The Decline of the Liberal Party- Swerved Into a Confederation Topic

[suffolkowner]

Does everyone know which level of government has the most influence on your day to day lives?
Municipal

Know which level of government that everyone bitches the most about?
Municipal

Know which level of government that people are less and less willing to get off their ass and vote or put their names up to run for council?
Municipal

one of the many problems I've had with municipal elections is the paucity of information on the candidates. It can be almost impossible to find out what their positions are. You have to reach out an email them directly and often receive generalised crap in return

 

[mariomike]

No party politics in municipal.

No Liberal / Conservative way to fix a sewer.

 

[Kirkhill]

I spent just shy of 16 years posted in Vancouver Island, so I have an inkling of the sentiment out there.

I've also heard similar complaints from the east too - PEI, NL, etc saying Ottawa doesn't listen to them.

But, your comments actually made me look up the latest Statscan listing of population by province. These are all projections for Q3 2022 (millions):

Canada - 38.9
ON + QC - 23.7
West (MB-BC) - 12.4

So yeah it sucks, but the truth is that ON+QC has double the population of the west. So, is it weird that ON+QC would have an outsized voice in Canadian politics? Or am I misinterpreting your comments?

Not weird - but it does make the case for federalism, regional representation, local autonomy and the value of institutions like the senate and the US Electoral College that are not majoritarian.

 

[Remius]

I had family in the auto industry there. Its very sad what's happened that town.

I would love to see Canada create our own brand of E Cars and Trucks.

I was referring to the many Leafs fans….

Kidding.

It’s a sad state in those areas. And yes. I think Ford has the right idea in trying to harness the manufacturing power Ontario still has.

 

[Kirkhill]

Honest question to both of you then - if population isn't the metric, then what is?

Population is one metric.

The priority of the Federal Government is "Peace, Order and Good Governance". Problem resolution is supposed to be their forte. Sometimes democratic means lead to resolution. Sometimes they result in more problems.

That's why we pay Government the big bucks. To decide when and how to do what is necessary to maintain "Peace, Order and Good Governance".

We use democratic means selectively, occasionally, to elect some individuals to maintain "Peace, Order and Good Governance".

 

[Kirkhill]

So if we divide Ont and Que into 7 more little provinces you're satisfied?

Actually I kind of like that. It might even gain some traction in Ontario and Quebec. Divide by Area Codes.



Interesting if the country were politically divided into those zones.....

 

[brihard]

Perhaps.

Thats not what I said. All I am saying is redistributing the seats in the HOC. All provinces maintain their current existence. I'm simply using geography.

84 Seats Atlantic Region:
NFLD
PEI
NB
NS

*86 Seats Central Region:
Ont
Que

84 Seats Prairie/Pacific Region:
Man
Sask
AB
BC

84 Seats Norther Region:
Yuk
NWT
Nun

This is absurd.

You’re dividing seats evenly for:
23 million Canadians in ON and QC;
12 million Canadians in BC, AB, SK, MB;
2.4 million Canadians in NB, NS, Nfld, PEI, and;
125 thousand Canadians in YT, NWT, NU.

It sounds like what you really want is an effective senate. The hard reality is that the prairies are already over represented in parliament by MPs per capita. Don’t expect that to swing further in favour of rural ridings.

If Alberta wants more seats in Parliament, it can leverage its wealth - which it very much still has - to attract more people to live there. More population will mean more seats.

 

[Kirkhill]

Luckily the Western provinces can't agree on anything, sometimes in a spectacular fashion, so the divide and rule principle that underpins Canada's Confederation should ensure that we remain whole for the foreseeable future

Viz:

Alberta enacted Bill 12, dubbed the “turn off the taps act” in May, after it was passed by the previous provincial government in retaliation for British Columbia opposing the expansion of the Trans Mountain oil pipeline.

Court blocks Alberta law curbing energy flows to British Columbia

A Canadian court on Tuesday temporarily blocked legislation enabling the province of Alberta to restrict oil and gas flows to British Columbia, leaving the constitutionality of the measure to be decided at a later trial.

www.reuters.com

But it didn't block the BC and Federal laws turning off the taps that allowed Alberta and Saskatchewan to export internationally across BC.

 

[Kirkhill]

Just add a popular vote % factor to the current system and let parties assign what they get as they see fit or as equally as possible between regions.

Get knotted.

The last thing we need is Parties deciding who my representative is going to be. My representative then becomes my Gauleiter.

 

[Kirkhill]

So, all notions of equality - you know that principle we've been fighting for for about 1,000 years - are to be tossed on the rubbish heap of history because people don't want to live in Atlantic Canada, is that right?

