tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21615020686959881172011-11-27T17:03:00.611-08:00Bringing together NON-apathetic, ENGAGED Canadians who CARE about their democracy.Chrystal Oceannoreply@blogger.comBlogger181100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161502068695988117.post-90170945563537573452010-12-20T12:09:00.000-08:002010-12-20T20:55:04.474-08:00

Fellow non-partisan James Bow writes an important article on The Forgotten Bloc - the 40 percent of the electorate who are non-voters in this country. I wrote the following response in the comments section: James Bow’s comments are bang on, including the one to Robert McClelland. [To Bow's question "Why is no party leader or policy maker going out and talking to the 9.5 million Canadians to

Chrystal Oceannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161502068695988117.post-51862282185674724332010-07-05T19:40:00.000-07:002010-07-05T23:17:32.978-07:00

Much focus - and blame - has been attached to the low voter turnout among young people. I've written before regarding that misplaced blame. My point then was to shift it to where it squarely belongs, with Canada's politicians and their puppet-masters who work to maintain Canada's provincial and federal voting systems. The Single Member Plurality majoritarian system we have works very well for

Chrystal Oceannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161502068695988117.post-19888230795286130322010-05-18T08:00:00.000-07:002010-05-18T08:27:02.906-07:00

Taylor Owen scores a hit regarding why Canadians are unlikely to see a coalition government anytime in the near future. To summarize: 1. The NDP's joined-at-the-hip relationship with labour unions. 2. The Green Party's devotion to a poor election strategy. 3. Reform's influence on the Conservative Party. 4. The uncomfortable marriage of red and blue Liberals. We need the old Progressive

Chrystal Oceannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161502068695988117.post-22210744863691619082010-03-05T11:31:00.000-08:002010-03-05T12:31:35.954-08:00

If Canadians voted for their Members of Parliament by means of an electoral system of proportional representation, then the Leader of the Official Opposition wouldn't be faced with a dilemma forced upon him by our existing single member plurality voting system. To whit, in a minority government situation - which is more, not less, likely as time goes by - the Official Opposition wouldn't be

Chrystal Oceannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161502068695988117.post-51246587873503235392010-01-20T09:03:00.001-08:002010-01-20T11:41:10.632-08:00

Did you know that, that the Harper government, CANADA's government, isn't here to govern for you? James Bow caught something in Tony Clement's comments about elites and "chattering classes" that I'd not noticed. Here's Clement: "I know [Harper's use of prorogation] is a big issue with the Ottawa media elite and some of the elites in our country, but I got to tell you if reaction in my

Chrystal Oceannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161502068695988117.post-15496640411732681782010-01-14T09:02:00.001-08:002010-01-14T09:02:47.410-08:00

On January 12, Fair Vote Canada sent an open letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and another to the leaders of the Liberal, New Democrat and Green parties. I've not seen such strong words from this organization before. From the letter to Stephen Harper: You have granted yourself and your party two unsupervised months to correct course... Your party represents fewer than 40 per cent of

Chrystal Oceannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161502068695988117.post-38899195764264160232010-01-09T13:27:00.000-08:002010-01-09T13:28:41.552-08:00

Did YOU vote for Stephen Harper to be Prime Minister of Canada? In theory, no one did. But in practice, given Canada's democratic system that elevates parties to the detriment of voters' interests and preferences, that's what a few rare number of us did do: Total votes in the riding of Calgary-Southwest on October 14, 2008: 52,996 Total votes cast for Stephen Harper: 38,548 Total votes cast in

Chrystal Oceannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161502068695988117.post-80085436773875444322009-08-31T18:44:00.000-07:002009-08-31T18:48:16.128-07:00

... saw almost 90 percent of possible respondents declining to participate in the survey. Of those who did respond, some 35 percent of the non-voters ... said the main reason they did not vote was 'personal', including people who were busy, out of town or sick. Seven percent were pessimistic about their vote making a difference and 29 percent were "disengaged" with the process or politics in

Chrystal Oceannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161502068695988117.post-56199111965814674962009-07-21T12:56:00.000-07:002009-07-21T13:25:40.098-07:00

Aaron Wherry (Macleans) notes this article which is of the ilk, as he puts it, "Why don't the kids like the politics?"It's refreshing to see someone like Wherry alluding to the unfairness of identifying young people as politically disengaged and blaming them for the erosion of our democracy. Not voting doesn't translate into being apolitical. Not voting doesn't mean being uninvolved in one's

