10 ms·

Canada is a fully democratic country where citizens are allowed to vote for whomever they see fit. They have the politicians they voted for.

by jiofj 3y ago

browningstreet 3y ago
Doesn't feel like an adequate take on voter/government outcomes anymore.
chongli 3y ago
Exactly! Don’t just blame politicians for this. I have had multiple heated arguments with my idiotic compatriots over this one. They don’t get it at all! They just stand on the sidelines and cheer: “Yay Government! You stand up to those big tech bullies! Boooo Facebook and boooo Google!”
- causality0 3y ago
  "Democracy is the belief that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard"
pdmccormick 3y ago
Correction: Canada is a country with a small number of large cities that determine the national government. There are whole regions of the country that have no representative voice within the governing parties.
- jiofj 3y ago
  Which is good, since votes shouldn't be worth more depending on where you live.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    If you live in a big city then your vote is worth more because of where you live.
    - chongli 3y ago
      It's actually the opposite [1]. The largest ridings tend to be in the largest cities and vice-versa. Remote areas like Nunavut and Labrador have way fewer electors in their ridings than the big population centres, by a factor of over 6. So a vote in Nunavut is worth 6 in Brantford. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_of_Canadian_federal_ridings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_of_Canadian_federal...
      - robertlagrant 3y ago
        Because of the counterveiling effect of representation. I mean in a direct democracy city-specific policies would always win.
  - oppositesexact 3y ago
    It’s funny to hear Canadians complaining about rural areas being underrepresented and Americans complaining about rural areas being overrepresented. I wonder if the real issue is “people don’t want to do things the way I want to do things!”
  - HappMacDonald 3y ago
    They also should not be worth more depending on how many neighbors live nearby you. The balancing act is quite difficult: voting advantage to less populous areas may improve land stewardship (protecting against tyranny of the majority ruining large areas of land due to a minority of people who would have to live with the consequences there) but it would be quite negative to enhance votes to wealthy land owners in particular while doing so (given that a good chunk of the few who live in rural areas own huge amounts of land and thus capital already). I honestly do not know the best solution, and I agree that "citizens in less densely populated areas get more or stronger votes" by itself does little to solve it, but I also guarantee that "everyone gets one vote issue over" also does not solve it.
    - rapind 3y ago
      > I honestly do not know the best solution In these cases, usually the simplest solution is best, because none are perfect and trying to "engineer" perfect in politics (and economics) is doomed since there is no objectivity. 1 person == 1 vote
      - everforward 3y ago
        That often ends up completely eliminating several viewpoints and regions from national politics. Who gives a crap about something that affects farmers? There's like 10,000 of them. You could get that many votes with a billboard in a big city. Looking at Canada's population distribution, you could win an election with just 82% of the votes in Quebec and Ontario or 67% of those + British Columbia. The intent of these systems are for the people to be represented in and governed by their province, and their province to be represented in and governed by the federal government. Everyone and everything is equally represented to the governing body above them, but not necessarily to the level above that. Tangentially, the federal government is meant to primarily rule over the provinces, not the people. Laws are supposed to be passed at that level by a majority of the provinces, not of the people. Quebec has every right to pass whatever law it wants to rule over its people, but what right does it have to use its large population to subject Manitoba or Prince Edward Isles to whatever rules it wants? It breeds divisiveness. Why would Nunavut or Manitoba still want to be part of Canada if their votes don't matter in any conceivable way? Even banded together, they're 3.7% of the population and no politician is going to listen to them. Nunavut is 85% Inuit; it wouldn't shock me if their political inclinations are different than Quebec/Ontario both due to cultural differences and geographical differences. Why wouldn't they just try to go back to having their own tribal government, since the federal system has devalued their input to nothing? Federal systems are meant to let provinces emphasize the needs of their own citizens, and to let provinces be unique as a result of their population.
  - soperj 3y ago
    They are though in the Canadian system, a vote in PEI is worth almost 3 times more than in BC for example. PEI: 4 MPs for 176,000 people. = 1 MP per 44000 people BC: 42 MPs for 5.43 million people. = 1 MP per 129,000 people.
