So When Did Welfare Become a Dirty Word?

"Stupid fucking Canadians"!

In 1997, Stephen Harper made a speech to a group of uber-conservative Americans in which he made several derogatory comments about Canada and Canadian society. He claimed that Canada was: "...a Northern European Welfare State in the worst sense of the term, and very proud of it"- like this was a bad thing or something. 

The terms"Welfare" and "Welfare state" have of course, become dirty words in our society. They have come to mean that the recipients of the state's good will are nothing but bums and sponges who are a drain on our economy and a lead weight around the necks of the middle and upper classes. 

And the term Welfare State is connected to and often confused with "Socialism". Socialism, as I understand it, is an economic and political school of thought while Welfare is the notion of the state's duty to provide for the economic and social well being of it's citizens. 

Socialism has been around since the industrial revolution and has spoken to the inequality of our society for generations. It has acknowledged that the affluent few, the 1% as they are referred to today, have an obligation to help improve the lot of the laborers who slave to make them rich. 

Welfare on the other hand, refers to a system of progressive taxation that compels the richer classes to contribute proportionately to the state's largesse in order to create greater social and economic equality. Citizens who are able, might pay more personal taxes, but by and large, a more equitable society is created where everyone has the same rights to quality education, health care and benefits in the event of unemployment, old age or personal hardship. In Canada, we have come to refer to this as our "Social Safety Net".  

But Socialism and Welfare are today regarded as being inextricably connected and Socialism has, of course, been connected with what the west has called the "scourge" of free will and individual rights known as Communism. This despite the fact that Socialism can and regularly does, exist in free and open democratic nations.  

No, neither of these men are
Stephen Harper. But he may
have learned a lesson or two
from them.

We'd have to go back to pre World War II Europe and take a peek at what was going on in order to understand where all this started. Nazi Germany was being governed by a party that- as many right-wing commentators today like to point out- referred to itself as Socialist while Russia, which considered itself to be Communist, was being governed by the controversial Joseph Stalin. 

Despite his cold, callous brutality and the numerous deaths attributed to his tactics, many in Russia still regard Stalin as a hero and a recent poll has claimed that fully a third of Russian people would vote for Stalin if he were alive today. 

But while Germany was, of course, no where near being a true socialist country, the Soviet Union under Stalin, still adhered to many Communist principals but has since been painted by the west, rightly or wrongly, as a blood-thirsty totalitarian regime.   

It wasn't hard then for countries like the U.S., who adhere to their constitution with the same religious zeal that Christians adhere to the ten commandments, to demonize these concepts as purely evil. There was no separation between what these countries purported to be and what they really were. Which caused one post-war British M.P. to declare that: "It is probably true that Western Europe would have gone socialist after the war if Soviet behaviour had not given it too grim a visage". Hence, Stalinist Communism and Socialism are not yet sufficiently distinguished in many minds." In other words, Socialism was getting a bum rap. 

Our "Betters" would 
have us believe that 
Communism would rot 
our teeth and stunt 
our growth!

But of course, even without the bum rap, America is and always has been an ardent capitalist society who's every institution and politician is driven by the rich and the well placed. There was no incentive whatsoever for them to embrace the concepts of social equality and duty of the state to it's citizens. Since birth, every American citizen had, and continues to have, the myth of the righteousness of free enterprise and the myth that anybody can be anything they aspire to be through hard work, driven into their heads. Armed with these popular notions, it wasn't hard for the American elite to persuade the masses of the evils of Socialism. They wrapped themselves in the flag of nationalism, pointed their bony fingers at the Soviets and shouted "j'accuse"! 


Then came the era of McCarthyism where hundreds of thousands of Americans were wrongly accused of being Communist sympathizers. But of course, by then, Communism and Socialism were considered to be one and the same and both were believed to be the enemies of the "American Dream". 