People in Nunavut should get enormous political power because they live in a vast, frozen wasteland and the 35% of the people who produce 40% of Canada's wealth get about 15% of the political representation ... does that sound fair to you?

I think someone else said it - you're proposing that we make the Senate the model for the House of Commons.

I understand - I was raised in the West - that a lot of people are upset by the notion of representation by population, by the notion of equality. Maybe, while we're at it, we should take the right to vote away from women and indigenous people and those who don't pay property taxes. Yeah, 1264 was a really great year.

We are not one country. We are what, a dozen tiny city-states with hinterlands? That are represented internationally by one government. What is so wrong with each city-state doing things in the manner that best pleases them? We manage to allow other countries to do things their own way while trading and travelling.

 

[Kirkhill]

Then you 'don't get' Confederation.

A tiny bit of background as to why we will never be 'equal' Provinces in Canada:

Confederation

Confederation refers to the process of federal union in which the British North American colonies of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and the Province of Canada joine...

www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca

1864 were a long time back...

 

[Kirkhill]

OK ... disingenuous ... hmmm.

I'm looking at the the last 750+ years of social and political history and saying that they matter a whole helluva lot more than Canada';s petty political problems.

-----

Off topic, but ...

I'm not sure that Canada can exist, as a coherent political nation-state for another 50 years, much less another 150. I'm not so sure that we, Canadians - 60±% of us, anyway, are sufficiently politically mature to have a country of our own.

I'm also slightly worried about whether or not the USA has the national will to remain united.
View attachment 74544View attachment 74545

One big problem I see with that map. None of the urban centres selected have anything in common with any of the hinterlands described. The Urban-Rural problem would still exist.

Atlanta doesn't represent Dixie. Detroit doesn't represent the Foundry. Etc. The cities vote blue. The hinterlands vote red. Except in Canada where the colour scheme is reversed - because we are Canadians.

 

[RedFive]

They've got nothing to be angry about, at least in the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island, they're good little comrades in the Great Struggle. BC isn't the west, it just got drawn on the wrong side of the map.

So you're complaining at length about how the east doesn't understand the struggles of the west, and then you come out with a broad stroke brush and label all of BC as a homogenous block that also somehow hates the prairies and should be next to Ontario on the map.

Your lack of understanding of the province of BC in pretty obvious at this point. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

 

[Remius]

Get knotted.

The last thing we need is Parties deciding who my representative is going to be. My representative then becomes my Gauleiter.

They already decide that btw lol.

 

[Kirkhill]

They already decide that btw lol.

Not wrong - which brings us back to Kat's anger.

 

[CBH99]

You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Not to detract from any of the posts in this thread, but I’ve never understood this saying.

Even as a child, when I would hear it, I’d always ask “What’s the point in having cake if we aren’t allowed to eat it?”


Nobody has ever explained to me what this saying actually means.

 

[suffolkowner]

No party politics in municipal.

No Liberal / Conservative way to fix a sewer.

I might argue that a Conservative would contract it out and a Liberal would do it in house

 

[Kat Stevens]

So you're complaining at length about how the east doesn't understand the struggles of the west, and then you come out with a broad stroke brush and label all of BC as a homogenous block that also somehow hates the prairies and should be next to Ontario on the map.

Your lack of understanding of the province of BC in pretty obvious at this point. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Yes, that's exactly what I said. What? Waaaaiit a minute... You must have missed this part..."at least in the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island". I was raised on the Sunshine Coast. All my family except me stayed within a three mile radius of the house we grew up in. My siblings are both classical big money socialists. I've lived it first hand, not like the people I'm trying, and abjectly failing, to address here.

 

[Kat Stevens]

Not wrong - which brings us back to Kat's anger.

It's not necessarily my anger, I'm doing okay. I'm trying to give it some clarity, but cratering hard. The last thing I want is the country I gave 23 years of my life to falling apart, but that's where we're headed. Never mind, let us eat cake. Apparently, we like cake.

 

[suffolkowner]

It's not necessarily my anger, I'm doing okay. I'm trying to give it some clarity, but cratering hard.

well for one thing there is no Ontario vote or Quebec vote. Each riding is independent the area where I am has basically been Conservative since Confederation. I remain of the opinion that there is a greater urban/rural divide than interprovincial. This comes from someone who thinks Toronto starts at Hwy 9 and thinks I should be able to have a shotgun or rifle on me when on horseback and is irritated that newcomers come up and complain about cows mooing and the smell of manure