- tharmas 3y ago
  How many seats do the "small number of large cities" have compared to the rural parts of the country? I would argue the rural parts have more seats hence determine who gets in power.
theptip 3y ago
Canada has a FPTP voting system and so voter preference is only weakly expressed in the binary choice of Red Team vs. Blue Team.
panick21_ 3y ago
Almost as if democracy doesn't necessarily lead to a government that represent people very well.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  A lot of democratic votes in the west recently, end up on the wire, where you have to vote for the known crook just so the fascist doesn't win. So not an ideal situation that results in a competent, efficient and incorruptible government.
  - slashdev 3y ago
    I think a big problem in the West is we don’t have great leaders anymore. The election is between a few nincompoops that all make you kind of sick to your stomach. Where are the Winston Churchill’s or the Abraham Lincoln’s?
    - panick21_ 3y ago
      Churchill wouldn't be a great leader in current politics. It doesn't work that way. You get 'great leaders' when you lead your nations events, and 99% of the time those are major wars. Churchill was a marginally important political figure until he basically lucked into premiership in WW2. Lincoln came to power over a particular issue, resolved that issue in a war and got killed. Neither of those things are happening. And with Churchill its questionable how good he was other then basically deciding not to surrender. Even if you look at FDR, he came to power during a great economic downturn but by the end of his second term, if not for WW2, he would be remembered very differently. The economy wasn't doing well. And his initial upswing happened mostly because he came into power when the Great Depression was very much ending. Ornery times when leaders face long term issues like population, immigration and climate change will simply not produce such leaders. And the leaders who do handle these topics well are almost never actually popular and are not guaranteed to win many reelections.
bettercallsalad 3y ago
Depends how you determine “democratic”. The current government is the outcome of less than 30% of the people voting for them. If that’s democracy then I don’t have much hope for it.
- jiofj 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - soperj 3y ago
    Even of the people that do vote, it was only 32% of people that voted Liberal.
soperj 3y ago
The Caveat being that we use first past the post, so the majority of the (already poor % of) votes get tossed, and we end up in a situation like we're in now where the party with the most seats actually lost the election. They also all lie through their teeth, so you have no idea what you're voting for, and can't kick them out for 4 years. That's all without mentioning that a vote in Quebec or PEI is worth way more than a vote in Alberta or BC.
slashdev 3y ago
Do they? Some 70-80% of the time, it’s the liberal party. That makes Canada almost a single party democracy. On top of that majority governments have almost unchecked power. When the government in power is a good one, they can really get things done. But I don’t think I was even alive the last time that happened. When the government is a bad one, they have unchecked incompetence. I’ve seen a lot of that, including when the liberals are not in power.
Tiktaalik 3y ago
Well sort of, except the distortions of First Past the Post and regionalism mean that some votes are more valuable than other votes. This has direct outcomes on the legislation that the government produces. In this particular case of this particular legislation, we have the government focusing strongly on an issue of particular importance in Quebec, because those seats are critically important for them remaining government. If we had a proportional representation system then regionalism wouldn't be as important and we'd see the government focus on different policy objectives.
thiht 3y ago
Shut up with that… you vote for the least worst option you got in a full panel of… 2? 5? Maybe 10 people? If you don’t vote, it’s held against you, but when someone is elected it’s somehow your fault and you deserve it? Even if you didn’t vote for that person? Even if you voted for them and it happens they were lying? You make no sense, and this whole rhetoric makes no sense. “Fully democratic” implies this is as good as it gets, yet no one is happy with it. The so called democratic process objectively sucks.
- kenmacd 3y ago
  > The so called democratic process objectively sucks. It's not the democratic process that's the issue, it's the first-past-the-post. Fortunately the party to win the 2015 election vowed: "To make sure that every vote counts, the Government will undertake consultations on electoral reform, and will take action to ensure that 2015 will be the last federal election conducted under the first-past-the-post voting system.", so it must be fixed...