But Canada went in a decidedly different direction. Despite living next to the most powerful country in the world, we had our own ideas about what society should look like and to what extent the state owes a sense of duty to it's citizens. Over successive generations since the second world war, Canada embraced the concepts of Welfare, universal health care, unemployment insurance etc. And we all became stubbornly proud of the way we looked after each other. And this all occurred without ever once referring to ourselves as a Socialist country. We were just a democracy with progressive social ideals. 

Then one day, one of our neighbors to the south looked at what was going on up here and loudly proclaimed that Canada was a Socialist state. And the notion took off like wildfire. And in shocked disbelief, we looked around at each other and said "Who? Us"?

But in fact, what Canada had become is a Welfare state, in the BEST sense of the word. Successive post-war governments took very seriously their duty to the citizens who elected them and took the concept of equality to heart. We are, if nothing else, a very fair minded lot. But to most observers, Socialist and Welfare States are one and the same, and Socialism is, of course, thanks to suffering from several generations of a bum rap, the same thing as Stalinist Communism, the antithesis of the capitalist notion of freedom as espoused by the world's power brokers. 

Enter Stephen Harper and his merry band of pranksters. Stephen was

"Fuck health care, fuck EI,
 fuck welfare and fuck
the people who use it"!

weaned on notions of the purity of the English tradition (sound familiar?) and the dogma of the American Neo-Conservatives. According to this dogma, human beings are mostly inert creatures. They are motivated only by pain or pleasure. So if not faced with either the pain of hunger or the pleasure of great reward, they become essentially inert. Unproductive. Useless.  

So then to Stephen and his like, concepts like Welfare and the Social Safety Net are "demotivators". The over-riding belief is that those who are poor, deserve to be poor and are undeserving of government assistance. They should use their hunger and that of their children as motivation to work at one or more poverty level jobs hundreds of miles from home. In this way, they are useful contributors to the economy and remain both beholden to, and subservient to their betters, namely their employers. So Stephen WANTS there to be inequality and distinct classes of citizenry. None of this "duty of the state" nonsense.  

How the western corporate
elites would have us view a
Welfare State

So it's no wonder that Stephen and the other elites consider the phrase "Welfare State" to be a dirty word. It goes against their system of beliefs and generally, undercuts their collective bottom lines. Hence the billions of dollars corporations have squirreled away in offshore accounts safely out of reach of governments who, if able to levy taxes on it, might actually be able to do some good with it. Nope, these companies and rich folk earned this money damn it and they aim to keep it. "Fuck the employees, fuck the poor and fuck their bastardly children to boot"!

So then it's worth it to the ultra right wing tea-party-like conservatives to blaspheme the concept of "Welfare" and to declare that it's recipients, the country's poorest and most vulnerable people, are useless slugs who are a burden on the hard working citizens of the country, never mind the fact that most Welfare States have considerably lower levels of poverty and hence, more consumers than their counterparts. 

Politicians like Stephen campaign on such notions and drive home this divisive and derisive notion about Welfare. And the right wing media (think Ezra Levant here) eats this kind of stuff up and regurgitates it for the evening news, thus proliferating the distorted perception of Welfare and the Welfare State. 

Now it may sound like I'm blaming Stephen Harper here for the bastardization of Welfare in Canada. Stephen is guilty of many societal ills but this is one crime I can't pin on him alone. He is but one of many faces in the Welfare lynch-mob. 

A better case could be made against former Ontario Premier Mike Harris.  During his tenure, "Hatchet-Man Mike" was responsible for slashing Welfare by a whopping 21%. Ontario's poor have never recovered from this crippling blow. But then, Harris and Harper are joined at the hip by ideology when it comes to the treatment of society's poor and most vulnerable. They view them with the bitterest of contempt and would sooner see them enslaved or worse, imprisoned. 

And the rich get richer and the poor go to jail!

