An eminently sensible commentary; thanks for taking the time to testify at the committee. I too support electoral reform, and am just as frustrated as anyone else at how difficult it is to advance this cause. But the Long Ballot thing is way past the point of diminishing returns.
It would foul up the practice of providing unelected party leaders seats in Parliament, but imo residency is a fundamental requirement of representational democracy.
Current residency is a poor indicator of quality of representation. If you live outside of a riding but have decades of prior history there, does that really make you an inferior representative to someone who moved there a week ago?
Obviously "residency" has to be defined with some degree of attention to the meaning of representation. One week residency doesn't qualify. A parachute candidate, even if they are the leader of the party I like, doesn't qualify.
If I'm a resident, I would have serious doubts about a candidate who chose not to live in my riding.
I thought election reform was a good idea until I researched the actual pros and cons (not the promises of the reform proponents). In the end, I concluded that the alternative voting schemes were simply placebos.
Less income inequality, less debt, lower infant mortality, lower tuition, greater engagement and satisfaction with one's democracy--the list goes on and on.
2. With a residency requirement, Canada's important accomplishment in democratic reform in 1848 -- responsible government - would never have happened. (Ref. <https://forcitizenship.ca/article/lafontaine-and-baldwin-172-years-of-responsible-government/>.) From Wikipedia: "The concept of a French-Canadian winning a seat in Canada West was remarkable. It was a strong indicator to French-Canadians that they had allies in their quest for popular control of the provincial government."
Residency is less important than ability to represent a constituency's values.
All very sensible but nothing that will get to the heart of the matter, or the heart of a citizen. Furthermore, don’t you think there is a perspective bias in the way all the attention and energy for electoral reform is directed at the most senior and centralized institutions of our democracy. Democracy does not seem to scale. The habits of trust and respect for process could well be the most changeable at the lowest level of governments and elections, which is likely where they are learned in the first place.
As a recurring Independent candidate for the riding of Renfrew-Pembroke, I would like to see the candidacy nomination system be replaced with a for-against petition system, whereby potential candidates who receive more opposing than supporting petitions from local residents get blocked from the ballot. This would actually be more accessible than the current system (100 pen-on-ink signatures is not easy for ordinary citizens to obtain) while still allowing some of the more gimmicky candidates to be blocked from candidacy.
An eminently sensible commentary; thanks for taking the time to testify at the committee. I too support electoral reform, and am just as frustrated as anyone else at how difficult it is to advance this cause. But the Long Ballot thing is way past the point of diminishing returns.
I would add a residency requirement.
It would foul up the practice of providing unelected party leaders seats in Parliament, but imo residency is a fundamental requirement of representational democracy.
Much more important than electoral reform.
Current residency is a poor indicator of quality of representation. If you live outside of a riding but have decades of prior history there, does that really make you an inferior representative to someone who moved there a week ago?
Obviously "residency" has to be defined with some degree of attention to the meaning of representation. One week residency doesn't qualify. A parachute candidate, even if they are the leader of the party I like, doesn't qualify.
If I'm a resident, I would have serious doubts about a candidate who chose not to live in my riding.
I would also like to see a residency requirement. But that's much less important than electoral reform.
Disagree.
I thought election reform was a good idea until I researched the actual pros and cons (not the promises of the reform proponents). In the end, I concluded that the alternative voting schemes were simply placebos.
That's interesting, because I've researched it too, and the benefits seem irrefutable.
And those 9irrefutable” benefits would be?
Less income inequality, less debt, lower infant mortality, lower tuition, greater engagement and satisfaction with one's democracy--the list goes on and on.
The first three have nothing to do with electoral reform. They presume outcomes that simply won't happen just because votes are tallied differently.
The second two are "feel good" attributes. The placebo effect.
Try researching how electoral reform actually works and what the expected outcome has proven to be.
In reply to A of S commenting on David Moscrop’s post, <https://www.davidmoscrop.com/p/its-time-to-wrap-up-the-longest-ballot>:
1. Check out <https://erwindreessen.substack.com/p/a-better-way-to-argue-for-proportional> and the reference there. (As a general reference, at <https://erwindreessen.substack.com/i/151137333/electoral-voting-systems-explained> I report on the most straightforward explanation of electoral systems I know.) Notwithstanding unsupported claims of association, the weight of evidence is strongly in favour of Proportional Representation imo.
2. With a residency requirement, Canada's important accomplishment in democratic reform in 1848 -- responsible government - would never have happened. (Ref. <https://forcitizenship.ca/article/lafontaine-and-baldwin-172-years-of-responsible-government/>.) From Wikipedia: "The concept of a French-Canadian winning a seat in Canada West was remarkable. It was a strong indicator to French-Canadians that they had allies in their quest for popular control of the provincial government."
Residency is less important than ability to represent a constituency's values.
All very sensible but nothing that will get to the heart of the matter, or the heart of a citizen. Furthermore, don’t you think there is a perspective bias in the way all the attention and energy for electoral reform is directed at the most senior and centralized institutions of our democracy. Democracy does not seem to scale. The habits of trust and respect for process could well be the most changeable at the lowest level of governments and elections, which is likely where they are learned in the first place.
As a recurring Independent candidate for the riding of Renfrew-Pembroke, I would like to see the candidacy nomination system be replaced with a for-against petition system, whereby potential candidates who receive more opposing than supporting petitions from local residents get blocked from the ballot. This would actually be more accessible than the current system (100 pen-on-ink signatures is not easy for ordinary citizens to obtain) while still allowing some of the more gimmicky candidates to be blocked from candidacy.
Don’t know one person who believes elections aren’t rigged
You need to hang out with more rational people.
I've worked on many elections. The election process is not rigged.
They also helped Pierre when he won the by-election in his transplanted riding