[fvc-wat-disc] Arguing for PR

Mon May 1 14:32:33 EDT 2017

Welcome, Jay ... glad to have another warrior ... cheers, Don

On 1 May 2017 at 14:25, <cdcampbell9 at gmail.com> wrote:

> It would be most credible coming from an expert who (as far as I know) has
> not sought public office, like Professor Byron Becker. Bob Jonkman would
>  be construed to have ulterior, sneaky political motives.
>
> Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone.
> *From: *cdcampbell9 at gmail.com
> *Sent: *Monday, May 1, 2017 2:07 PM
> *To: *fvc-wat-disc at listserv.thinkers.org; Jennifer Ross; FVC Waterloo
> Region Discussion
> *Subject: *Re: [fvc-wat-disc] Arguing for PR
>
> At the Sunday afternoon meeting at St John's Kitchen, I said I thought
> that Bardish thinks PR will make it harder for minority ethnic and
> religious groups to win nominations and ridings. Bob said it would make it
> easier. I replied, someone should tell that to , Raj, Marwan and her.
>
> Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone.
> *From: *Dave Arthur
> *Sent: *Monday, May 1, 2017 1:31 PM
> *To: *Jennifer Ross; FVC Waterloo Region Discussion
> *Reply To: *FVC Waterloo Region Discussion
> *Subject: *Re: [fvc-wat-disc] Arguing for PR
>
> Hi Jay and everyone.
> We’re still hopeful that the campaigning and letter-writing will sway
> enough Liberal MPs to vote to go with the ERRE recommendations at the end
> of May.
> It’s a long shot.
> I have to believe most will vote the party line and with Justin’s decision.
> I think we all believe the Liberal promise was based on their vision that
> the change would be to alternative vote/ranked ballot that would give them,
> the centrist party, a huge advantage.
> When that was rejected by ERRE witnesses and town hall meetings as
> obviously self-serving, they looked for any way to avoid electoral reform.
> Despite the fact that there was clear consensus for PR from witnesses and
> Canadians who made themselves informed and attended the meetings, the
> Liberals used the unfortunate fact that many Canadians were not interested,
> were uninformed, or preferred our unfair system that gave their Liberal or
> Conservative parties an advantage, to claim there was no consensus.
> There is a reason Canada ranks low for voter turnout and for low
> percentage of women in parliament (although it is showing some improvement).
> Many of us have met with our local MPs.
> I’ve met with Bardish twice and been very disappointed with her style of
> engagement.
> Chantal Hebert’s recent column in The Star hit it pretty well when she
> said Bardish has perfected the art of giving unhelpful answers with a smile.
> The responses to my presentation to her were defensive, completely
> irrelevant and factually inaccurate.
> When I mentioned that 90% of EU and OECD countries use PR, she said “We
> shouldn’t change our system just because someone else does”.
> When I mentioned that the Ontario Citizens’ Assembly recommended MMP in
> the Ontario referendum ten years ago that lost, she said it was because
> “the voices against the change did a better job than the voices for”.
> This in spite of the fact that polls at the time showed 50% of Ontarians
> didn’t know what the referendum was about and 70% didn’t know what MMP was.
> This was in part due to the McGuinty government’s total failure in
> publicizing the issue or educating Ontarians.
> When I explained my great disappointment that they broke their promise and
> that, unless they demonstrate continuation of working toward reforming our
> voting system, I will not vote Liberal or campaign as I did with Leadnow in
> the last election, she said “Is that a threat?”
> It’s difficult committing to one party.  The Conservatives are no longer
> “progressive”.
> The Liberals have not yet delivered.
> The Chretien Liberals signed onto the Earth Summit’s Kyoto Protocol in
> 1992 and then for 14 years did absolutely nothing.
> It’s interesting that some years ago the Sierra Club under Elizabeth May
> named Brian Mulroney Canada’s most environmental PM following the
> international and successful Montreal Protocol banning CFCs.
> With PR I believe Green support would jump considerably from the almost
> 10% support they received in 2008 (which under FPTP won zero seats).
