Peter MacKay quits: good riddance to bad rubbish!
- Thread starter phreak
- Start date
if they want to make voting mandatory they should give us a "none of the above" option on the ballot. I will be making my own version of "none of the above" in the next federal election by intentionally spoiling my ballot with a giant X over the whole thing. Mulcair would drive the economy over the cliff in less then a year, The Dauphin has two non operating brain cells and really nice hair and the Cons have to tell the so-cons to go fuck themselves so the adults can go about their lives. Therefor, no one to vote for.
that is the way to do it. Spoil your vote! I hope someone starts up a campaign on this (if it hasn't been done before)
McKay was MP for 18 years which is a pretty good run by MP standards. He may be tired of being on the job all the time, constant travel, never seeing his family, and the nonstop confrontational nature of politics and being in the House. He has a two year old that he would like to spend time with. If you had a two year old at, that you hardly ever got to see, wouldn't you think about quitting?
On another issue, how would you guys suggest we get better MPs?
There are constant complaints about MP's pensions and salaries. Do you actually think they should get less? Not many people can walk away from their job to campaign, let alone walk away from their job for four or five years. Say you are a worker in an auto plant and you get elected. GM is not going to hold your job for you. You lose an election and you are now unemployed. So there has to be a good pension and a good salary to get people to take the risk of running for election or serving as a member.
This is why we have an unrealistic selection of MPs. A lot of professionals ie lawyers, doctors, police, but very few average working class people. A lawyer or doctor can put his job on hold, a lot of police unions will allow sabbaticals, but a farmer cannot walk away from the farm for a few years.
On another issue, how would you guys suggest we get better MPs?
There are constant complaints about MP's pensions and salaries. Do you actually think they should get less? Not many people can walk away from their job to campaign, let alone walk away from their job for four or five years. Say you are a worker in an auto plant and you get elected. GM is not going to hold your job for you. You lose an election and you are now unemployed. So there has to be a good pension and a good salary to get people to take the risk of running for election or serving as a member.
This is why we have an unrealistic selection of MPs. A lot of professionals ie lawyers, doctors, police, but very few average working class people. A lawyer or doctor can put his job on hold, a lot of police unions will allow sabbaticals, but a farmer cannot walk away from the farm for a few years.
imo, this is classic political party maneuvering to ensure orderly succession of a party leader
next party leader (mckay) steps aside so as to miss out on the bad reputation associated with the last party leader (harper) when the last party leader does what he's gotta do (economics, corruption, scandal... whatever)
then during the ensuing calamity when harper announces his retirement, mckay returns from the hinterland as the pc white knight and easily wins the nomination for party leader
e.g., anybody remember vander zalm?
next party leader (mckay) steps aside so as to miss out on the bad reputation associated with the last party leader (harper) when the last party leader does what he's gotta do (economics, corruption, scandal... whatever)
then during the ensuing calamity when harper announces his retirement, mckay returns from the hinterland as the pc white knight and easily wins the nomination for party leader
e.g., anybody remember vander zalm?
Nope. Once you have tasted power, the idea of going back to just another MP is not so appealing.
If the Liberals gain power they will probably be there for at least two terms of parliament....that is a long time to wait spinning your wheels if you have aspirations of being prime minister. McKay knows his time is done, that is why he is moving on when he is ahead.
Oh, one more thing, the reason why so many of them are professionals or at least successful business types is because those sorts of people tend to be organized and driven, while the average working class man/woman has neither of those qualities. Leaders come from the ranks of leaders, not the led.
Something I think has been left out regarding democratic process.
You have the right to vote, the right to not vote. You can even spoil your ballot if you like.
One thing everyone has forgotten is you can run for office. Encourage and support others who you believe in.
I Don't think you are as limited in terms of options as you think. If no elected official meets your standard.
Then run for office and make the changes yourself. But of course that would entail actually taking some form of positive action instead of blaming and complaining.
At least the current elected officials tried to do something about effecting positive change.
You have the right to vote, the right to not vote. You can even spoil your ballot if you like.
One thing everyone has forgotten is you can run for office. Encourage and support others who you believe in.
I Don't think you are as limited in terms of options as you think. If no elected official meets your standard.
Then run for office and make the changes yourself. But of course that would entail actually taking some form of positive action instead of blaming and complaining.
