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Time to Repair Our ‘Damaged’ Democracy: Stephane Dion
Time to Repair Our ‘Damaged’ Democracy: Stephane Dion
New foreign affairs minister, a long-time vote reform advocate, dishes on fixing our system.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s choice to represent Canada on the world stage, Stephane Dion, will have his work cut out for him promoting the Liberals’ brand of democracy as foreign affairs minister.
The former party leader and 19-year veteran MP said protecting democracy at home continues to worry him, too.
“We have been elected to change the policies of the country,” the Saint-Laurent MP said in an interview with The Tyee yesterday, “but also to change the way these policies are decided — the process by which we may improve our democratic practices in Canada, our Parliamentary democracy and our democracy in general… a democracy that has been damaged over the last 10 years.”
Today, Dion was handed the high-profile foreign affairs portfolio at a swearing-in ceremony in Ottawa.
Maryam Monsef, an Afghan refugee who at 30 became one of Canada’s youngest-ever MPs* after winning jailed Conservative Dean Del Mastro’s seat, became the country’s first Minister of Democratic Institutions.
But as the federal Liberals’ long-time critic for democratic reform, Dion will likely be sought out for advice and remain connected at least behind-the-scenes to the electoral reform file.
He has extensively studied alternative voting systems used around the world, most prominently various types of proportional representation that attempt to align popular vote with the number of seats in Parliament. But which alternative to choose has long divided electoral change advocates, and that’s the task ahead for Trudeau’s promised parliamentary committee tasked with recommending reforms.
In fact, Dion has invented his own personal voting system he’s dubbed “P3” — proportional-preferential-personalized vote. In a nutshell, rather than one MP per riding, he proposed there be five in much larger ridings than today. Voters would rank parties in order of preference; then rank the five candidates put forward by their chosen party.
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Do Political Systems Ever Work?
Do Political Systems Ever Work?
QUESTION:
ANSWER: No. Human nature causes all systems to ultimately fail. Once you start to tax and regulate, then come the bribes. The Medici installed popes because they wanted to control money flows. Kings installed bishops to control the people using religion. Napoleon confiscated the property of the church, as did Henry VIII, because they needed the money. Constantine became Christian for he could then rob all the Pagan temples.
No system has survived. Unfortunately, society allows it for as a whole we are complacent. Hillary is beside herself for she has been lying and stealing from the public for such a long time that she does not understand why people are mad.
This is part of the revolutionary cycle, which hits about once every 300-years. Thomas Jefferson saw it and believed the constitution should automatically expire every 19 years. It’s Just Time.
Three things must change for a healthier democracy – The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Three things must change for a healthier democracy – The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation).
There are three drivers in Australian politics – the parties, the voting system and the media – that are all connected and self-supporting. And all are conspiring to hollow out our democracy, writes Tim Dunlop.
To listen in on any halfway serious discussion of politics these days is to eavesdrop on a cacophony of dissatisfaction. Issues come and go, but the underlying unease remains no matter how much we vent or how many logical arguments we make about a given issue.
The reason the whole kabuki is so unsatisfactory is because we spend too much time worrying about the day-to-day issues rather than addressing the underlying drivers of our problems.
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