This all brings to mind the political satire film Guibord s'en va-t-en guerre (dubbed into English as My Internship in Canada) where a single (independent) MP holds the deciding vote on whether Canada joins a war. It also highlights the importance of keeping the profile of an elected member high by being everywhere at once, as David describes in the by-election contests. Watch the movie. It is a balm in these disturbing times.
"Canadians chose minority parliaments with all the uncertainty, brinksmanship, and the constant threat of election that comes with them."
I know you have lived the reality, but this language that individual Canadian voters chose anything at an Executive Branch level is always frustrating. I really wish there was a separate vote among elected parliamentarians and a separate ceremony, to make that distinction more clear!
Canadians don't have the ability to choose minority parliaments, they only have influence over who their local representatives are. If Canadian’s paid more attention to the person they actually had influence over, rather than fixating on the corporate team jersey (sponsors?) they were temporarily wearing, they would have more actual influence over what parliament would do.
I find the notion some have that “floor crossing” is somehow anti-democratic to be entirely backwards – it is the duty of the local representative to represent constituents over corporate brands, and that regularly means changing brand affiliation (whether that is away from the executive branch, toward it, or between brands that are not part of the executive).
I’m paying closest attention to Terrebonne, as I believe this will be an election even more visibly about Donald Trump. The two top contenders in that district https://338canada.com/24073e.htm are associated with the Bloc and Liberal brands, with the Bloc representing instability and the Liberals representing stability at this specific moment in time.
I’m not a fan of the current Liberal government for many reasons, but agree it represents stability in a way where more Reform (current CPC) or Bloc MPs represent instability. If my Ottawa Center MP wasn’t already Liberal, I would have been promoting the idea that at this specific time they cross the floor to the Liberals as well.
My home was in Ottawa South, with David McGuinty as our MP, until the last federal election and boundary changes came in effect.
I take your point and I largely agree. In the context of how our system works, rather than how it is intended to work, I do think Canadians choose minority or majority insofar as it represents whether or not the country has come to a consensus on how it should be run. If Carney manages to convert his minority into a majority mid-term, it is completely in line with the consensus we see forming across the country through public opinion polls.
We do need to rethink the whole way we do our representation and our elections so that individual representatives and representation matters once more, but that is the objective, not the current state of affairs. Floor-crossing is the strongest expression we have of the independence of our representatives and it's one that needs to be defended rather than derided. And my point in this piece is the irony of the number of floor crossers and by-election wins resulting in the loss of the independence that brought us to that point.
This all brings to mind the political satire film Guibord s'en va-t-en guerre (dubbed into English as My Internship in Canada) where a single (independent) MP holds the deciding vote on whether Canada joins a war. It also highlights the importance of keeping the profile of an elected member high by being everywhere at once, as David describes in the by-election contests. Watch the movie. It is a balm in these disturbing times.
"Canadians chose minority parliaments with all the uncertainty, brinksmanship, and the constant threat of election that comes with them."
I know you have lived the reality, but this language that individual Canadian voters chose anything at an Executive Branch level is always frustrating. I really wish there was a separate vote among elected parliamentarians and a separate ceremony, to make that distinction more clear!
Canadians don't have the ability to choose minority parliaments, they only have influence over who their local representatives are. If Canadian’s paid more attention to the person they actually had influence over, rather than fixating on the corporate team jersey (sponsors?) they were temporarily wearing, they would have more actual influence over what parliament would do.
I find the notion some have that “floor crossing” is somehow anti-democratic to be entirely backwards – it is the duty of the local representative to represent constituents over corporate brands, and that regularly means changing brand affiliation (whether that is away from the executive branch, toward it, or between brands that are not part of the executive).
I’m paying closest attention to Terrebonne, as I believe this will be an election even more visibly about Donald Trump. The two top contenders in that district https://338canada.com/24073e.htm are associated with the Bloc and Liberal brands, with the Bloc representing instability and the Liberals representing stability at this specific moment in time.
I’m not a fan of the current Liberal government for many reasons, but agree it represents stability in a way where more Reform (current CPC) or Bloc MPs represent instability. If my Ottawa Center MP wasn’t already Liberal, I would have been promoting the idea that at this specific time they cross the floor to the Liberals as well.
My home was in Ottawa South, with David McGuinty as our MP, until the last federal election and boundary changes came in effect.
I take your point and I largely agree. In the context of how our system works, rather than how it is intended to work, I do think Canadians choose minority or majority insofar as it represents whether or not the country has come to a consensus on how it should be run. If Carney manages to convert his minority into a majority mid-term, it is completely in line with the consensus we see forming across the country through public opinion polls.
We do need to rethink the whole way we do our representation and our elections so that individual representatives and representation matters once more, but that is the objective, not the current state of affairs. Floor-crossing is the strongest expression we have of the independence of our representatives and it's one that needs to be defended rather than derided. And my point in this piece is the irony of the number of floor crossers and by-election wins resulting in the loss of the independence that brought us to that point.