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]

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.