In the Chatham-Kent area, I’m saying area because over the years the riding boundaries have changed many times. There have been many citizens who have ran for political office from school boards to Federal Government. Most ran because they thought they could make a difference. Of course there are some who run for selfish reasons.

I always find it interesting that candidates always say that they will stand up for the voters, that their voice will be heard. Generally that’s true on local school boards and in Municipal Government. Not so much in Provincial and Federal Governments.

We have had Doctors, business owners, farmers, teachers, lawyers, university educated and high school run. All brought value to the table. We may agree or disagree on their or their parties positions. We may have thought they were the best candidate but didn’t like their party or the leader of their party. We may have liked the party but not the candidate.

It must be a huge shock to find out when candidates get elected that if they are on the governments backbench that they are told what to say, when to say it, and that the leaders office provides your speaking notes. To some extent that applies to the opposition members as well although there is more of an effort to include new Members.

It’s time to rethink how parliament functions after all everyone was elected to represent a riding. We should have a system that allows Members the right to speak up on issues that affect their riding negativly regardless of party affiliation. They should be able to vote in the best interest of the riding or province or country without threats of sanction or expulsion from the party caucus. The opposition parties should be able to move admendments that would improve a piece of legislation with out the threat of an election. But it seems that it’s power that they seek not good government.

Check the comment section on election costs. A reader brought my attention to the amount of money the candidates can spend on elections at the local level. Currently candidates can spend up to $79,000 and if they receive 10% of the vote they get back 60% of their expenses. That means the tax payers are on the hook for $47,400. Many candidates run a campaign on less than $30,000 so why can’t everyone do that and save tax payer dollars.

I believe we can have a more effective Government by allowing full participation of elected Members. If we start looking for small savings they will add up and become a substantial amount over time.

Three hundred million dollars that’s what it costs to hold a federal election and when you add the cost of provincial and municipal elections the cost to tax payers is enormous. We’ve had 3 Federal elections since 2004. That’s 900,000,000 dollars. There are also other costs for example if you drive to the polling station to vote you pay for the fuel to get there and add more pollution to the air.

We currently vote at polling stations which has two workers at a cost of $350 and there is often as many as 200 polling stations in a riding and currently there are 307 ridings. That’s over 21,000,000 DOLLARS for one day. That doesn’t count the cost of 307 Elections Canada riding offices and trainers and admin personnel for 4 to 5 weeks, paper, Internet connections etc. I know there are costs that I don’t have access to.

I know that this puts tax payer money back into the communities in the form of wages, office rent and supplies. But in my view there are much better places for that money. You could help adults get their grade 12, improve health care, subsidize child care, increase home care, fund environmental clean up projects and a host of other things. I’m in favour of using tax payer dollars to improve our society but I want the money spent wisely and with proper accountability.

To spend our tax dollars more wisely I would suggest that we vote on line. The vast majority have Internet access and are at least able to go on line to search for information. For those don’t have access or don’t have the knowledge other accommodation can be made.

I can hear it all now we’ve always voted this way ( not true ) not secure ( we do EI and income tax, and buy on line wouldn’t that info be secure?), people will hack in and flood the process with ballots ( there are ways ensure one person one vote) and I’m sure there would be other reasons why we couldn’t or shouldn’t do it.

Here are the reasons why I think we should. We would save millions of tax payer dollars. Maybe more people would vote. There might be a way to have a “vote” pop up when people start their computers for a couple days before voting days. People wouldn’t have to go to an advanced pole they could vote anywhere there is Internet access. People who are house bound or disabled could vote easier. The results would be faster and you could have them at the same time.

What I don’t get is that there are obvious common sense ways to save money and streamline procedures but it doesn’t happen. I know that there are millions of people a lot smarter than I am ( some might be MP’s) so I’m sure they could come up with some money saving ideas. So what is the problem? I wish I knew.

As an aside I think that we should outlaw lawn signs that are not environmentally friendly.

I am often pleased that average Canadians are progressive in the views on many issues. I am equally disappointed on how out of touch Canadian politicians are with their own citizens. I’m also distressed that they don’t work together to provide good government. They waste time acting worst than children by insulting each other and yelling at each other. Then they run to the press and tell us how bad the other MP’s are to them. No wonder no one wants to vote.

Back to the progressive Canadians. I have just read an article by Bob Hepburn in the Toronto Star (Mar 12 2009). He was commenting on a survey done by Canada World  www.canadasworld.ca  The survey included over 104,000 Canadians on what Canada’s international role should be. With out going into detail I’m just going to pass on what Canadians think should be the five areas that need to be in a strong Canadian foreign policy.