Senate Reform: Thinking Outside the Box

"Duffy-Gate". A useful crisis

Well, Stephen Harper has his "useful crisis" in his alleged ongoing quest for Senate reform. Ironically, it comes as a result of misdeeds perpetrated by his own appointees. Kind of makes you wonder at the "coincidence" of the whole affair. 

So now his Harperness, buoyed by this crisis and aided by his Strausiann lick-spittle, Pierre (Skippy) Poilievre, is hell-bent on unilaterally imposing change on the Upper House. 

Of course, Harper wants to do things unilaterally because he lacks the ability to negotiate as illustrated by all those "successful" free trade deals and pipe lines he's negotiated. Changing the Senate in any way, shape or form is supposed to be a constitutional affair requiring participation of the provinces. But of course, Stephen has never once sat down at a table with all the Premiers. 

Harper is not a consensus builder. He seems to lack that ability. Unless the deck is heavily stacked in his favour and his opponents are sufficiently restricted in their ability to challenge his will, he doesn't enter into the game. Hence his desire to change the Red Chamber his way. 

Of course, the PM doesn't want the Senate abolished out right as the

NDP advocate. Once he sufficiently had it stacked in his favour during his minority governments, it was extremely useful to him as illustrated by the Upper House outright killing an NDP environment bill. So even if he didn't have a majority in the House of Commons, he could still control the game by keeping the Red Chamber under his thumb.

But is Stephen really pushing for any kind of real substantive change? He wants fixed terms and elected Senators. All fixed terms does is make it easier for successive governments to change the balance of power in the Senate. On the surface of it, this may sound like a good thing. But if Steve didn't think it would in some way benefit him, he wouldn't be going there. 

And elected Senators. While this too may sound like a noble idea, it has the potential to produce legislative gridlock as one elected body vies with another for supremacy and for the bragging rights as to who is the true "voice" of the people. For more thoughts on the notion of an elected Senate, click here. 

Unlike the NDP, I am all for retaining the Senate and reforming it. You see, I believe that a right and true house of "sober second thought" is a good thing - a body that could put the brakes on when Parliament becomes nothing more than a rampant house of partisan ideology, devoid of any real political debate and rational decision making - much as it is now. This was no where better demonstrated then the recent decision by the Senate to kick Harper's Union Transparency bill (and make no mistake about it. It might have been presented as a private member's bill, but this was Harper's baby) back to the House of Commons. You see, it's the Senate's job, when they get ill conceived legislation such as the Union bill, to either send it on to committee for further study and/or to kick it back to Parliament to rethink. It's a matter of providing checks and balances which is not such a bad thing when we have such a closed minded, power-tripping majority Government as we have today. 

But do fixed terms and elections go far enough to change the real problem with the Senate? Not by half. Like most of Harper's so-called democratic reforms, these are nothing more than cosmetic changes -  window dressing that might look good and give him something to hang his hat on - a quasi-legacy that his current seven year tenure is completely devoid of. But these reforms do nothing to change the functionality of the Red Chamber. It doesn't change how they operate. And if future senators are elected Stephen's reforms do nothing but provide the promise that the he will honour the elected Senatorial Candidates in each region. There is nothing to hold him to that promise and we all know how credible Steve's word is. 

A Pack of Partisan Monkeys

But regardless of how these Senator's are chosen, if they perform no better than a pack of partisan monkeys when they get there, taking their cues from and owing allegiance to their respective political party's, then nothing is going to change. The Senate will remain a useless appendage. 

So this is where the whole "thinking outside the box" thing comes in. If we're going to talk real Senate reform and we want to talk about it being a true House of "Sober Second Thought", then lets think big. Lets change the paradigm. 

First of all, let's talk about Senators being members of the same political parties that infest the lower house (more on my opinion of political parties here). If we expect our Senators to be completely free of the political rhetoric of the Lower House, then they need to be free of those parties. So in my opinion, Senators, regardless of their previous incarnations, should be made to relinquish any and all party affiliations when being sworn in. They should be first and foremost, servants of the citizens of Canada, not extensions of the House of Commons, party ideology or the PMO. 

