As regular readers of this blog will know I have been pursuing the idea of an Unparty. But, coming out of the last miserable election there are growing calls to Unite the Left. So, am I thinking along the wrong lines? Should a broad 'Unite the Left' movement be pushing at the range of political parties that are to the left of George Bush?I'm torn on this. I can see some interesting platforms and very good teams coming out of a united left and I'm certainly tired of the left getting 2/3rds of the vote but being shut out of power. I'm apprehensive though about a US style two party system. It's a bit like having two restaurants and no kitchen - the two parties (right and left) present menus (platforms) but if your issues aren't on the menu it is very difficult to put them there.
So, just to get a bearing on what people are thinking - what do you think?
10 comments:
I think the parties need to remain separate . . . we need all of the perspectives. What we really need is for the parties of the left to come to a strategic agreement, to take the next opportunity to form a progressive government, and enact electoral and parliamentary reform, in order to ensure that subsequent Canadian governments accurately reflect the will of the majority of Canadian voters.
Akbar: I am tempted, sorely tempted, to agree with you. I'm not convinced that we need a US-style "two party" set-up even now with all the troubles of the last few years.
I don't like the idea of the Unparty partly because of definition by negation.
I do like the idea of the Unparty for the sentiment that is at its core.
To wit, I don't think uniting the left accomplishes that. Isn't that a mega party, then? Doesn't that essentially make a two party system of the US? Where's the flexibility in that?
Ideally there would be no parties, just individual candidates up against each other in individual ridings, and then loose, overlapping coalitions could form between the candidates, and then the elected representatives, around specific issues. That would actually maybe at least begin to represent the major and nuanced patterns that come out of the very different parts of this country.
And wouldn't it be great if instead a major national election every four years there were little elections going on in different ridings at different times, on some reasonable, flexible pattern that actually reflected local and world issues, injecting fresh ides into the governing body at fairly frequent intervals?
Who would be at the top? Maybe the top position could be more like the role of a reporter/negotiator rather than any kind of decision maker. Maybe there could be a handful of people who were in power of the main issues, somebody would be great at negotiating trade and peace internationally, another could focus on environment and innovation, another arts and culture. I guess that could be like a kind of restructured heads of ministries council. Maybe there wouldn't be any single person with anything even resembling executive power or decision making.
I lieu of such heady idealism, or maybe on a path towards it, I would at least restructure the way election money gets doled out. Just because you were in power or got more votes the last time, why should you get more money this time? Things change in four years. That's a small bite, easy enough to chew.
I don't think fewer parties would reduce the political posturing that postures as political discourse in our and most western countries these days.
There is a crisis of leadership, that much is clear. Our age and culture is fairly adept at things like technology, infrastructure, social evolution - we can argue about what could be included on that list. Nobody can argue that, on a national leve, we absolutely suck at leadership, at growing political leaders!
We need to look for other models for leadership. Wouldn't it be great, for example, if one could call the government of Canada, with a straight face and even enthusiasm, the Council of Elders? I've never heard of an elder that got to his or her position through ambition or self promotion.
I say keep all the parties, add more parties. Break the big parties up. Restructure funding for parties, for candidates running for office, at least.
I chose your last poll option, but honestly none of them are acceptable.
I am not at all happy with the current situation, but at the same time I think uniting the left is a terrible, anti-democratic idea (I thought uniting the right was the same).
The obvious end state of combining parties to seize a larger share of the vote is to just go with one party.
I want more parties than we have right now, from all parts of the political spectrum, but operating in an electoral system that gives something closer to proportional representation so more voices, not fewer, are heard.
I would support an electoral or parliamentary coalition among these parties, but I wouldn't go as far as to say they should unite. There's no chance they would agree to it anyway. The best solution I can come up with right now is electoral reform.
I think uniting the parties is a pretty terrible idea - surely pursuing electoral reform (and pressuring parties on the left to do the same) is a much better option.
Why switch to a two party system that just ensures that parties do little to distinguish themselves? We're intelligent enough to handle more options, let's just get an electoral system that let's us express our preference and then the parties on the left can begin making formal and informal agreements.
I did not answer the poll.
Putting energy into uniting parties would be an unproductive use of our energy on the Left. Putting energy into convincing all parties that we need electoral reform, in order to avoid the kind of Parliamentary dictatorship we've seen in the last two or three elections, would be a more productive use of our energies.
Furthermore, I take issue with the suggestions that the Liberals and the Greens are parties of the Left. The GPC's economic platform is akin to that of John Diefenbaker's Conservatives. And Liberals like John Manley and Iggy are far from Leftist.
What are you THINKING?! Americans are always complaining that they don't like either party in their two party system, and they'd rather not vote for either of them! We don't want a two party system like in the US... it's practically like having a one party system but with a "choice". "do you want the crappy leader, or just the bad one?" Yeah no fun.
What we NEED is to have the right wing parties split back out the way they were... so people who were conservative voters but perhaps not insane religious zealots who want to be America can still have a choice, and all can be right with the Canadian political spectrum. We "left voters" don't want to be in the same boat as those poor moderate conservative voters.
This is a TERRIBLE idea. What we need is the return of the PC party into federal politics. Then the amount of right wing votes can be spread fairly, as the left wing votes are, and Canada will once again choose its leader based not on the fact that the small minority who "won't vote left" is left with no choice but Harper.
Keep them seperate.
While I agree that the system we have is at it's most democratic if people are only in one of two parties, I think it's the system not the parties that need to be changed.
Recently I read an article about Proportioanl Representation that said only 37% of Ontarians voted for it and called it "underwhelming", while it defended the system we have. If 37% is underwhelming, then the Conservative victory was...
We should try run-off elections.
As an intermediate step en route to transferable votes, that could be helpful...
Post a Comment