Too many ridings.

[c9]

Canada has 308 ridings. This election campaign is 55 days long, which means that if I wanted to profile each riding I would have to post six per day, with Sundays off. (it IS the Lord's day, after all)

Obviously not gonna happen. But I've realized there are ten ridings left I want to profile, and in precisely ten days the polls will already be closed. So I'm going to have to post more often. Just wanted to warn you.

primary_suspect, iambic_cub, disasternat, cap_hill_latte, skaughty, jamielb, quebec_city_boy, adamos, evad_cgy, and more will have profiles of their very own to go with the ones already posted!

Update: senhor and jdhorner too! Even if they can't vote, they get in on the fun.

Comments

[c9.livejournal.com]

Yeah, 55 days is too many.

Your riding profile is coming tomorrow, don't give up on the election yet! :)

[simplisticton.livejournal.com]

It could be worse -- it could be a year-long campaign like the Americans'. No wonder they're apathetic.

[c9.livejournal.com]

The Tory platform includes fixed election dates. Coming soon, to a country near you!

[simplisticton.livejournal.com]

Heaven forbid! But even if we had fixed election dates (a possibility I don't necessarily entirely disagree with), we need a law that effectively keeps campaigns limited to the length they are now. I want my politicians governing, not campaigning!

[c9.livejournal.com]

How would that possibly work?

"1.2a The government shall announce no programs, make no promises, hold no public meetings, attend no town halls, sign no international agreements or conduct any sort of business that could possibly help them in a campaign unless it's during the first two years of their mandate. After that, utter stagnation is required until the 36-day campaign begins again."

Sadly, fixed election dates demand an awareness of the approaching election. As nihilicious says, we already have constant campaigns now. Sometimes we do, and sometimes we don't, I would say. But everything is timed according to elections, I don't think we can avoid that.

[simplisticton.livejournal.com]

Well, obviously politicians are always campaigning, but the actual *campaign* part, with the leaders flying all over the country, debating, etc., and the lawn-signs, etc., has to be limited to the 36 days prior to the election.

What we must avoid at all costs is the bi-annual circus of American campaigns!

[c9.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, it's easy to block the lawn signs. Luckily, they have almost *no* effect, so nobody will mind that law.

Think about how the US is consumed by the presidential election 24/7/365, basically as soon as the inauguration is over. That'll happen here too.

[simplisticton.livejournal.com]

OK, new idea. Scrap the whole system, move to a system of "political draftees" -- random selection of all voting-age people for one (and only one) term in office. No elections at all. No ideologues, no professional politicians, no corruption issues (no one's there long enough to get really corrupt), and NO CAMPAIGNING!

There, that's done. Now on to fixing global warming...

[c9.livejournal.com]

Oh my GOD. That's like rewriting your entire code base *every* *year*. No learning from mistakes, history repeats constantly... I may have a nightmare now.

[simplisticton.livejournal.com]

The only thing politicians learn from their mistakes is how not to get caught next time.

[c9.livejournal.com]

Let's try an experiment. Next time you're standing in line, imagine the person in front of you was in charge.

[simplisticton.livejournal.com]

I'm obviously not advocating replacing everyone, and not all *at the same time*, that would be chaos. You'd still need parties, and party leaders presumably. The term would have to be long enough to learn the ropes, but not long enough to become a fixture (say, five years).

This neatly solves the issue of voter participation, too... if you could be called up for service at any time, wouldn't you be a little more interested in national policy?

Of course I'm not seriously advocating this model in its extreme form -- I'm not an anarchist... but it does provide some interesting ideas for new and different models of democracy.

I have other ideas too! Like environmental courts. I'd also like to give the UN some teeth, but that's more long-term. :-)

When you're PM, can I get a Senate seat? Please? I promise not to say things like this in public.

[c9.livejournal.com]

Sure, why not.

[simplisticton.livejournal.com]

Hm, you gave in too easily. You're planning to aboolish the Senate, aren't you? :)

[c9.livejournal.com]

No, I like the idea of a house of sober second thought. but I'm not sure what I want to do to it to improve it (other than "something")

[simplisticton.livejournal.com]

I have some ideas... but mostly they're making it more like the American version. Only less corrupt, some how. I'm still working on that part.

[c9.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there's a lot to be said for a triple-E senate. But I want some way to detach it from the existing elections and parties sometimes.