So then like the Auditor General is and the PBO should be the Red Chamber should be a completely arm's length non-partisan legislative body that is 100% independent of the Lower House. It should be, as it was with the recent Union bill, the sober body that looks at legislation and either recommends changes, passes it back to the House of Commons or rubber stamps the bill. Therefore the Prime Minister should have nothing whatsoever to do with the appointment of the Senator's, elected or otherwise. 

I would incidentally, completely remove the power of veto from the Senate unless a proposed piece of legislation is found to be unconstitutional. Even then, I would recommend that rather than being able to veto said bill, the Senate would be compelled to return it to the Lower House for more thorough scrutiny. But with the Senate being an independent "thoughtful" body, legislation from the Lower House would do well to be more thoughtful as well - legislation they submit should be better discussed and debated rather than having "closure" imposed on it thus ensuring half-assed bills aren't kicked upstairs and that gargantuan omnibus legislation isn't crammed into law without proper scrutiny. 

So then lets look at where Senators would in fact come from if not from the Prime Minister himself. Why not from the Governor General? Our Head of State, who would have the power to enable an independent selections committee who would in turn make recommendations back to the GG rather than to the PM.  In this way, appointees to the Upper House would have absolutely nothing to do with the Prime Minister nor Parliament and aren't faced with the prospect of owing the government of the day for their position. 

Senator "Mom". Hey! Why Not?

And just who would these future Senator's be? Well I would recommend Canadians from all walks of life. Professor's, political scientists, Doctors, lawyers, teachers, farmers, mothers, former aboriginal leaders, volunteers: all people who have performed service to their communities, their Provinces and to the country itself. Almost anyone but former politicians. 

I'm sure there are plenty of arguments for and against my ideas for Senate reform as I've presented them. But they are not intended to be the last word on reforming the Upper House. But what I hope my ideas will do is to stimulate thought and to provoke discussion. To get Canadians thinking about what the real problems are with the Senate and why they exist. My solutions may not be the best ones, but by stepping outside the box in search of remedies, by shifting the paradigm, we can maybe start thinking about and imagining what our democracy can be. Maybe we can start a revolution of electoral and democratic reform that will ensure that we will never again be plagued with destructive autocratic governance and that together, we can eventually make Canada's democracy the envy of the world. Is that too much to hope for?

Doesn't Canada Deserve Better than This?

Stephen Harper and the Ministry of Truth.

Bafflegab -Language whose purpose is to obscure, confuse, or mislead.

Doublethink -The act of simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct, often in distinct social contexts. It is related to, but differs from, hypocrisy and neutrality. Somewhat related is cognitive dissonance, where the two beliefs cause conflict in one's mind.

------------------------------------------------------

We all know that Stephen Harper is an adherent of the Orwellian arts. 

For example, we know that whenever a member of the Government of Harper uses the phrase "finding efficiencies", we know he or she is talking about firing people, nailing doors shut and pulling funding. (Bafflegab). It usually involves killing programs that don't meet Harper's ideological agenda such as the Experimental Lakes Area who's research could be used to undermine the progress of the Tar Sands and points to Harper's abysmal record on the environment. 

We know that between 2008 when the Parliamentary crisis occurred through to the 2011 election, Harper and his bobble-heads repeated the phrase "coalition governments are undemocratic" so many times that it became an accepted truth (Doublethink) even though a good number of the world's  democracies are coalitions and are far more representative of the will of the people than Harper's fraudulent majority government of today. 

During that same Parliamentary crisis of 2008, Harper went on ad nauseam about Stephan Dion jumping into bed with the "Separatists and the Socialists" even though just a few scant years before, he was prepared to do the exact same thing in order to topple Paul Martin's minority government. 

