Friday, April 29, 2011

Elections and Weddings

It's election time...again. I'm working the polls and I'm getting paid so it works fine for me, but it's costing Canada a fortune.

Our set up is quite different from the States even though we're both a democracy. To be honest, I think the states has a better system. There are three changes I would like to see to our democratic process, things that the States does.

1. Have an election every four years. The way it is now they have an election anytime they want to. It becomes a game, especially when there's a minority government (minority means that they have less seats than the combination of other governments). You can see the other parties gang up on the elected party. You can see the elected party doing things to force a vote in hopes of getting more seats. If they all knew that there was only a vote once every four years then they could spend more time actually working instead of playing the game "when shall we have another election."

2. Limit an individual from being the prime minister to two terms. Remember Trudeau? He was in power for like a hundred years. It was like having a king that wouldn't die. He's responsible for the metric system, French being on everything (even though English isn't), and Margaret.

3. Allow us to actually vote for our prime minister. Put his/her name on the ballot and let us put an x there. Right now the prime minister is determined by how many seats his/her party wins. I remember one year I wanted one guy from a party to represent me, but I didn't want his party leader to be prime minister. You can have a great representative be in the wrong party. So make it two separate votes. One for your local rep and one for the prime minister.

4. Yes I know I said three but I just thought of a fourth. Allow our representatives to represent us. When King Mulrooney was in power he kicked out people who didn't agree with him. There should be room for dissention and our reps should be able to vote according to how they think the people they represent want them to vote, not according to what the prime minister tells them.

So there we go.

By the way, did anyone watch the wedding? Yes, I did stay up. It's history in the making. The dress was beautiful and she was glowing. I remember the other wedding - yes I am that old. The dress was overwhelming and Diana didn't look very happy. As it turns out she wanted to run and she should have but then we wouldn't have had this wedding. Let's hope that William and Katherine's (could you get any more regal sounding names?) marriage is a long and happy one. Will seems like a much better man than his father and might actually take those vows he made today seriously - unlike his lying, cheating dad(can you tell that all my sympathy went to Di?), and Kate seems far better prepared than Diana.

3 comments:

scorpiotwo said...

Why does the royal wedding matter they are people no one is better then anyone else

Stephanie Humphreys said...

Good thoughts about the election. I worked the last one, but didn't have the time this year. I am tired of voting every few years and can't even decide on who to vote for this year. Somehow it always comes down to the best of the worst.

I didn't get up and watch the wedding, but I watched the coverage the rest of the day. She was beautiful. Of course, they are no better than anyone else, but their story and the pagentry is just like watching a fairy tale. It is just something beautiful to watch in a world with so much trouble. We all need that kind of a break sometimes.

Anna Maria Junus said...

To scorpiotwo - it's part of history. It's important to know history.

We don't criticize when people get excited over the superbowl. That isn't important either, nor will it really be part of history.