NDP leader introduces bill that would require floor crossers to face voters first
Electoral reform? In this government? With these oil prices? Localized entirely within the NDP?
May we have it?
… No.
Seymore! The solidarity of our nation is on fire!
No mother! It’s just a two party system with the illusion of choice
Please?
It’s a matter of political philosophy and historical context. Back then, before we had TV, the internet or even the radio, communities were more tightly knit and your world was your community. You elected your MP to represent you and didn’t care how they did it.
Nowadays, people’s horizons have expanded and their community is the world, so people don’t vote for their MP, but for the party and/or prime minister. Therefore, our Westminster system is no longer aligned with its original goal of representing its constituents above all else.
I’ve been around a long time, and I have never witnessed an election where people didn’t vote for the party. It’s been this way for a very long time.
It did happen in Sask, at least for a while. Ralph Goodale was the last Liberal party holdout for years and years. Got voted out eventually of course, but held on much longer than most on reputation.
It’s just human nature to vote for the strong man / party.
No it isn’t.
It doesn’t seem like it’s about strength, necessarily. Ordinary voters just can’t keep track of more than a few factions. (And forget keeping track of the individual issues).
Where things manage to be non-partisan, it’s because there’s a strong and extensive network of local power brokers that people will listen to, like pastors or elders. Failing that, parties emerge over and over again to present a brand, and actual issue-by-issue decisions happen inside.
I think Avi is on the cusp of something here, but he’s missing an important part; Canadians want to be able to have some recourse if their representation doesn’t perform as expected. This shouldn’t start and end with floor crossing. It needs to include politicians who ignore campaign promises or their party’s platform as well.
100% agree. Constituents should be able to recall their MPs.
That said, we also need way way more MPs. There is no reason a modern representative democracy should only have as many MPs as can fit a physical room. Given a fixed selectorate, the larger the number of keys a ruler needs to satisfy, the better the quality of our democracy.
Parties aren’t part of our electoral system. You’re elected because you’re the best MP in a given area (or thought to be) and whatever club you join doesn’t change that.
That might be how you think it should be, but it’s not that way at all. Canadians have been voting for the party for many decades.
Teach them then. I always ask candidates who they’ll vote to be PM.
Good luck with that, you’ll need it.
At that point the politicians might have an incentive to actually be honest, too. As it is, it’s all soundbites and photo ops, because voters aren’t paying attention to the details.
But it is how our system is designed. Yes everyone votes for part which means we should change our system. Just go dull proportional representation x seats x percentage of votes gives you your seat count.
Who cares that it’s designed this way, we don’t have founding daddy issues in this country. If we want we can redesign it.
It’s noble they’d do that just when they need free floor-crossing the most.
Crossing the floor seems to me to be anti-democratic. At the same time, taking a stance that you believe in, even if it goes against your fellow voters, seems honourable. Everything is shades of grey.
I don’t have a problem with floor crossing if it’s being done by an MP in the interest of best serving the will and priorities of their constituents as an elected representative. That said, if they ran on one platform and now are going to be loyal to another, I’m okay with them having to get a renewed mandate from their constituents. Floor crossing itself can be part of the democratic process. Getting a renewed mandate also seems to strengthen the democratic process.
Technically (and as intended originally), you vote for a representative. What they choose after that, including party affiliations, is up to them.
In practice, nobody uses the system as it’s designed.
Which means we should change it. Just vote and decide the seats. Everyone thinks they are voting for the PM anyways.
Party list goes brrrr.
Although that might be the version of PR you hear proposed least for Canada.
That’s solving the wrong problem IMO. If you want less floor crossing then address why people do it.
We have the most whipped vote of any Westminster system. In theory MP’s can vote against their party. In practice they don’t because they’ll get kicked out.
It’s harder and harder for MP’s to change or choose the leader. It’s effectively a single choice that you’re stuck with them until they resign. There are very limited in how they can replace or hold a leader to account.
These are the first two I thought of, but there are other issues to work through too.
If we’re going to acknowledge that people vote for the party, we should switch to a system that actually reflects that, and not really have ridings at all.
How about we get rid of political parties and ban them from identifying themselves as ‘X party’ to begin with, huh? After all, political parties aren’t even supposed to be part of the system. At the same time, ban these political parties from funding specific member campaigns. At the heart of it is how these MP’s are backed by these so-called parties - which enables these parties to ‘whip votes’. It all functions like a mafia group right now. Money is the reason why these political parties exist, but it also keeps out those that deserve/want to serve Canadians out due to the lack of funding because of ideological purity tests of bullshit.
Would it be a mess? Of course, at the start. But maybe a new system would emerge that would actually represent each constituents better rather than being held by a ideological gun-point via party funding.
We desperately need voting and government reform.
Considering our first PM was a conservative, how do you figure political parties weren’t supposed to be part of the system? Also, it’s very anti free society to restrict freedom of association.
Good point. This is why I pointed out how the system is actually working underneath. It’s all about how the funding and money is flowing in this so called party system. It’s by association and purity tests. It’s not really by “you got in because you have actual good ideas for the greater good of society and humanity”. It’s about “they/him/her scratched his back so now we scratch their backs”.
Then this would lead to the result of - how do we get money influence out of politics? In a simple way of explaining, one way would to do it would be to publicly fund each nominee/contender/incumbent BUT make the funding equal, make the media coverage equal, etc. Have an unified standard of how these metrics are presented. Even their promises presented, measured and compared. These are just ideas, but it’s not impossible to do these. I’m sure there’s many ways we can to level the playing field to an extent where it’s not always big money crushing everything.
Every party hates floor-crossing unless they benefit from it. This proposal doesn’t quite make sense though - what if to bypass it, an MP from party A announces that while they can’t join party B, they’ll just “independently” happen to vote alongside it? Are you going to strip that MP of their vote? At that point just get rid of MPs and give their votes to the party leaders.
