FairvoteWRC Discussion Night 2018-04-25

Today's topic: Questions for candidates at ACMs

Held

Wednesday, 25 April 2018 from 7:00pm to 9:00pm

Location

Community Room at Bread And Roses Cooperative, 307 Queen Street South, Kitchener Map

Other business

• FairvoteWRC will be participating in the Yes Cambridge! event to celebrate and encourage a vote in favour of ranked ballots in the referendum during the fall municipal election.
  • There will be a meeting in mid-May, to be held at Sharon Sommerville's house.

• There was an article in The Record on Kitchener South--Hespeler PCO candidate Amy Fee's husband Craig Fee's improper use of his position as a radio announcer to make election commentary
  • The Record: Kitchener DJ’s political antics prompt complaints
  • Sharon Sommerville and others are vigorously pursuing this with complaints to Elections Ontario, and working on getting equal time on radio station 107.5 Dave Rocks

Questions for Candidates

• Are you going to support Electoral Reform?
  • Separate your opinion from the party line
    • Will the candidates only quote from their party policy?

• What is your party's platform on Electoral Reform?
  • What is your position?

• What's the plan?
  • How do you plan to work towards Proportional Representation?

• If your party holds the balance of power in a minority government, will you make Electoral Reform a condition for forming a coalition or agreement?

• Debates? Do you favour including Green Party leader Mike Schreiner in the televised leaders debates?
  • Andrea Horwarth has recently endorsed https://fairdebates.ca and Mike Schreiner
  • Kathleen Wynne endorsed https://fairdebates.ca and Mike Schreiner right after the media consortium announced they would exclude Green Pary leader Mike Schreiner

• How would you increase the youth vote?
  • Should 16 year olds have the right to vote?
  • Ask about beefing up the citizenship curriculum
    • The high school Civics course is only a 1/2 credit, make it a full credit?
    • Include educational material in all curricula, eg. math and literature

• Is Democratic Representation a central Canadian value?
  • How "Canadian" are you if you oppose that?
  • Does your platform reflect that?
  • Is Proportional Representation democratic enough?

• Is it right that all 42 Atlantic province (federal) seats are Liberal?
  • Democracy is not just "everybody gets to vote"
  • Start with "What is Democracy?"
  • 1/2 of the electorate did not vote Liberal but still deserve a place at the table

• Campaign Financing
  • Threshold for spending for political activities
    • eg. Canadian Unitarian Council and Cambridge Naturalists
  • Third-party regulations
    • Third parties provide education, for a more informed decision
    • Rich organizations have more influence than poor ones
      • They can afford to register and hire a CFO, and pay for an audit

• Candidates (Elected representatives) are not held accountable for election promises
  • Excuses:
    • "The financial books were worse than I thought"
    • "The job is more complicated than I thought"
    • "The previous government made a commitment, we now have a contractual obligation" (to follow through with their bad choices)
  • Electoral Reform gives us more confidence that these promises will be fulfilled
  • More cooperation between parties
  • Proportional Representation prevents hijacking the conversation
  • Ask about this issue as a question, how would you solve it?
    • The correct answer is Proportional Representation, of course!

• Increase the civics course to a full semester/credit
  • Include political philosophy, nuances between Conservatives and Liberals, Neo-Cons and Neo-Libs.
  • Add a civics component to all courses: math, language
  • Study differnt Electoral systems and their consequences, eg. voting in Russia with 120% voter turnout

• Look at the mandate of Elections Ontario to teach electoral awareness in schools
  • Municipalities: More controls from Elections Ontario
    • Consistency for municipalities, eg. ranked ballots; electronic voting; require by-elections, not appointments to fill vacancies
  • Voting is a community activity, a learning experience
  • Voting publicly is a statement