Indeed you are very right: "the October 10th referendum is not considered important enough to many area residents. Looking at the sky, Sauble washrooms and dead gulls seem to be of more interest then a proposed major change in the way we vote" is more astute than you imagine.

Because, I'll wager, the vast overwhelming majority have more common sense than you might give credit for; they have all long-ago since realized how our current system of government is no more than Rule by Pressure Group, and as such it is far more effective to let whatever fools will be the patsies staked out as sacrifice before the press wolves, and bank their efforts that any personal action for any real change is far far better spent by joining up with, or funding, any one or many of said pressure groups, thereby getting our world our way regardless of whichever faces may appear in the hansard roles.

I know your gut reaction will be to deny this, denial is normal when long standing sacred rules change. Nonetheless, you can't disprove what I say, and you know full well I could heap more evidence on your lap than even the largest lap could bear. And that doesn't even begin to go anywhere near the logical fallacy of Campaigning by Issue Keyword or any of the many other blind rhetorical alleys the modern mix of media and public polling has wrought.

And really, seriously and sanely considered, how could it be otherwise? How can we honestly believe any one 'party' would completely align to the way of thinking of an entire constituency on all issues? You'd be hard pressed to find two siblings who agree on more than one issue! Could we ever hope that any single representative could ever be truly well-informed on any but the most trivial of issues? Just look at our own local politics and the spectrum and exhuberance of opinions vs even the most openly public facts! Misinformation so thick you can cut it with a knife, huge sums of local-public money paid out to the afore mentioned pressure-group 'lobbiests' ... and it isn't even any bloody big-money war against imaginary arch-evil foes, it's just a silly rural pipeline!

Each voter checks their ballot for different reasons, so there is no great logic to it, there is no mathematical model that would make it more so, and I am reminded of those famous words of mathematician, philosopher and mechanical engineer Charles Babbage:

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."

Indeed. We don't need electoral reform so much as we need to reform the rampant innumeracy among the voting population and breed some electorATE reform to breathe some practical realism into government. With all the vested interest those pressure groups have in keeping that innumeracy deeply rooted, any such reform is hardly likely.

So, do go, please do, you go and vote for the confusion of ideas of your preference, 'tis your right and priviledge and duty and all. As for me, I'm going to exercise my vote by my daily personal decisions to lean on who ever gets voted to the seats, and with that now completely settled, because it is real, I will keep my eyes to the skies, thankyouverymuch

For those who may be up for it, be sure to check out the lunar eclipse tomorrow around dawn! :)

I may have to amend my position, but not in Skyhawks direction: By lean, I meant lean. I don't care if it's Larry or Bill or whatever 'party' they join, if they do something I like, I call them up and tell them, if they do something I don't like, I do likewise. If you think the choice of ballot makes any difference at all, consider this: We have George W Bush talking about Public Healthcare. Think deeply on that, and on how it came to be.

But here is where I will amend my position: Over the weekend I had a long talk with an ex-civil-servant friend, and talk ran around to the absurd troubles a mutual friend was having with a particularly nasty wing of your elected Ontario gov't (a wing that has persisted despite three changes of party), and about these troubles my friend said, "He should call his MPP ... because there is nothing a civil servant fears more than having a politician on their back!"

Now I don't know what that says about the party-less (ha ha) municipal level, but for the rest of the democratic method maybe there is some sense to not voting by any issue beyond, "Can they be a royal pain in the backside to the tenured Civil Service?" and that one criteria alone is probably heuristic enough to pare near any ballot down to an obvious choice!

october and the mixed member proportional (mmp) referendum question are not that far away. i started asking friends and associates about their opinions and discovered that very few knew anything about it. honestly, i did not know much about it either so i have been reading a lot of different points of view. personally, from what i have read, i will be voting to keep things the way they are. we already have enough politicians, mmp will cost about 20% more (guess who gets to pay that). and politicians appointing politicians? come on give me a break. i would like to see the green party have seats in parliment too but mmp is not the way to get there. i encourage you to inform yourself on the mmp proposal so you can make an informed choice on your ballot. please discuss with friends and associates so that they are also aware of the pros and cons.
kltpzyxm

hi gary, ok here is the math. currently 107 mpp and with mmp the plan is to have 129 mpps. that is an increase of 22 mpp which 22/107 = .2056 or 20.56% increase in the number of mpps. they have to be paid and their pensions must be accounted for. where will this additional money come from to pay these extra politicians? you know as well as i do. does the math work for you now?
kltpzyxm

I want to bring this thread back on subject I hope. I will vote to keep the old system with all it's warts. The idea of a new system where 90 MPPs are elected and these MPPs proceed to appoint a further 39 MPPs who have full voting powers just does not fly with me. It would be open season for patronage appointments and back room deal making. Appointees would be obligated for their appointment to an elite cadre in each party. In what way does that hold them to represent me? In every close vote in Parliament we could have 39 appointees who could tip the balance.

No thanks. I prefer to choose my representative by the old fashioned way. I have a local riding and ....I vote.

If this proposed system is supposed to be a sop to all the people who don't bother to vote in elections then too bad, tough luck, your lack of interest doesn't entitle you to give another politician (shudder) the right to appoint your voting representation.

All the sitting MPPs have been told to keep quiet and sit on the fence on this issue. The people who are most likely to receive a fat juicy appointment are left as the ones who will advocate for it.

Do as you wish but that is the way I see it.

The very best reason of all to say 'no' on my ballot arrived in my email this week: they spammed me!

