The case against fixed terms

Stephen Harper, from the time he was the official opposition, has been pushing for a fixed term length to eliminate the ruling party (Liberals, at the time) practice of calling elections when their polls are up. Now that he is PM he has continued to promise it, yet he's gone against it and called an election when the Conservatives' polls went up. So much for his "integrity and transparency" platform.

I really love the fact that, under the parliamentary system, without fixed terms, the PM must at all times operate under the threat of a possible election if s/he starts getting out of hand. If the people have had enough, they can call on their representatives - the Members of Parliament - to topple the government and trigger an election. For this reason, I am very much against fixed term length as Harper is purportedly so fond of (in word if not in deed). Despite the opportunistic election-calling our system allows for, I'll take that any day over the problem fixed terms cause: that of a leader who can campaign for election, tell the people what they want to hear long enough to win the seat, then promptly turn up his/her nose at the people and run around like a little dictator until just before the next election. George W. Bush has been a prime example of this abuse, and frankly the gullibility of roughly half the American population has helped maximize such abuse and showcase the failings of a fixed-term system.

Moreover, I really do think the U.S. needs to come up with a more expedient process than impeachment for expunging a president. It needs to be much easier to initiate the process, and once started it needs to be fast-tracked with top priority. It's pathetic that it takes 2 years to get someone out of a 4-year seat, and costs the taxpayers millions of dollars to boot. In this situation, a sitting president knows that after the 2 year mark he can do pretty much anything he wants, because the people are powerless to put a stop to him before his term will be up anyway. This is exacerbated when a president is in his second term as Bush is, and as such doesn't have to worry about getting elected again either.

Even faster and cheaper than expediting the impeachment process, however, would be implementing confidence votes like they do here, and getting rid of fixed terms. There is no reason a president should be able to rule with an iron fist without facing some accountability. The government should live in constant fear that if they screw up bad enough the people will shove a boot up their a$$ posthaste. To me, that's a real democracy.

Canadians, you may feel that voting 3 times in just over 4 years is a little annoying. (I don't, because frankly I'm grateful for any opportunity to express my wishes about how I want the country to be run.) But you should think long and hard about what you are surrendering if you allow a move to fixed terms. One need only look south to see the kind of grief it can bring... this Canadian-American Canadian can tell you - it's not worth it.

Some thoughts on Conservatives and the MMP system

As bad as the Conservatives are, and as much of the tactics they copy from the Republicans, I have to give them at least some credit. They still do things like creating new national parks, building infrastructure, and stuff like that. Their inaction on global warming and lack of concern for the poor is still there, make no mistake, but at least they have to make some concessions or the Canadian public would most assuredly give them the boot. So while they model themselves after the Republicans, they can't get away with nearly as much. And yeah the Republicans win hands-down when it comes to whack-job policy and pushing for a theocratic oligarchy.

I really, really wish people would get rid of first-past-the-post voting though, both in Canada and the U.S. Even more here than there (since it's less 50-50) you can see the failures of a system where 60% of the people want liberal policy, but because there's only 1 conservative party and 4 liberal parties the person with only 40% support gets to rule. (It doesn't help that he considers this a "mandate" and refuses to work with the other parties voted in by the other 60%.) We can do better than that. Here in Ontario last November, they tried to get through a mixed-member proportional (MMP) system. But since they didn't do nearly enough to educate the public about what it is (I imagine they didn't have sufficient funding, for one thing), a lot of people just voted against it without even knowing what it is.

Case in point: I was in the polling station voting for it, and there was a lady in there asking the workers about it. They explained it in simple neutral terms, and she just said, "Ehhh I dunno what all that is, just keep it the same." And she proceeded to vote against it.

If there's one thing that really drags down a democracy, it's when people know nothing about a given issue and decide to go ahead and vote on it anyway. Ontario is a big province with lots of influence here due to its comparatively large population. If the MMP referendum would have passed it could have changed the direction of the whole country. Just goes to show - if you think education is expensive, try ignorance.

Maybe U.S. politics have made me an incurable cynic, but I have my sneaky suspicions that the anti-MMP campaign was secretly funded by the two parties who stand to lose the most from such an arrangement. This system would have handed a proportional number of seats to smaller parties such as the NDPs and Greens, which would otherwise have gone to the Conservatives and Liberals due to the failings of first-past-the-post. One of the alarmist arguments cited against MMP is that, !GASP! some of the MP's will be chosen by the parties and therefore not directly chosen by the people! Omigod it's undemocratic! Well hello, isn't that how the PM gets in? The party that wins the most seats chooses who the PM will be, no? I don't hear anyone sounding the alarm bells over that.

It really irks me when people use misinformation as the means to their desired political outcome. This is an old trick, a perennial favourite of Republicans and Conservatives, might I add. And it irks me even more when the public is sufficiently uninformed to fall for it. The anti-MMP campaign had the Conservatives' signature alarmist misinformation tactic written all over it, but don't be surprised if the Libs got into bed with them on this one.

Voting twice

Prime Minister Harper has called an election for Oct 14 (the day after Thanksgiving), trying to get his party a majority. We've sent for our U.S. absentee ballots and are waiting to hear back. It seems I will be voting once in October and once in November.