> Anyway, let’s keep doing what we can to move electoral reform along.
> Dave A
>
>
> *From:* Anita Nickerson
> *Sent:* Monday, May 1, 2017 12:19 AM
> *To:* Jennifer Ross ; FVC Waterloo Region Discussion
> *Subject:* Re: [fvc-wat-disc] Arguing for PR
>
> Hi Jay! Please do keep engaging with your MP and ask other people to do
> the same thing. On May 31 they can be heroes but to say they need a bit of
> a push is an understatement.
>
> People are doing the opposite of walking away, I mean to say.
>
> After Harper won his majority, that day in 2011 - everyone knowing that
> basically for four years there was no hope of anything happening - we had
> thousands of emails to FVC with people wanting to get involved. When
> something's unfair, when parties abuse their power, it makes people realize
> something's seriously wrong.
>
> One thing with the election promise and then the ERRE consultations is the
> government gave all our folks REAL HOPE - first they promised - and many PR
> supporters voted or campaigned for them - then they told us to show up here
> and here and here and we'll listen to you, all the while Trudeau repeating
> they were committed.
>
> People* invested their time in this in good faith.* When you invest your
> time in something, you get to care about it a bit more. People showed up at
> the town hall, the ERRE consultation, the Minister's tour. They wrote
> letters, they send long submissions to the ERRE committee on what they
> wanted and why and talked about isn't it great that you are doing this
> because they were told over and over that their feedback mattered.
>
> If the Liberals had just quietly walked away from their promise on October
> 20, 2015, as most people expected them to do, as most governments with a
> 39% majority would do, we wouldn't see what Jenn is talking about now.
>
> But because Trudeau kept the game going so long and with such intensity, a
> core of people really got personally *involved *so when Trudeau suddenly
> pulled the plug he fired up a community that is now somewhere between
> disgusted and furious at being used and lied to.
>
> A community with a *long *memory.
>
> Anita
>
> On Sun, Apr 30, 2017 at 11:55 PM, Jennifer Ross <2jennross at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Hi, Jay.  Welcome to the movement (and the country!)
>>
>> I am a Liberal.  I have tried each of those arguments many times; they
>> sure make sense to me, and they made some sense to my Liberal friends prior
>> to around October of 2016.  After all, Sharon and I only wrote the
>> "important" part of Resolution 31 (the policy that brought about the
>> election platform on Electoral Reform); we couldn't have passed it through
>> the policy gauntlet by ourselves and without buy-in from the membership,
>> and particularly from the caucus.
>>
>> But, in a telling reason why we need PR to end hyper-partisanship, most
>> Liberal rank and file no longer want to hear it, and Liberal MPs will
>> "engage" with you without actually paying any attention to you.  In fact,
>> Francis Scarpaleggia actually said, out loud and during a press conference
>> "platform promises are just a way to engage with Canadians."  That's not
>> what I was doing when I was helping our Liberals win government, I can
>> assure you!  I was highlighting the *promise*.
>>
>> Oh, and non-engagement of Canadian citizenry translates to they don't
>> want to change the voting system, not that they are so non-engaged they
>> don't even know other options are available.  Or an understanding of what
>> we have now for that matter.  Or they don't feel they know enough about the
>> options that they should weigh in on the decision-making (which I think is
>> the majority).
>>
>> Maybe hearing about it from someone new will be helpful, particularly if
>> you have some lived experience or a different perspective to inform your
>> conclusions.  Telling the story as to why you've come to believe it, as it
>> were.
>>
>> But, we don't give up because I'm the Treasurer of Fair Vote Canada, and
>> am right now going through our membership list for reasons that aren't
>> important to the discussion.  And I am totally blown away by the number of
>> members whose membership had lapsed and they renewed after December 1st
>> (when the Report of the ERRE came down) and the new members who signed up
>> after February 1st (when Justin Trudeau pulled the plug on electoral
>> reform).  People are doing the opposite of walking away, I mean to say.
