I didn’t have a chance to speak at the rally because I contacted the rally organizers too late. But our mission is so connected to prorogation issue and the lack of cooperation we see in parliament. So here’s my speech for your consideration.
My name is Julien Lamarche and I’m with the Ottawa chapter of Fair Vote Canada. I joined Fair Vote because I think allot of the problems we see in Canadian politics is a consequence of our electoral system, known as first past the post or winner take all.
It has this funny trait called plurality. Plurality means that you only need 1 more vote than any other candidate to win an election. For example, across the river, in Gatineau, the wining candidate got 29% support of all the voters who took the time to cast a ballot. The remaining 70% go unrepresented.
But the lack of representation goes beyond a few ridings. Across Canada in that same election, 51% of all votes didn’t go to a winning candidate. Our electoral system produced more unrepresented voters than represented ones!
Well, the anti-prorogation protest was very well attended on the Hill today. Many people protesting various aspects of Harper’s policies spoke. The NDP, Liberal, Bloc Québecois, Green Party, unions and environmentalists were all out.
Why protest Harper and bad politicians when you can work on advocating to change the rules of the game that allow this kind of behavior in the first place?
We we’re the only ones there that had a solution, a proposal to actually fix the system, rather than protest specific policies or the prorogation itself as an isolated incident. As Wayne Smith commented on noprorogue.ca on January 13th:
This is only the latest in a series of actions by governments of different political stripes to diminish the relevance of Parliament and concentrate power in the office of the Prime Minister. The root problem is our inability to hold politicians and political parties accountable because of our antique, winner-take-all voting system.
I’ve never attended one of their movies myself, but having some outdoor entertainment is always a great use of public space, so I’m spreading the word. The Centretown Movies Outdoor Film Festival is looking for an organization (community centres, schools, etc) capable of supporting it.
The Centretown Movies Outdoor Film Festival (CMOFF) started a decade ago with the objective of using not-fully-utilized spaces around Ottawa centretown for cultural and artistic purposes. During 9 years of operation we brought the chance of having enjoyable entertaining experience to families and individual in centretown area. This was made possible by the efforts of our volunteers and support from the community particularly Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation (CCOC) which was our major sponsor. Since CCOC’s role is to incubate local community projects by supporting them in their formative years, it is stepping back from the role of lead sponsor for CMOFF. Now it is time for Centretown Movies to find another sponsor to bring it forward in its second decade of operation. Because of our volunteer nature, the continuation of CMOFF depends the existence of another organization that can act as our sponsor and liaison with the city. (more…)
Fair Vote Canada sent and issued open letters to the Prime Minister and opposition leaders - now is the time for action on electoral reform.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper
House of Commons
Parliament Buildings
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6
Re: Prorogation and Re-examination: Cut to the Chase S’il Vous Plait
Dear Prime Minister Harper:
On Wednesday you said you ended the current Parliament (without its approval) to give your government an extended opportunity “to re-examine the overall agenda.”
You have granted yourself and your party two unsupervised months to correct course.
Will elimination of Canada’s democratic deficit be on your government’s new agenda? If not it should be.
Your party represents fewer than 40 per cent of Canadian voters. You can’t square that minority support, and the unilateral shutdown of Parliament, with any reasonable concept of legitimate and representative democratic government.
I do not accuse you of violating democracy itself only because the Canadian political system as it stands is intrinsically undemocratic. (more…)
“A short video making fun of the absurdity of Canada’s “First Past the Post” electoral system, in which it’s normal for a majority of people to vote for someone other than the winning candidate. We need to implement fair voting in Canada, and join the vast majority of other Western democracies that have already done so”
As the controversy over the proroguing of Parliament continues, Fair Vote Canada announced today that 132 Canadian political scientists from 36 universities and colleges have co-signed a statement calling for federal electoral reform within the next five years.
Among the 132 political scientists signing the statement are 10 professors emerti, the President-elect of the Canadian Political Science Association (CPSA), six former presidents of CPSA, the current Secretary General of the International Political Science Association (IPSA) and a former Secretary General of IPSA.
These two pictures are me dancing at my employer’s (The Pythian Group) 2009 Christmas party.
I love dancing to techno (or disco)! But I’m also an introvert, and as this article suggests, I tend to get more of my energy from spending alone or in small crowds.
So if there’s any introvert techno lovers out there in Ottawa, contact me, and lets go to a night club early when there’s very little people. When the crowd gets bigger, we can chat around a beer and plot to take over the world!
Introverts unite!
PS: Here are my and the most popular saved bookmarks on delicious on introvertness.
Dancing to techno / disco at company Christmas 2009 party
To your enemy, forgiveness.
To an opponent, tolerance.
To a friend, your heart.
To a customer, service.
To all, charity.
To every child, a good example.
To yourself, respect.
I’m really glad I found this article on having an introvert personality and dealing with a society that places emphasis on extrovertness:
Alicia describes her friendships with both introverts and extroverts this way: “In my neighborhood, we introverts seem to have symbiotically paired up with complete extroverts. The extroverts hang out together at one house, while we introverts share companionable silence at another,” she says. “We’ve labeled this time of writing, painting, and so on as ‘Social Introversion.’ Our partners think it’s less bizarre because we’re “hanging out with friends.” If only they knew we barely speak to each other when we’re together!”
– http://behavioural-psychology.suite101.com/article.cfm/dealing_with_introvert_guilt
So, fellow introverts, want to get together to do something where we don’t have to talk?
I’m wondering if I can use LinkedIn to increase membership renewals by a notch. I’d like to e-mail two or more local members that share a connection, but I’d probably be violating privacy rules by revealing to both those members that they are members. But if they were both members (either in the past year or years ago) how could they be offended that that information be revealed to another member they share a linkedin connection with?
If both connections have Fair Vote membership, I feel asking the closer connection of the two: “Oh, btw, could you ask X to renew her membership” is ok, especially if I know the closer linkedin connection very well . The latter becomes a volunteer who’s been given privileged but very limited information.
But I don’t think that’s as effective as “Hey, you both have expired memberships. So who’s going to renew first?” It might get a conversation going between two supporters who would otherwise not know they were members!
In both cases however, I’ve revealed to one or both members another persons membership, and I’m not sure that’s right. But again, how could they be offended that that information be revealed to another member they share a linkedin connection with?