While leader of the opposition, Harper lambasted the Liberal Government for implementing Omnibus Bills that may have been 50 or so pages in length, yet when he attained his much coveted majority, he rammed through not one, not two, but three giant Omnibus Bills (C-10, C-38, C-45) that could match Tolstoy's "War and Peace" for they're verbosity and complexity. 

While in the United States recently to make a sales pitch on behalf of the big oil companies who's mandate it is to scour every last bit of tar from Canada's pristine wilderness, Harper spoke of Canada's policy of  "responsible resource development" and it's exemplary record on the environment. These comments were of course, bold-faced lies, but here was the Prime Minister, saying these things with a straight face and in calm and even tones, with all the conviction of a Sunday preacher delivering the Gospel.  

These are just a very few examples of Harper's use of "Doublethink" . The list of course, goes on and on. What he said yesterday or the day before never happened. It's what he says today that counts. We know full well what he did and said yesterday, we saw it, we heard it. But through his use of language and distortion of the facts, not to mention his use of pom-pom waving back-benchers who applaud his every word and his multi-million dollar ad campaigns, the truth gets twisted, distorted and turned on it's head. Up is down, black is white and night is day. 

But this is not Nineteen Eighty Four and Harper doesn't have Winston Smith working for him in the Ministry of Truth rewriting history. Though we have to wonder, with his announcement that he is launching an all out review of Canadian history, if Mr. Harper hasn't finally found where Winston has been hiding all these years.

There is ample documentation and proof of all that Mr. Harper has said and done in the past. He has used the arts of Bafflegab and Doublethink to obscure these facts and to make us forget about them. He has lied on such a bold and grand scale as to actually sound believable. But the historical records remain. 

The recent surfacing of this video on YouTube is living proof of his thoughts and feelings while Leader of the Opposition on the scandal that rocked the Liberal Government. In it, he very succinctly states that "...if I were Prime Minister, I don't understand how I could not expect to have to resign the very next day". He goes on to state: "...he (Paul Martin) is a leader and as a leader, he is responsible for the actions of the people he leads. If he had a right or honourable bone in his body, he'd admit that and resign immediately". 

Of course, Mr. Harper is now embroiled in numerous scandals of his own. The "misplacing" of 3.1 billion dollars and no accounting for it's where abouts whatsoever. The recent Federal Court ruling that there was a systematic campaign of electoral fraud in the 2011 election that favoured the Conservatives and of course, Duffy-gate and it's ties to Harper's own office. All of these things that, taken together, make the Sponsorship scandal look like a couple of kiddies who got caught with their hands in the cookie jar. 

But suddenly, Mr. Harper's damning indictment of Paul Martin doesn't apply to himself. To Harper, these major ethical imbroglios aren't damning indictments of his leadership. They are "distractions" and he knew nothing about them. Therefore he is innocent of all wrong doing. Never mind his 2006 comment about Martin being a leader and being responsible for the people he leads.

But this is not just mere hypocrisy on the part of the Prime Minister. This behaviour is far more sinister. It points to his systemic use of "Doublethink". Even though there is ample proof of his words and deeds when he was responding to a previous government, his actions and words of today would have us believe history as we know it never occurred. And if he continues to have his way unabated, Canadians won't know their own history by the time Mr. Harper is done changing it. 

Harper Not The Master Strategist He's Made Out To Be

Is Stephen Harper a true Chess Master
or is he just really good at cheating?

It's been said of Stephen Harper that he always presents as the "smartest man in the room". My question is: "so what does that say about the other people in the room with him"?

Pundits and political observers, despite how they feel about Harper and his style of politics have - to a man or woman- begrudgingly dubbed him the "master strategist", "the consummate chess player". I'm not sure where this myth originated - either from one of Harper's media people or with Harper himself - either is equally likely. Too bad it's just a myth - yet another by-product of the "Harper spin machine". 

The purpose of the myth is, of course, abundantly clear. It goes toward painting an image of the man. That even if he is a cold hearted bastard, he is deserving of respect and admiration- that he is the "Great Navigator", the genius who sees things others can't and that he quite simply, doesn't suffer fools gladly. But of course, that's all hog-wash.