>>
>> We even have two members who DIED and whose family is still paying their
>> membership dues.  That is how important this issue is to some.  So for
>> those dear friends as well as everyone still fighting for the cause, please
>> do all of it.  :)
>>
>> The Record is good and we get our fair share of letters these days, I
>> think.  Even better are the Township papers who actually support PR (which
>> you'd think would be the other way around but there we are).  But you need
>> to be a rural person to be published by them, I think.  Then there's the
>> Waterloo Chronicle and the Kitchener Post, which we don't tend to
>> concentrate on so they may be ripe for the picking.  *We do have a
>> letter writing group and I hope someone else tells you more about that.*
>>
>> Where are you from?  Because if there is a diaspora in the Region also
>> from that country or region, it would be most valuable to connect with them
>> and offer a PR 101 course for Canada (don't worry, we have people who are
>> experts to do it).
>>
>> Thanks so much for stepping on board!
>>
>> On Sun, Apr 30, 2017 at 11:17 PM, Jay Judkowitz <judkowitz at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Fairvote folks,
>>>
>>>      As someone new to the area and the country, I am wondering what the
>>> best way is to argue the case for PR and where we should be arguing it.
>>>
>>>      I have mailed my MP, Mr. Tabbara, and received a long form letter
>>> in return that I'm sure most of you have seen (they did not even put my
>>> name on it and called me "Diana").  I replied to his mail, but am not
>>> anticipating a personalized engagement.
>>>
>>>       Letters to the editor can get some visibility.  What publications
>>> would you suggest I write to?
>>>
>>>       What about opposing organizations?  Is there any group in
>>> particular who it would be worthwhile to engage with to try and change
>>> their mind through open and honest discourse?
>>>
>>>       As for arguments that would work and would not work, I am trying
>>> to put myself in the position of the Liberals since the Liberals are the
>>> ones with the power to make or break PR right now.  And, in that mindset,
>>> there are three arguments that make sense to me.
>>>
>>>    1. Liberals have complete power now which is great, but it was only
>>>    a short time ago when they had no power.  Conservatives ruled for 10 years
>>>    while they waited.  Wouldn't they want some say all the time rather than no
>>>    say for a decade at a time.
>>>    2. PR is a huge benefit to the party in the middle of a system with
>>>    3 relatively popular parties.  Even when they can not just dictate policy,
>>>    they can partner to the left or the right to make policy on any given
>>>    issue.  It would seem that PR would benefit them the most of any party in
>>>    the long term.
>>>    3. It's scary to let a party with 39% of the vote get 100% of the
>>>    power.  Imagine a situation like the US.  Let's say 15% of Canadians (and
>>>    I'm just making up that number) are really fed up with things and
>>>    vehemently support a right wing demagogue like Trump and that demagogue
>>>    manages to become the Conservative Party leader.  Let's say at the same
>>>    time the Liberals and/or NDP falter due to scandal, a bad candidate, an
>>>    economic downturn, a terrorist attack, etc...   In that situation, it's not
>>>    hard to imagine another 24% of Canadians holding their nose and voting for
>>>    the Conservatives led by that demagogue.  They hit the 39% of the votes,
>>>    get the 51% of the seats and 100% of the power.  This does not seem like a
>>>    likely event for any given election, but seems to be a certainty to happen
>>>    eventually (based on the math and probability, not based on any notion I
>>>    have of Canadian preferences).   Wouldn't the Liberals want to do anything
>>>    to prevent this sort of scenario from being even possible?  I know the
>>>    counter argument to this is that the right wing radicals would always be
>>>    represented in a PR scenario, but I'd rather that they always have small
>>>    representation and continually expose themselves than that they can lie in
>>>    wait and eventually win a stunning victory like what happened in the US in
>>>    November.
>>>
>>>       Please let me know your thoughts on (a) where we should be making
>>> the case and (b) your thoughts on the case I'm making.
>>>
>>> Best regards,
>>> Jay
>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> No other Western democratic country concentrates as much political power in
>> the hands of one person as Canada does with her Prime Minister.
>>
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