fact that I think most Canadians aren't remotely aware of the danger, that their is probably a sense of "Oh yeah, Trump won in that backward, Right wing, racist United States, but it could never happen here." Just like everyone thought Trump could never win when he started his primary campaign. Everyone thinks it can never happen here, until it does.

This is anecdotal, but speaking from personal experience, very often, Americans are who Canadians look down on to feel good about themselves. And if we're not careful, that complacency will bite us in the ass, hard.

[Phantasee]

Its very disturbing to see the rise of Trumpian politics spreading to Canada, especially given the increasing dissatisfaction with Trudeau and the utter inability of the NDP to ever win an election.

Increasing dissatisfaction? They're at or above their election numbers, in recent polls. I think they're doing just fine. The honeymoon is certainly over, but they can still win another majority if an election was called today.

[The Romulan Republic]

Fair enough. I'll admit that bit was mostly just based on personal experience of seeing people grumbling about Trudeau's broken promises.

What worries me more, though, is what happens when it isn't Trudeau running. Obama's numbers were fairly high too, as I recall, but Obama had personal charisma, much like Trudeau. And when a less charismatic candidate (Clinton) ran on a fairly similar platform, basically trying to pitch herself at times as four more years... well, we saw what happened.

Edit: Admittedly, Clinton was a highly compromised candidate in other respects as well, and their was highly unusual, even perhaps unprecedented corruption and outside interference which exploited that. Its not a perfect parallel. My point is simply that Canadians would do well to avoid being complacent about the dangers of the far Right in our country. Especially after the recent Quebec Mosque shooting.

[Coop D'etat]

Fair enough. I'll admit that bit was mostly just based on personal experience of seeing people grumbling about Trudeau's broken promises.

What worries me more, though, is what happens when it isn't Trudeau running. Obama's numbers were fairly high too, as I recall, but Obama had personal charisma, much like Trudeau. And when a less charismatic candidate (Clinton) ran on a fairly similar platform, basically trying to pitch herself at times as four more years... well, we saw what happened.

Edit: Admittedly, Clinton was a highly compromised candidate in other respects as well, and their was highly unusual, even perhaps unprecedented corruption and outside interference which exploited that. Its not a perfect parallel. My point is simply that Canadians would do well to avoid being complacent about the dangers of the far Right in our country. Especially after the recent Quebec Mosque shooting.

Trudeau is a young man who isn't term limited, that's a concern for so long from now it isn't relevant.

For the rest of it, everything indicates that the Canadian far right equivalents, which I'd have to consider the Rebel media crowd, are fantastically unpopular outside their narrow niche. They aren't even all that popular amoungst conservatives. Meanwhile, the old boogyman of the Christianist socons have pretty definatively given up the ghost in national politics. Only one guy in crowded CPC field is running under their auspices and he's a fringer.

The deplorables are still safely in their little hole, they've just gotten a little yappy recently because what's happening in America has them reiled up. Its important to distinguish the backwash of American culture that leaks through the border with things that have a strong domestic base.

[The Romulan Republic]

Perhaps, and I hope you're right.

I agree, we're not likely to get a Canadian Trump tomorrow, or next year, or maybe in the next five years.

But I do think that the potential is their for us to move further in that direction, to the detriment of the country, and I'd rather address any move in that direction while it is small and inconsequential rather than sit back and wait, secure in the belief that "It can never happen here".

[Coop D'etat]

Yes, but this can equally be the old Canadian game of freaking out about someone else's problem because ours are boring and not amenable to quick solutions.

It my be good all sectors of Canadian politics, not just the right but the left as well, got more in the habit of ignoring American political ideas. It's becoming increasingly clear they have no idea what they are doing down there.

[Tribble]

Opening the parties up to attacks of "they don't really support x, because if they did they wouldn't have voted the way they did on these bills".

True, but IMO it's still guaranteed to happen.

[

The government party would then respond with: We only worked with them on issues x, y and z. Issues where their agenda matched ours.

In NZ the parties cooperate with each other when their agendas align. Apparently there are a lot of bills that pass with support from National and Labour (our two major parties), though I don't have any statistics on that. Just two examples a bill to block 0 hour contracts and a bill to make homes more affordable.

I'm not aware of any parties opposing something because of who said it. Instead we have National just copying parts of Labour's policies when it's convenient. It happened in 2011 and again last year

On the other hand there are countries such as Israel where under Proportional Representation fringe parties / groups do seem to have a lot more influence then they ought to.

Also, while New Zealand is a Commonwealth country it is generally speaking less diverse geographically and culturally speaking than Canada. We've had some pretty stark divisions here over the years and its rather frequent for mainstream parties to vote against things simply out of spite. Perhaps not to the degree of American politics (yet) bit its very partisan atm. IMO allowing fringe parties into the game and having them play as kingmaker may not be the best idea.

That's not to mean I'm against MMP, I just feel there needs to be some cutoffs.

One electorate seat works as a cutoff. 2 or larger doesn't work because you have to decide what happens when a party only gets one electorate. I can't think of any solution that could be considered democratic.

Fair enough.

To form, yes. But a party can then lose their electorates while maintaining their party vote.