There is nothing to admire in a man who tries to recreate the world in his own image through the well financed use of thuggery, fraud, intimidation and by disemboweling the democratic process. 

A Chess master becomes so by mastering the game, not by rewriting

Harper is certainly a "Man for the Ages" -
The dark ages. 

the rules and by bribing or intimidating officials  and opponents in order to compensate for his own lack ability.  

One only has to look as far as the marketing of what is arguably, Canada's most valuable commodity- Oil. Mr. Harper and his talking heads have repeatedly stated that they want Canada to become an "energy superpower". They of course, mean "Oil" superpower. Other forms of energy simply don't enter into the equation. 

The Government of Harper has done everything in it's power to make it easier for the big oil companies to scour every last molecule of black-scum from Alberta's tar-sands and to get the resulting sludge to market. They have eviscerated laws that protect our delicate environment, said "too fucking bad" about endangered species, silenced  the scientists who could speak to the irreparable damage being done, bullied First-Nations and their treaty rights, sought to discredit anyone who disagrees with their agenda - calling them radicals and un-Canadian, launched multimillion dollar ad campaigns in support of Canada's sewage, they have withdrawn from or sabotaged every international effort to set sustainable limits on green house gasses and they have lied through their teeth about all of it. 

Whenever Harper or his bobble-heads are questioned on their agenda, they don't give legitimate answers. They attack. They try to discredit their adversaries, they give hyper-partisan talking points and when all else fails, they present false facts and political spin. 

The problem for the Oil Moguls now, is that people are rebelling. Citizens, scientists, First Nations, environmental groups and even some politicians of conscience in parts of the world where Harper has no reach, are waking up and saying "hey, what you're doing is wrong". So Canada is left with a wealth of black-goo and struggling to find ways to get it to market. 

"Snake Oil... I mean...
Alberta Oil for sale...CHEAP"!

So now Harper and his brigade of "talking-point regurgitators" are blanketing the globe, posing as snake oil salesmen. The problem is, because of Harper's "strategic" ways of doing business, neither he, nor anyone in his government have any credibility. Nothing they say can be believed. Their lengthy history of  lying and denying have given them all the believability of used car salesmen. And their complete and utter lack of diplomacy and statesmanship on the world stage has earned Canada a reputation as a "rogue nation" and our government has few if any international allies. We are now the pariahs of the Western World . 

Great strategy that Mr. Harper. You behave so badly that no one wants what you're selling, no matter how many millions of dollars of tax payers money you spend trying to sugar-coat your blasphemies. So I ask you oh Greatest of the Great Navigators: "Did you see that coming"?

Can "The Great Navigator"
 really see things we
mere mortals cannot?

A New Form of Proportional Representation

A lot is being made these days about the need for electoral reform in Canada. It was a major theme of the New Democrat Party leadership race in 2012 and is emerging as an important if not dominant issue with the upcoming Liberal leadership contest.  The main idea is for all the Federal progressive parties to cooperate in the upcoming general election in 2015 to defeat the Conservative Party of Canada, then to collaborate on legislation that would implement a Proportional Representation or "Fair Voting" system. This would eliminate the "First Past the Post" system we currently have that has enabled the current Harper Government to rule with an iron-fisted majority despite receiving little more than 39% of the popular vote.

In truth, this situation has existed for quite some time. Several previous governments achieved majority status in the House of Commons with less than 50% of the popular vote. But the Harper regime has brought to light the glaring deficiencies of our current system through his use of voter suppression tactics, highly focused campaigns in "winnable" swing ridings and his use of a well financed, highly efficient and ethically deficient, 24/7 election machine. His subsequently questionable majority has been used to erode the democratic process in Canada and to impose legislation, not with the will of the people in mind, but in spite of them. There are absolutely no checks and balances to his political agenda within our current Parliament. He has effectively neutered the majority of our elected officials, including members of his own party.