At least the current elected officials tried to do something about effecting positive change.
you clearly don't have a grip on reality
most MP's, MLA's, municipal politicians nowadays aren't "professionals", haven't been for a few decades, the days of them being mostly lawyers is long gone
we had a farmer in Alberta for 16+yrs, his spineless, balless, self made it up to Premier, until someone threatened to call him names and he tucked his dick between his legs and ran away like a little girl with his 1 million plus lottery win, which you think he deserved
we had another fucker who after being there 32yrs got a million plus, would have worked out to getting over 2000/month severance, plus he's still on the old pension system, will be getting 50 grand a yr or so till he's dead, he did nothing of note in those 32yrs, was replaced by a broomstick of a person, no one noticed the difference, the public still got screwed over :nod:
poor John Baird, yeah, he's had such a hard time slipping back into the working world :doh:
how about all the other useless assholes who barely put in 12yrs and got a 100, 000+ pension they only put a dollar in for every 24 the public did?
do you even have a clue what kind of money you'd need to put away every year to generate that kind of pension? in only 12yrs?
they don't have trouble adapting back to society, jobs, they're morons in our society who are more than willing to line up to try to exploit their connections/supposed intelligence when it comes to gov't dealings
Ralph Klien, a demented drunk, got snapped up right away, he was a barely high school educated ex reporter
we have a suit salesman on Edm city council, a former bus driver as the new transportation minister in Alberta
they're overpaid seat warmers, they're mostly the equivalent of board of directors of a company, of which don't meet often enough to speak of and don't do anything of note, the bureaucrats do the work, always have, another part of the problem
look at the days sat for legislators across Canada, they sit less than a third of the year
except for municipal, whose biggest concern is dealing with the annoying person who keeps complaining about the neighbours cat pissing on their flowers, they sit about half
politicians biggest activity is trying to get people to know who the fuck they are and trying to get people to re-elect them to keep their job, going to openings, luncheons isn't work, it's campaigning
feds, 6yrs, pretty much a 50,000/yr pension, if you think that's fair, you're delusional, they're pretty much all in the top 10% of wage earners in Canada, you think they're the cream of the crop? hardly
working class/professional, doesn't make a difference, it's the system
Yes, you can run for the office... But how far will you be able to get even if you are quite popular? MLA or MP, and obviously a backbench one. Which means you won't be in a position to seriously affect anything: you'll have your own one vote in a legislative assembly/parliament - that's it.
You can't run for Premier/Prime Minister. And why is that? Here is the trick - premiers/prime ministers are NOT democratically elected - strangely they are selected by a group of MLAs/MPs who claim to belong to the same political association (party). The funny thing is that belonging to a particular political party is a joke - MLAs/MPs can easily 'cross the floor' without absolutely no consequences for themselves, and often do. In reality voters vote for individuals, not for political parties, and the fact that these individuals may belong to some political association is of not much importance compare to who they are as personalities. But somehow it doesn't work this way for those who have real power - premier/prime minister. They don't need the approval of all the voters - just a few individuals belonging to the same 'gang', which may not even have support of the majority of voters.
So once an unelected individual becomes the Premier/Prime Minister, he/she clearly represents the executive power (forms the government). This fact doesn't prevent him/her and other government ministers from voting in the legislative assembly/parliament and passing new laws! This is a disaster! Executive power (government) must have no business passing new laws - it must be separated from the legislative power (legislative assembly/parliament): this is another fundamental principle of any democracy.
As a direct result of this system we have Peter MacKay easily passing fascist laws. Keep in mind, the system we have was historically implemented as a tool of colonialism: its main purpose was to prevent any fairness and get away with racism, sexism, discrimination and genocide. And to make practically impossible for 'outsiders' to get involved in any decision making.
'Running for office' won't help - the system must be changed first!
most people voter for a party or at best the leader. If that weren't true we wouldn't have a socialist gov't in AB now. Too many placeholder candidates got accidently elected. Same thing happened in the last federal election in Quebec.
Voters may have preferences when it comes to candidate's membership in a political party - it doesn't mean though they are willing to vote just for any asshole who belongs to the party of their choice. A good example is the last provincial elections in BC: BCNDP could have easily won the elections as most voters were not happy with organized crime (BC Liberals) completely replacing government institutions. But just because BCNDP leader at that time (Adrian Dix) happened to be a complete idiot in addition to his forgery past, BC is probably the only mob run province in Canada right now. So I wouldn't say people don't care about candidate's personality at all...
Hate to say it....I have to agree with phreak about Dix....but, it comes as surprise to hear that Christy is Italian......
Christy has an intellect of a village idiot - it's just a disgrace that such a person can actually run the province. But in reality she is a puppet of organized crime: no sane politician of any political background would allow to make a Canadian province the money laundering centre of the world.