An actual example from the NZ. In our 2014 election the NZ Greens got 10.70% of the party vote, but 0 electorate seats. The only time they won an electorate seat was the 1999 election, their first year in parliament, where they got 5.16% of the party vote. They managed to gain party vote while losing electorates.


The main reason I don't like the 5% cutoff is the NZ 2008 election:
- NZ First got 4.07% of the party vote. But, because the leader got into a scandal that year, he lost his electorate. So his party didn't get into parliament.
- Four other parties each got less of the party vote. But they got in through electorate seats.

Sorry, I might be a bit confused here. Do you feel that a one-seat requirement is sufficient? Or are you against having limitations like a one-seat requirement and % cut-off?

There are 338 seats in the Canadian House of Commons atm. Say we go to MMP and split that in half - 50% local ridings, 50% proportionate. That would mean there would be 169 seats available for the proportionate vote. With no restrictions that would mean a party could gain a seat with just ~0.59% of the vote. IMO there needs to be cutoff otherwise that would result in major fracturing.

In the UK in 2015 UKIP got 12.7℅ of the vote and one seat.

I'm not a supporter of PR though, but I might support a system that "tops up" seats so they equal the largest parliamentary party with less votes than them.

Which proves my point that it's unlikely that a party with a significant amount of support like that will fail to win a single seat somewhere, but bilateralrope has shown it can happen.

Note that despite their lack of seats UKIP supporters were successfully able to hijack the Conservatives into holding the referendum, then have them stick to a "hard Brexit". FPTP is no better when it comes to extremist groups being able to have large influence in government policy.

[Tribble]

Yes, but this can equally be the old Canadian game of freaking out about someone else's problem because ours are boring and not amenable to quick solutions.

It my be good all sectors of Canadian politics, not just the right but the left as well, got more in the habit of ignoring American political ideas. It's becoming increasingly clear they have no idea what they are doing down there.

I'm actually in agreement with Romulan Republic here. Since the great split of the PC Party and the Reform Party the Conservatives have been steadily moving towards the right just like the Republicans, though to a lesser degree so far. Harper was a far-right politician when compared to his predecessors, but now Harper is considered a "mainstream" Conservative when compared to candidates like Leitch and O'Leary. IMO there is a definite cause for concern that if either one of them wins the Conservatives will lurch much further to the right than they are right now. Leitch and O'Learly are definetely trying to pull a Trump maneuver, we'll see how it pans out.

IMO the Liberals have somewhat shifted to the right as well, though nowhere near as much (and with the exception of fiscal policy).

Meanwhile the opposite is happening to the NDP, as they seem to have openly embraced communism again via their "Great Leap Manifesto".



Also, technically Toronto beat the Americans when it came to voting an absurd right-wing candidate into office aka Rob Ford. If Toronto can elect a Rob Ford Canada is certainly capable of voting in a Trump-like (or rather Rob Ford-like) figure.

[Coop D'etat]

Harper's conservativism was mostly a matter of presentation rather than policy. He was a ardent practioner of the dictum that you don't actually need to do much policy to make the base happy if you are doing things to piss off your enemies. So most of his right-wing agenda was pretty penny ante stuff. Muzzling scientists, backing Israel to the hilt, ruining the census etc. In grand policy terms he was pretty incrimental, mainly focused on tax cuts and trade deals. Mostly he was tinkering on the edges of Chretien's policies, not pushing for any grand reforms (much unlike his Conservative predecessor Mulroney, who was all about big changes).

On the big ticket social issues, he moved the Conservatives to the left on immigration until he lost the plot in the last election and gave the Christianists nothing on anything.


If you're looking for big long term trends over the decades, its that Canada has been moving in a neo-liberal direction since the eighties. Lower taxes, federal spending and regulation and free trade. At the same time, social liberalism has been marching at a steading clip.


I'd also distinguish willingness to vote in a blowhard with politics moving rightward. Populist blowhardism is something any democracy is vulnerable to, its not a sign of policy consensus shifting. I don't doubt we've acquired many on the right who are thristing for someone who pisses of liberals like Trump does, that was a key part of Harper's appeal. But there is a difference between wanting to piss off liberals and also wanting to bash immigrants and impose theocracy (Ford for example, was well known for getting a lot of votes in immigrant suburbs, he wasn't a white Christian phenomenon). By the same token, the guy running as a Trump-style jackass businessman in the CPC leadership race is explicitly pro-immigrant and pro-gay.

[The Romulan Republic]

Oh, I agree that Canada has a long way to go before we're in Trump-land. Something that I am continually grateful for. Its nice to know that their is still at least one little island of semi-sanity in the English-speaking part of the Western world (well, I guess New Zealand is doing okay, as far as I know). Plus, you know, I live here.

At the same time, I don't harbour any illusions that Canada is so innately more progressive and civilized a country that it could never go down a similar road.

After all, the road to Trump was a long one. You can trace the current situation right back to Nixon's Southern Strategy. The Republican Party was heading down this road for a long time. And I'd rather Canadians be aware of the danger sooner than later.