Canada is a fully democratic country where citizens are allowed to vote for whomever they see fit. They have the politicians they voted for.

by jiofj 3y ago

Canada is a fully democratic country where citizens are allowed to vote for whomever they see fit. They have the politicians they voted for.

browningstreet 3y ago

Doesn't feel like an adequate take on voter/government outcomes anymore.

chongli 3y ago

Exactly! Don’t just blame politicians for this. I have had multiple heated arguments with my idiotic compatriots over this one. They don’t get it at all! They just stand on the sidelines and cheer: “Yay Government! You stand up to those big tech bullies! Boooo Facebook and boooo Google!”

causality0 3y ago
"Democracy is the belief that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard"

pdmccormick 3y ago

Correction: Canada is a country with a small number of large cities that determine the national government. There are whole regions of the country that have no representative voice within the governing parties.

jiofj 3y ago
Which is good, since votes shouldn't be worth more depending on where you live.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  If you live in a big city then your vote is worth more because of where you live.
  - chongli 3y ago
    It's actually the opposite [1]. The largest ridings tend to be in the largest cities and vice-versa. Remote areas like Nunavut and Labrador have way fewer electors in their ridings than the big population centres, by a factor of over 6. So a vote in Nunavut is worth 6 in Brantford. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_of_Canadian_federal_ridings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_of_Canadian_federal...
    - robertlagrant 3y ago
      Because of the counterveiling effect of representation. I mean in a direct democracy city-specific policies would always win.
- oppositesexact 3y ago
  It’s funny to hear Canadians complaining about rural areas being underrepresented and Americans complaining about rural areas being overrepresented. I wonder if the real issue is “people don’t want to do things the way I want to do things!”
- HappMacDonald 3y ago
  They also should not be worth more depending on how many neighbors live nearby you. The balancing act is quite difficult: voting advantage to less populous areas may improve land stewardship (protecting against tyranny of the majority ruining large areas of land due to a minority of people who would have to live with the consequences there) but it would be quite negative to enhance votes to wealthy land owners in particular while doing so (given that a good chunk of the few who live in rural areas own huge amounts of land and thus capital already). I honestly do not know the best solution, and I agree that "citizens in less densely populated areas get more or stronger votes" by itself does little to solve it, but I also guarantee that "everyone gets one vote issue over" also does not solve it.
  - rapind 3y ago
    > I honestly do not know the best solution In these cases, usually the simplest solution is best, because none are perfect and trying to "engineer" perfect in politics (and economics) is doomed since there is no objectivity. 1 person == 1 vote
    - everforward 3y ago
      That often ends up completely eliminating several viewpoints and regions from national politics. Who gives a crap about something that affects farmers? There's like 10,000 of them. You could get that many votes with a billboard in a big city. Looking at Canada's population distribution, you could win an election with just 82% of the votes in Quebec and Ontario or 67% of those + British Columbia. The intent of these systems are for the people to be represented in and governed by their province, and their province to be represented in and governed by the federal government. Everyone and everything is equally represented to the governing body above them, but not necessarily to the level above that. Tangentially, the federal government is meant to primarily rule over the provinces, not the people. Laws are supposed to be passed at that level by a majority of the provinces, not of the people. Quebec has every right to pass whatever law it wants to rule over its people, but what right does it have to use its large population to subject Manitoba or Prince Edward Isles to whatever rules it wants? It breeds divisiveness. Why would Nunavut or Manitoba still want to be part of Canada if their votes don't matter in any conceivable way? Even banded together, they're 3.7% of the population and no politician is going to listen to them. Nunavut is 85% Inuit; it wouldn't shock me if their political inclinations are different than Quebec/Ontario both due to cultural differences and geographical differences. Why wouldn't they just try to go back to having their own tribal government, since the federal system has devalued their input to nothing? Federal systems are meant to let provinces emphasize the needs of their own citizens, and to let provinces be unique as a result of their population.
- soperj 3y ago
  They are though in the Canadian system, a vote in PEI is worth almost 3 times more than in BC for example. PEI: 4 MPs for 176,000 people. = 1 MP per 44000 people BC: 42 MPs for 5.43 million people. = 1 MP per 129,000 people.
tharmas 3y ago
How many seats do the "small number of large cities" have compared to the rural parts of the country? I would argue the rural parts have more seats hence determine who gets in power.

