Cooperation between Political Partys

There has been much talk of 'cooperation' between partys since the close results in recent byelections and whilst I have in these pages urged such 'cooperation not confrontation' in the HoC I wonder exactly how long such common sense will last and what form it will take in a practical sense. I was pleased this week to see that my own local riding associations had banded together to send a common message to the incumbent Conservative MP one Larry Miller.

The local paper reports that “Kimberley Love of the Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound federal Liberal association, Scott Maxted of the local Greens and Karen Gventer of the local NDP have co-authored a letter to Miller that refers to the 400-page Bill C-45 as an “abuse of power” and a tactic to prevent “the democratic scrutiny” of multiple changes to non-budgetary rules and regulations.”

Naturally Mr Miller has all but ignored their concerns saying “This is about them disagreeing with what we said we were going to do. And that’s OK, I respect that. They don’t like it. When we were in opposition, governments were able to do things that we didn’t like too. But they got elected to do it and the people will be the judge in three years,” Omnibus bills are just fine, we can do whatever we like for the next 3 years, the removal of thousands of rivers from the Navigable Waters Act has “no effect”.

The Green party leader Elizabeth May in particular has been very vocal about both the non democratic nature of Omnibus bills in general and the content of both Conservative Omnibus Budget bills in particular. The hundreds of amendments tabled by her and the other opposition partys have all be summarily rejected by the majority conservative regime. It is as Mr Miller alludes to, a dictatorship for a further three years at which time the people will have just one shot at removing this oligarchy from power.

So cooperation between the various opposition is, as so many observers have noted, important to ensure that the next time around the elections are held without such things as malicious robocalls affecting the turnout and results and that the voters are exercising their democratic right from a position of knowledge and not all the spin that this regimen continues to spew out. But will the cooperation go further?

How can we ensure that the majority of Canadians who prefer a government led by other than the current regime get their choice and not 'split' the vote under our flawed First Past the Post system. I really don’t know what is going to happen at voting time, will the gloves come off and the opposition partys start attacking each other rather that the real problem. Will they all commit to bringing in some kind of proportional voting system if elected, will they work together on an individual riding basis to reduce the chances of vote splitting, what form will such cooperation take if it lasts? I dont know, I just am glad to see at least one group of political opponents joining forces against a common enemy (and I do mean enemy) at a local level. Well done Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound opposition partys, keep it up and show us how to resolve this conundrum.

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