A blog to give a voice to our concern about the continued erosion of our democratic processes not only within the House of Commons and within our electoral system but also throughout our society. Here you will find articles about the current problems within our parliamentary democracy, about actions both good and bad by our elected representatives, about possible solutions, opinions and debate about the state of democracy in Canada, and about our roles/responsibilities as democratic citizens. We invite your thoughtful and polite comments upon our posts and ask those who wish to post longer articles or share ideas on this subject to submit them for inclusion as a guest post.
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Sunday, July 8, 2012

Is Cooperation Necessary or Possible?


There has been much talk of late about cooperation between the left leaning political partys with a view to stopping the dismantling of Canada by the Harper regime beyond 2015 by electing a different government at that time. What form that may take if it materializes is up for debate but there is little doubt in my mind that if you care for this country and want that “open and accountable government” that these secretive and dishonest ideologues promised when they first came to power then we must seriously consider such 'cooperation' in order to rid ourselves of this regime.

There is however that such talk at this time is because it is currently 'politically expedient' for the 'left' to talk cooperation in the face of Harpers avowed intent to cripple any oppositions chances of regaining power. Lesser partys are already feeling the pinch of reduced funding from the per vote funding that is being phased out as I write, attack ads are being aired by the Cons trying to demonize the opposition leader as was successfully done during the last parliament long before any actual election period commenced. We can expect further rhetoric from them dishing such cooperation in the same manner that they, also successfully, wrongly painted coalition governments as 'unconstitutional' even as they shut down parliament to avoid a vote of non confidence. The opposition partys are not blameless on that one, no sooner had the possibility of such 'cooperation' faded when rather that keep the door open between them they started attacking each other in speeches and the media.

In trying to elect a government from the 'progressive left' the difficulty is of course our antiquated voting system where the winner takes all and with several partys on the left and but one or the right vote splitting pretty much ensures that the Cons have a much better chance of retaining power. The Green Party of Canada is currently considering a couple of motions to be voted upon in their upcoming convention (and being voted upon by the membership on line) to officially call for “cooperation” during the next election on the condition that if elected whatever party gains power would “make electoral reform for proportional representation their highest priority”. How such cooperation would work is left up to the party leader and council and is of course the sticky bit. Elizabeth May in a past election made reference to the difficulty posed by the need for strategic voting where they had no chance of electing a Green and to consider voting ABC (Any One but Conservative) and for whomever had the best chance to defeat the Con candidate. This was later 'clarified' due to much angst from within the party, as it turns out it was not only a very brave thing for a leader to say but may well have saved us from the destruction of our democracy and environmental protection by the Harper Regime. Will ANY leader or party on the left have the guts to possibly alienate their supporters in order to rid ourselves of this bunch of power hungry crooks by urging such strategic voting? Will candidates be withdrawn in favor of of the most probable non conservative candidate irregardless of party? I highly doubt it, time will tell, but strategic voting may well be the only practical choice to save Canada from further abuse by the Harper Regiem.

Its going to get complicated and ugly folks, we can only hope that the Cons self destruct before then but thus far they have done a good job of hiding their many wrong-doings, deflecting any criticism of that which does emerge, and using their taxpayer funded PR department to make many of the public believe that they are gods gift to Canada. I for one am daily collecting 'ammunition' for use during the next election period and hope that we still have a reasonably secure and error free election system by then ..... or will Elections Canada be just a shell of its current underfunded self by then?

I will leave you with this thought from 'Sudbury Steve' with which I entirely agree “it could very well lead to the NDP forming the next Government of Canada. And as much as I find that idea a little scary, I can tell you that I would find that prospect immanently preferable to four more years of Conservative destruction of my nation.”

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