theptip 3y ago

Canada has a FPTP voting system and so voter preference is only weakly expressed in the binary choice of Red Team vs. Blue Team.

panick21_ 3y ago

Almost as if democracy doesn't necessarily lead to a government that represent people very well.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
A lot of democratic votes in the west recently, end up on the wire, where you have to vote for the known crook just so the fascist doesn't win. So not an ideal situation that results in a competent, efficient and incorruptible government.
- slashdev 3y ago
  I think a big problem in the West is we don’t have great leaders anymore. The election is between a few nincompoops that all make you kind of sick to your stomach. Where are the Winston Churchill’s or the Abraham Lincoln’s?
  - panick21_ 3y ago
    Churchill wouldn't be a great leader in current politics. It doesn't work that way. You get 'great leaders' when you lead your nations events, and 99% of the time those are major wars. Churchill was a marginally important political figure until he basically lucked into premiership in WW2. Lincoln came to power over a particular issue, resolved that issue in a war and got killed. Neither of those things are happening. And with Churchill its questionable how good he was other then basically deciding not to surrender. Even if you look at FDR, he came to power during a great economic downturn but by the end of his second term, if not for WW2, he would be remembered very differently. The economy wasn't doing well. And his initial upswing happened mostly because he came into power when the Great Depression was very much ending. Ornery times when leaders face long term issues like population, immigration and climate change will simply not produce such leaders. And the leaders who do handle these topics well are almost never actually popular and are not guaranteed to win many reelections.

bettercallsalad 3y ago

Depends how you determine “democratic”. The current government is the outcome of less than 30% of the people voting for them. If that’s democracy then I don’t have much hope for it.

jiofj 3y ago
[flagged]
- soperj 3y ago
  Even of the people that do vote, it was only 32% of people that voted Liberal.

soperj 3y ago

The Caveat being that we use first past the post, so the majority of the (already poor % of) votes get tossed, and we end up in a situation like we're in now where the party with the most seats actually lost the election. They also all lie through their teeth, so you have no idea what you're voting for, and can't kick them out for 4 years. That's all without mentioning that a vote in Quebec or PEI is worth way more than a vote in Alberta or BC.

slashdev 3y ago

Do they? Some 70-80% of the time, it’s the liberal party. That makes Canada almost a single party democracy. On top of that majority governments have almost unchecked power. When the government in power is a good one, they can really get things done. But I don’t think I was even alive the last time that happened. When the government is a bad one, they have unchecked incompetence. I’ve seen a lot of that, including when the liberals are not in power.

Tiktaalik 3y ago

Well sort of, except the distortions of First Past the Post and regionalism mean that some votes are more valuable than other votes. This has direct outcomes on the legislation that the government produces. In this particular case of this particular legislation, we have the government focusing strongly on an issue of particular importance in Quebec, because those seats are critically important for them remaining government. If we had a proportional representation system then regionalism wouldn't be as important and we'd see the government focus on different policy objectives.

thiht 3y ago

Shut up with that… you vote for the least worst option you got in a full panel of… 2? 5? Maybe 10 people? If you don’t vote, it’s held against you, but when someone is elected it’s somehow your fault and you deserve it? Even if you didn’t vote for that person? Even if you voted for them and it happens they were lying? You make no sense, and this whole rhetoric makes no sense. “Fully democratic” implies this is as good as it gets, yet no one is happy with it. The so called democratic process objectively sucks.

kenmacd 3y ago
> The so called democratic process objectively sucks. It's not the democratic process that's the issue, it's the first-past-the-post. Fortunately the party to win the 2015 election vowed: "To make sure that every vote counts, the Government will undertake consultations on electoral reform, and will take action to ensure that 2015 will be the last federal election conducted under the first-past-the-post voting system.", so it must be fixed...