While Proportional Representation might not completely eliminate the highly partisan and corrosive state of affairs in Ottawa as previously discussed here, it is believed that it will be a fairer representation of the "will of the people" and will ultimately eliminate false majority governments such as Stephen Harper's.

Enter Fair Vote Canada. They are the leading proponents of Proportional Representation in Canada. They are a highly credible and highly motivated organization with such high-profile backers as Elizabeth May, the leader of the Green Party of Canada and Stephan Dion, the former leader of the Liberal Party. Fair Vote works hard to dispel a lot of the myths and anxiety regarding PR systems of voting by observing that over 80 countries in the world currently embrace one form of Proportional Representation or another. They advocate for implementation of one of the three leading systems of PR in use in the world today. They are: List Systems, Mixed Member Proportional Systems and Single Transferable Vote Systems.

Canada, despite the Harper regime, remains a socially liberal country, but it is also small-c conservative in many ways, especially in the area of change. While none of the three proposed systems are exactly rocket science, they involve change. They involve lists, lists of lists, quotas and -"gasp"!- casting TWO votes at a time. Now these are all very concrete and workable systems but they require Canadians to take a giant step outside their comfort zone. Our First Past The Post system is nothing if not simple. It requires very little of the voter except the effort it takes to check off a name on a ballot and stuff it into a well guarded box. PR systems seem to actually require some thought, some decision making and could well take longer than the 30 seconds currently required to cast a ballot. Even if we don't completely understand our own politics, the act of casting a ballot is relatively simple.

This is where "Majority Representation" comes in. It requires no change what so ever from the voter's perspective. The ballots look the same as they do now and voters opt for the person or party of their choice, just as they currently do. But the big change lays in the outcome of the vote. Instead of just sending the candidate with the most votes to Ottawa, a local riding must be represented by 51% or better of the popular vote. This means that if the top vote-getter does not have 51% (a clear majority) of the popular vote in their particular riding, then the candidate with the second most votes also gets a seat in Parliament. And if the top two candidates don't add up to better than half the popular vote then a third candidate also goes to Ottawa. The point being that each and every riding must be represented by a bare minimum of 51% of the voters. This can mean that a particular riding can be represented by two or more parties. Stephan Dion proposed a similar system and argued that having more than one representative in each constituency would make for better service as it would create competition for the best representation,  meaning that constituents might actually carry more clout with a particular MP than the party whip as is currently the case.

The House of Commons might need a face lift.
The Price of Democracy?

The Majority Representation system requires no major changes to our current way of electing candidates but it does involve a drastic physical renovation in the House of Commons. After doing some number crunching based on the outcomes from Election 41 in May of 2011, I arrived at a total of 473 seats in the House. It may well make things a little crowded physically. But here is the up-shot. Based on Table Two below, the total number of MPs for each party is MUCH closer to the actual popular vote. The Conservatives for example, who had just 39.6% of the popular vote in 2011 would have 43.97% of the seats in the House of Commons under the Majority System. Well below the 53.9% of seats they have now. The NDP, with 30.6% of the popular vote in 2011 would have 31.08% of the seats in the House and would still be the Official Opposition. The Liberals, who garnered 18.9% of the popular vote in 2011 would have 17.12% of the seats. It should be noted that none of the 308 riding would have sent more than two representatives to Ottawa. 143 ridings would have elected one candidate with a clear majority while the other 165 would have selected two MPs in order to get their 51% representation or better. Curiously enough, the ratio of representatives per region were remarkably similar to what they are now, meaning that - for example - PEI didn't end up with more MPs than Quebec. The proportion of representatives remained fairly consistent.

