Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Mid-Week Musings

-Adam Radwanski has a good article on cleaning up leadership races. Here's the crux of it:

To really achieve clean leadership campaigns, along with fair nomination races for local candidates, would require an overhaul of our entire concept of party membership. Rather than sending out recruiters with stacks of membership forms to try to collect (or pretend to collect) $10 fees, we would need to shift to something closer to the American model. In other words, give every voter the option of registering for the party of their choice, and hand every registered Liberal, Conservative or New Democrat a vote in their respective parties' leaderships or nominations.

It won't happen, because no party's MPs will vote for it -- not when it means transferring so much power from the elites to the common folk. But it's the only way that we'll ever really clean up party politics.


-This has the potential to re-open some old wounds.


-Blue Blogging Soapbox links to an interesting story on the fiscal imbalance:

"The real force behind the fiscal pressures currently faced by provincial governments is competitive tax cutting by provincial governments intent on getting ahead in the race to the bottom,'" concludes the report, compiled by economist Hugh Mackenzie for the left-leaning think tank.

-Speaking of which, Harper's three priorities for the fall will be:

1. The fiscal (im)balance
2. The environment
3. International competitiveness

17 Comments:

  • This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    By Blogger Idealistic Pragmatist, at 2:16 p.m.  

  • I'm with Radwanski on giving every party member a vote in a leadership race, but I'm not with him on duplicating the American model of party registration. Mainly because in the U.S., party registration is NOT the same thing as party membership; it's about getting to vote in that party's primary and nothing more. For example, I registered as a Democrat so that I could have an influence on my state's Democratic primary, but I would never have joined the Democratic party because I don't believe in what they stand for. If party registration had meant I'd be considered a member of the Democratic party, I would have remained an independent.

    By Blogger Idealistic Pragmatist, at 2:17 p.m.  

  • Don't forget the 4th unspoken priority at this time...

    4. Making sure that Elections Canada never gets ahold of those Convention Books! :)

    By Blogger Somena Woman, at 2:29 p.m.  

  • IP; I take almost the opposite approach. I don't have a problem with the delegated convention system (since delegates are chosen on a percentage of leader support) but I would like to see the US system.

    You could do the same thing here - people can register to be eligible to vote in nominations and leadership races, but you could have a separate party membership which would come with other benefits.

    That would solve a lot of the problems we see in both nomination and leadership battles.

    By Blogger calgarygrit, at 3:58 p.m.  

  • CG,

    That would also be okay with me, actually. As long as party registration isn't viewed as the same thing as party membership, it would work just fine. Start confusing the two, and it would get very unpleasant very quickly.

    What would be your objection to a one-member, one-vote approach to choosing the leader, by the way?

    By Blogger Idealistic Pragmatist, at 4:03 p.m.  

  • IP; It's less fun ;-)

    That's probably a serious answer too. Conventions create a lot of buzz and excitement and fire up both the party members at them and the general population. The convention system also ensure that all regions and demographics (ie. youth, females, etc) get representation. If you went to 1M1V, candidates would sign Liberals up en masse in Toronto and ignore rural Alberta completely since the votes just aren't there. I think it's been fantastic to see so many Liberals come out to Alberta over the past few months and I don't think you'd see that in a 1M1V race.


    That said, I wouldn't mind one member one vote so long as the system got changed to voter registration. My main beef is that people think it would solve all the problems with instant Liberals and masse sign ups, when this isn't the case at all.

    By Blogger calgarygrit, at 4:23 p.m.  

  • CG,

    Uh...you know, leadership conventions aren't necessarily incompatible with allowing every member a vote. Just saying.

    By Blogger Idealistic Pragmatist, at 4:27 p.m.  

  • Radwanski's cure is worse than the disease; American political parties are notoriously weak and disorganized and the registration system has a lot to do with it.

    Combined with Canada's Westminster system of government, the results would be disastrous.

    By Blogger Demosthenes, at 3:11 p.m.  

  • Some are even copies of the actual real product that is made by legitimate herbal company, they put the same product name change what is inside and put the same label. Be very careful, you can look up grow taller 4 smarts free scam alerts to be ahead of scammers.Bionatrol Pro Enhance

    By Blogger Edward, at 6:55 a.m.  

  • If soil can grow crops, the food produced is nutritious. When soil lacks minerals, plants don't grow properly and may not produce their potential yield. Growing area does affect a food's iodine and selenium contents.Ryzex Male Enhancement

    By Blogger Edward, at 7:59 a.m.  

  • United States with multivitamin/mineral supplements being the biggest product category-and with an average of 500 new products launched each year. They're sold in many forms-for example, tablets, capsules, softgels, gelcaps, liquids, powders, and bars.Super Fast Keto Boost

    By Blogger Edward, at 8:13 a.m.  

  • Prime Choice Nutrition more of some nutrients, especially folate and iron-and perhaps calcium if you don't consume enough calcium-rich foods. Check the label's Supplement Facts to make sure you get enough for a healthy pregnancy. Ask about a prenatal vitamin mineral supplement.

    By Blogger Edward, at 8:20 a.m.  

  • if comes from a spray.binds with intrinsic factor made in the stomach during digestion. That cannot happen with a spray or a patch! So that means all the place that try to claim that you could grow taller with that are just scam.Rapid Fast Keto Boost

    By Blogger Edward, at 8:20 a.m.  

  • Not every man needs a prescription level drug solution to address Erectile Dysfunction (ED) or male impotence. A combination of as those for male impotence and Erectile Dysfunction sufferers. Celaxryn RX

    By Blogger Lara, at 7:18 a.m.  

  • Serexin The vague theories are the ones that just state that foods that burn exist and list a long list of foods. Of course that's not going to give you the results you want.we will have a little debate between the two schools of thought to finally determine.

    By Blogger Lara, at 11:41 a.m.  

  • increase desire, semen volume or penis size. While Viagra and Cialis receive the most exposure due to the large advertising budgets of their manufactures there are also many other male supplement pills available on the internet. The male sexual enhancers available on the internet generally fall into three categories.Optimal Rock

    By Blogger Edward, at 6:11 a.m.  

  • NutraLite Keto This means that you need to treat your body more carefully and start taking steps towards a Complete fat loss today Before you do anything else you need to understand your body's current fat percentage.Your body fat percentage is the amount of fat that your body consists of.

    By Blogger Edward, at 8:44 a.m.  

Post a Comment

<< Home