I'm not on any list, I didn't sign up for pro-MMP liturature, but there it was, a form letter blasted out via the worst scum-laden communications media there is, it was sent as spam mail, and while that is already enough impetus to keep me from ever shopping at a vendor's shop, that wasn't the worst of it: the 'article' in the spam contained nothing but the very worst hard-sell rhetoric!

Not a shred of reasoned argument for their position, just false assertion after assertion, many of them implying that any questioning of MMP had to be a sign of mental infirmity -- in many ways it reminded me of the luddism-catcalls in the old SBP Pipeline/Sewer Debates, and right there its a bad enough taste in my pallette to reject the idea outright.

So I responded to the email; it was spam, but they did provide an email address back to their Everybody Loves MMP citizen's actionable coalition of friends of the one true voiting method, so I wrote back, and I thanked them for making up my mind in so many clear and unequivocable ways, by spamming me with empty rhetoric and thereby clearly demonstrating to me how so very badly they needed my vote for reasons they dared not disclose and I hit the Send button ... and y'know, I never got a response, no apology, no Wait, you don't understand or any long list of counter-arguments from distinguished thinkers and ecopolitical futurist visionaries. Nope, nada, narry a peep from them, and right there, y'know, that's one more reason to check on the No box.

regarding the additional annual cost for a mmp system, MP Larry Miller stated in yesterdays Owen Sound Sun Times,

Not only is this going to cost the taxpayer (as 22 more MPPs will cost $8 million per year in salaries and office budgets alone)

regarding the efficiency of a mmp system, in todays Owen Sun Times, Bob Day states:

The country of Belgium created such a system in 1981 and is now struggling to find a way to make it work. The number of political parties participating in elections in Belgium has increased to 33.

vote NO
kltpzyxm

dan o said in his recent post:

Why not to the other vast majority of countries in the world that have MMP in which it works. How many democratic countries in the world still use our first past the post system? You can count them on one hand.

a poster on the mmpblogspot claims:

How many times have you heard the yes side say that Canada is one of the few democracies left using this voting system? Did you know that 43 of the 191 members of the United Nations use a plurality voting system? Did you know that only eight countries use a form of the mixed member proportional system?

not saying you are wrong dan o, but can you please supply some reference to back up your claim?
kltpzyxm

dan o said

If this is what is takes to get elected officials who place the environment at the top of their priorities then I'm selfish.

what is really needed is a change in voting habits, not a change in our electoral system. by that i mean we need to convince people to vote for the party they want, not vote 'strategically' to prevent someone they don't want from being elected. we need more people to vote for the green party if we want them elected. oh, and thanks for the link dan, i'll do some more reading this afternoon
kltpzyxm

I just flew in from the referendum and boy are my arms tired. No, seriously folks, theOwen.com is taking your education on the neverendums quite seriously, far more so than I I'm happy to report, and have provided you with a report from the Fair Vote meeting held in the Owen Sound as well as links to two semi-official synopses offered by the province. Enjoy.

The event in Owen Sound was held in Owen Sound at the Public Library on June 20th. Unfortunately the event was held immediately following Snowbirds air show (you can check out some of the show here if you missed it) and it was a beautiful sunny day= not a great time to learn about electoral reform in the basement of the library.
[ Ontario Referendum Part 4 ]

As for getting your green agenda on, my good blog-buddy Daev Walsh posts this bit of advice for how you too can get your hot topics so well heard, heck, even the Conservatives would listen:

"Surfing YouTube with the Greenpeace Tag, it's quite easy to discover unknown videos edited using our images. They are user generated productions from people from all over the world that care about the environment and want to spread a positive message. Ok, it should be nicer if they would make clear that are not 'official' Greenpeace video (just say it in the end board and in the description), but I honestly find wonderful that so many people spend time and use their skills to do something for this planet using Greenpeace materials. It means that what we are doing works and - as this blog says - we are making waves."
[ Zeitgeist: Greenpeace, You don't have to join us... to join us. ]

Happy voting!

Shiela Copps states in The Ottawa Sun of September 16, 2007: "Foolish Ontario could muck up country".
click on the link to see what shiela has to say about the mmp proposal.
mkltpzyx

before i get to the belgian politics, here is something else to think about. if a local candidate is on a partys mmp list it is possible for the candidate to lose locally but still obtain a list seat, perhaps even a seat on the cabinet. wouldnt that be ironic to be making policy decisions after having been beaten in a local election!

an acquaintance (american citizen) of mine lives in belgium and i asked her about politics in belgium. here is a bit of her reply:

A few years ago in Belgium they passed a law allowing non-Belgians to vote in local elections. The pitch was we're all affected by what goes on in our own neighborhoods regardless of nationality. The real reason was the socialists were slipping badly everywhere and figured foreigners would be more inclined to support their policies than those of the larger conservative party or that of the far right (which continues to gain support here, mainly for its immigrants out stance. When they say immigrants they mean anyone with a relatively dark or olive complexion...which, when I think about it, could include me. Oh well. I'm not as tan as I used to be!).
The only problem in Belgium is that voting is mandatory. If you fail to show up at the polls and don't have an "official" excuse (like a dr.'s note), you get fined! And the fines get disproportionately bigger each time you skip! So I did not register to vote here.
Anyway, what a digression. Yes, there are something like 30-plus parties here, partly because every Flemish-speaking one needs its French-speaking counterpart. Even the Greens are divided along language lines! (So much for solidarity!) Whatever I thought about the language issues in Canada, it is ten (maybe more) times worse and more serious here. Belgium has yet to form its new government (elections were at the beginning of June) because of Flemish-French fighting. Crazy. (The whole country is something like 10 million and smaller than the state of Maryland, fer heaven's sake!)

is the marijuana party only federal? please vote NO tomorrow.
kltpzyxm