So what does this kind of Proportional System mean for Canada? Well it might mean an end to majority governments altogether. This does not necessarily mean an end to strong effective governments. But it could well usher in an era where governments try harder to work with all parties in an effort to stave off elections every few years. In fact, if the notion of Majority Representation were taken a step farther and transferred from the riding level into the House of Commons, meaning the government must represent 51% of the House or better, much like the Liberal/NDP coalition in Ontario in the 80s, we could certainly see our Parliamentary system representing a wider majority of Canadian interests. Formal coalition agreements could be written that might see cabinets contain ministers from more than one party. Agendas from both sides of the isle could be entertained and a natural system of checks and balances would evolve. No more "rule by decree". In fact, when presented with a minority government scenario, the Governor General may insist on a coalition that represents 51% of the House or better as opposed to simply handing the reigns of power to which ever party has the most seats, which, it should be pointed out, is a mere matter of convention, not constitutionality. In this way, a more stable government would exist rather than the ad hoc, issue by issue minorities we currently see who's existence hang in the balance at every vote in the House.

Most democratic counties
embrace coalition governments.
Why not Canada?

Of course, all this would mean that Canadians would have to get past the Harper myth regarding coalition governments being undemocratic. This was a falsehood inflicted upon the citizens of Canada in 2008 in his effort to cling to power. Unfortunately, the behaviour of the opposition parties in response to Harper's fear-mongering did little to dispel the myth. Canadians need to ask them selves, which is more democratic, a government that in reality, reflects a minority of  it's citizens or one that reflects a true majority?

So while Majority Representation does mean a change in the way our governments are formed, it would mean our Parliament would more closely reflect  the popular vote and the will of the people (though admittedly, not as reflective of the popular vote as any of the three systems advocated by Fair Vote Canada). But it would not change how people vote. It would still mean they vote for the person or party of their choosing. One person, one vote. And it would mean that the majority of votes count in local ridings, not just those for the candidate with the largest total, meaning a greater proportion of the population would see their votes count. It is a compromise between our current First Past the Post system and those proposed by Fair Vote Canada. One that Canadians could easily get their heads around and embrace.

Please see the tables below for a region by region break down of how Parliament might actually look today if a Majority Representation System were in effect in May of 2011.

Table One: Region by Region Break Down of Number of Seats Based on Majority Representation System (based on voting in Election 41, May 2011).

	Maritimes	Quebec	Ontario	Manitoba	Sask	Alberta	B.C.	Territories	Total
Liberal	18	15	40	1	1	0	5	1	81
CPC	22	13	89	11	14	27	29	3	208
NDP	9	72	39	4	3	2	17	1	147
Ind	0	1	0	0	0	1	0	0	2
Green	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	1
Bloc	0	34	0	0	0	0	0	0	34
Totals	49	135	168	16	18	30	52	5	473

Table Two: Comparison of Majority Representation Seats to current Seats ( based on voting in Election 41, May 2011).

	Total Seats under Majority Representation	% of Seats under Majority Representation	Existing Number of Seats (1)	% of Popular Vote in 2011 (1)
Liberals	81	17.12%	34 (11.04%)	18.90%
Conservatives	208	43.97%	166 (53.89%	39.60%
NDP	147	31.08%	103 (33.44%)	30.60%
Independent	2	0.42%	0 (0.00%)	0.40%
Green	1	0.21%	1 (00.32%)	3.90%
Bloc	34	7.19%	4 (0.1.29%)	6.00%
Totals	473	99.99%	308	99.40%

Notes:

• Number of seats required for a majority government under Majority Representation: 237 (this number would vary depending on election results)
• Number of seats currently required for a majority government: 155 (this number does not take into account newly adjusted ridings)
• All Calculations are based on figures taken from CityNews.ca,  Riding by Riding results of Election 41 which can be found at: http://www.citynews.ca/2011/05/02/riding-by-riding-federal-election-results/
• (1) Existing seat totals and % of popular vote based on numbers taken from: Wikipedia, Canadian Federal Election 2011, Results by Provinces http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_federal_election,_2011