The trend towards neoliberalism is not a comforting one either, in this respect, as Trump's victory has been portrayed as being, in part, a backlash against a neoliberal corporatist status quo (ironically, since Trump himself is pretty much the poster child for evil big businessmen).

Also, Harper pushed the anti-Muslim/anti-refugee card pretty hard in the run-up to the election (on the plus side, he lost).

[Phantasee]

Harper's conservativism was mostly a matter of presentation rather than policy. He was a ardent practioner of the dictum that you don't actually need to do much policy to make the base happy if you are doing things to piss off your enemies. So most of his right-wing agenda was pretty penny ante stuff. Muzzling scientists, backing Israel to the hilt, ruining the census etc. In grand policy terms he was pretty incrimental, mainly focused on tax cuts and trade deals. Mostly he was tinkering on the edges of Chretien's policies, not pushing for any grand reforms (much unlike his Conservative predecessor Mulroney, who was all about big changes).

On the big ticket social issues, he moved the Conservatives to the left on immigration until he lost the plot in the last election and gave the Christianists nothing on anything.


If you're looking for big long term trends over the decades, its that Canada has been moving in a neo-liberal direction since the eighties. Lower taxes, federal spending and regulation and free trade. At the same time, social liberalism has been marching at a steading clip.


I'd also distinguish willingness to vote in a blowhard with politics moving rightward. Populist blowhardism is something any democracy is vulnerable to, its not a sign of policy consensus shifting. I don't doubt we've acquired many on the right who are thristing for someone who pisses of liberals like Trump does, that was a key part of Harper's appeal. But there is a difference between wanting to piss off liberals and also wanting to bash immigrants and impose theocracy (Ford for example, was well known for getting a lot of votes in immigrant suburbs, he wasn't a white Christian phenomenon). By the same token, the guy running as a Trump-style jackass businessman in the CPC leadership race is explicitly pro-immigrant and pro-gay.

I've often said that the CPC should match the orthodox LPC policies on immigration and they'd win on economic issues. Immigrants pay taxes too, often more than other sectors of Canadian society (over a lifetime).

But what do I know?

I appreciate you making that point about populist blowhardism not being a partisan problem. If the CPC shit the bed this leadership and elect an idiot, watch the NDP find their own blowhard(s) in the run up to the election after next.

[bilateralrope]

Are you saying that every single potential politician is going to be on the ballot paper for everybody ?

How is anyone supposed to keep track of which politicians support what and how well they push their agenda if no advocacy group matches what they want ?

How long is that ballot paper going to take to fill in on election day ?

I don't think ballots would be an issue. Allow candidates to collect X amount of signatures to get on the ballot. If too many candidates get on the ballot, raise the number of required signatures. If push comes to shove, you could allow eligible voters to nominate and mail in a list of two potential candidates for each office that they want to see on the ballot. Top 10 candidates would make it on the ballot and parties could endorse they ones they like.

I'll focus on this point for now because it looks like a big problem with your proposal. I'll answer the rest of your points later once I understand exactly how you plan for voting day to work.


You'll have 10 candidates on the ballot for the entire nation ?

Or are you splitting the country into regions ?

Splitting the country into regions doesn't give much hope for a policy supported by 10% of the people who are evenly spread across the nation.

How often does the winner of a seat from FPTP win with less than 50% of the votes from that region ?

Because those are the only cases where a region-based system other than FPTP (eg, STV) would produce different results.

[bilateralrope]

Sorry about the delay in my reply.

Sorry, I might be a bit confused here. Do you feel that a one-seat requirement is sufficient? Or are you against having limitations like a one-seat requirement and % cut-off?

I'd support a requirement of:
- A party needs to have at least x% of the party vote or an electorate seat to get seats from the party vote.

The question is what value of x to set. 5% works for the most part. Maybe have it automatically reduced for a single term whenever a party with at least one electorate win gets less of the party vote than the threshold. Then it gets reduced to the higher of a single seat or whatever that party got.

[blahface]

You'll have 10 candidates on the ballot for the entire nation ?

Or are you splitting the country into regions ?

I mean 10 candidates per riding. Parties and advocacy groups could endorse any number of those candidates that agree with their platform.

Splitting the country into regions doesn't give much hope for a policy supported by 10% of the people who are evenly spread across the nation.

Why not? Under approval voting you have to appeal to as many different groups as possible. If Party X represents the interests of those 10%, don't you think an endorsement from Party X would help you eke out a victory? What if a similar candidate has all the party endorsements you do, but also has the endorsement from Party X? That is probably going to put him over you.

How often does the winner of a seat from FPTP win with less than 50% of the votes from that region ?

Because those are the only cases where a region-based system other than FPTP (eg, STV) would produce different results.

You are making the assumption that under FPTP voters would be voting for their honest favorite when they have every reason to vote strategically to beat the guy they hate. With approval voting, you can always vote for your favorite without penalty and also vote for compromise candidates that you find acceptable.

Also, under approval voting, you can have two candidates over the 50% mark. Even if a candidate can legitimately get 51% of the vote under FPTP, another candidate under approval voting could get 60% approval by having broader appeal even if the core supporters would prefer the other guy. This would be pretty rare though as approval voting usually gets a Condorcet Winner.