Chrystal Oceannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161502068695988117.post-56517011305864736652009-07-02T15:03:00.000-07:002009-07-02T18:41:01.945-07:00

James Travers lists ten reasons why Parliament no longer serves the people. Among them is what he titles "Dumb and Dumber":Happiness here is reducing complex problems to a bumper sticker. "Do the Crime, Do the Time" resonates, but it doesn't make Canadians safer any more than cutting the GST made us noticeably richer. Keep it simple, stupid, is the rule, not the exception. So stick this on your

Chrystal Oceannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161502068695988117.post-46154507246109741182009-06-29T20:23:00.000-07:002009-06-29T20:24:11.599-07:00

This post over at Stageleft should be getting more attention. Canadians across this land are increasingly feeling unrepresented and powerless - and powerless to change that situation. There's good reason for this and it's not just about our cruddy electoral system, vicious attack ads, parliamentary pissing contests, elitist party financing, and so on. More crucially than any of those, it's the

Chrystal Oceannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161502068695988117.post-58116790496632540752009-06-11T13:30:00.001-07:002009-06-11T13:31:16.370-07:00

Can't disagree with this statement. In their ruling regarding web piracy, France's highest court, the Constitutional Council declared the Internet to be "a fundamental human right that can not be taken away by anything other than a court of law."Certainly in modern democracies Internet access is a political necessity. In Canada, it should be included among our demands for democratic reform.[

Chrystal Oceannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161502068695988117.post-60181242550794773242009-06-09T11:53:00.000-07:002009-06-09T12:29:37.797-07:00

There must be something circulating in the wind. Just this morning I sent the following email to Peter Sircom Bromley, the writer of an article which appeared in Common Ground magazine. I also cc'd the email to CG.===Dear Mr. Bromley:I was a volunteer with the BC-STV campaign and read your article in Common Ground ("First Past the Post Mortem") with interest. The only jarring point for me was at

Chrystal Oceannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161502068695988117.post-50730703321367460772009-05-19T09:13:00.000-07:002009-05-19T09:14:40.974-07:00

Daphne and I will be away for the next four days. We'll be away from our computers, away from Twitter, away from our blogs. Eeek! Don't know how I, for one, will be able to cope.Anyway, we have been provided a full bursary to attend the Canada Social Forum in Calgary, hosted by the Canadian Council on Social Development. The focus of the forum this year is poverty. For Daphne and I, it will not

Chrystal Oceannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161502068695988117.post-81286006713431799292009-05-17T16:21:00.000-07:002009-05-17T16:21:48.263-07:00

It is not just the electoral process but the state of our party system which is causing our democracy to go off the rails. Representative democracy doesn't appear to work as well in countries as geographically diverse as ours. Along with geography can come cultural differences; place does matter and can have a profound influence on people's values. Add in global travel and the mass movement of

Chrystal Oceannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161502068695988117.post-90271309623990460272009-05-16T12:32:00.000-07:002009-05-16T15:33:42.545-07:00

Listening requires that voters stop bashing non-voters, belittling us and blaming us for the failure of the system. It requires that they stop prattling on with the same old tired arguments which have done nothing to curb our swelling numbers.That program hasn't been working, has it?Some people are beginning to get it, some people have come to the realization that there's something seriously

Chrystal Oceannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161502068695988117.post-4981212603437856212009-05-15T18:43:00.000-07:002009-05-15T18:45:34.931-07:00

The following was originally posted to Challenging the Commonplace....Well, a couple of hours ago, the Non-voters' Alliance for Democratic and Electoral Reform (NADER) had one member. Now it has four five. Anyone else interested in joining this Alliance should email me with your full name and contact info, including snail mail address. NADER also has a Facebook group to which members of the

Chrystal Oceannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161502068695988117.post-15158929601615037052009-05-15T18:32:00.000-07:002009-05-16T15:55:03.119-07:00

The following was originally posted, today, to Challenging the Commonplace. Yep, you read that right. There's a new organization in Canada, just formed, with a current membership of one. The President of this new organization - me - predicts that by day's end, the membership of the Non-voters' Alliance for Democratic and Electoral Reform (NADER) will have ballooned by at least 100 percent....And

Chrystal Oceannoreply@blogger.com