First, they want Ottawa to advance the idea of a green economy, reducing our ecological foot print, investing in green technology and supporting cities in long term sustainable planning.

Second, they support embracing diversity, with Ottawa fostering intercultural dialogue, honouring our links with aboriginal peoples and leveraging our global connections in foreign relations,business and policy development.

Third, they want Ottawa to promote good governance around the world and to get Canadians interested in politics and governance again. ( The reason behind this web site).

Fourth, they want to foster innovation, especially in green technology, health, the social economy and the communications technology.

Fifth, they want to enhance the notion of equality, with Ottawa assuming a leadership role in fighting global poverty and championing human rights and inequality at home and abroad.

It would be great if the politicians acted on these recommendations in stead of acting like children, …….no worse than children they know better. Is it to much to ask that our leaders actually act like leaders?

It’s March and tax time is here again. Don’t you just hate tax time! I know that used properly taxes are beneficial. For all it’s flaws we have a a health care system that everyone can access with out losing your home. We also benefit from having a fire and police service, food inspection, water, sewage treatment waste removal and so on.

The real problem is that the tax system is unfair. First of all if you check with any tax accountant you will find that there are volumes of tax codes. If we were audited there would likely be errors in many of our returns. Even if we pay to have our returns done we are responsible for the return not the person who prepared it.

I think we should scrap the system and start over for example we could have:

• No personal income tax on the first $35,000 income meaning that you pay no tax on income up to $35,000 gross income. This might be to low because it would mean that you scrap all the deductions that cause so many head aches. We already have a child benefit that could be adjusted or revised to address the issue of children in lower income families.

• Next level would be from $35,001 to $100,000 would be at 15%, $100,001 to $250, 000 20% everything above $250,001 25%.

• For people who have a home based business set up a simple system that would allow the deduction of expenses but only up to the income achieved.

• Revise the way that small businesses are taxed so that they can prosper.

• Review the corporate tax system to insure that they are paying their fair share and implement a system that the taxes owed are paid. There are large corporations that owe the Government millions in unpaid taxes.

You could still have the RRSP program although that may depend on your income. It might be better to put money into a tax free account.

Wouldn’t be nice if you could do your income tax on one page? Earned $40,000 minus $35.000 equals $5000 times 15% equals $750.00 owed DONE! Send a check.

Since most of us make less than $100,000 won’t there be a shortage of money to deliver the Government programs? Well in order to be a fair tax system corporations should contribute a fair amount. Right now corporations are taxed at 15% of net earnings meaning that if a company doesn’t have any earnings they don’t pay anything. Individual tax payers, that means you and me, carry 70% of the tax burden at all levels of Government.

Instead of making things simpler MP’s seem to go out of their way to make things more difficult by adding more stuff to the tax code that we won’t know about. Chances there are deductions that we could use but don’t know about.

I people will think what I have just suggested is unworkable and maybe it is and thats ok if I get people thinking outside the box and start pushing the MP’s to do something positive on tax rates.

In the last post I talked about how political parties packaged their message to encourage voters to support their party during an election. The message is a product of research not of belief or party ideals which are often different. This is the main reason that voters think politicians aren’t telling the truth. Every political party has a idealogical focus. This simply means that the members of that party believes that Governments should follow their beliefs. There can be and often is a disconnect between what a party runs on and what the party ideals are.

You may have heard of the term right wing or left wing parties. Right wing parties are conservative in their political positions. Conservative in a political party concept usually means that they believe in low taxes and small Government. Left wing parties are liberal in their political positions. This usually means that they will use tax dollars to provide a more inclusive Government. Because a party is called Conservative or Liberal doesn’t mean that they are the most conservative or the most liberal in their views far from it . There are parties that are extremely right or left. The governing parties are usually center left or center right. That means that they are either slightly right or left of the citizens.

Conservatives think that it should be every person for themselves and Government should only be concerned with law and order, trade, defense, immigration, foreign affairs, low taxes and so on. What they don’t want to do is provide is help for the poorer citizens like universal health care, employment insurance and child care. They do the social programs because if they don’t they won’t get elected. They would be considered to be center right. Currently they are farther right of center than they have been in the past.

The Liberals are generally more inclined to promote the use of tax payer dollars for social programs. They are likely to put tax payer dollars into education, health care, women and children’s programs etc. When they do this and try keep taxes at a reasonable level they would be considered to be left of center.

There are parties that are farther right and they want to deregulate everything and have very minimal government intervention. They believe that the free market system would take care of all the citizens needs. There are parties that are extreame left who want to regulate everything. Most citizens are not far from the center.

The parties that are further left that want the Government to intervene more. They want more regulation on companies for example on environmental issues. They also would like to have a national child care program, pharmacare, a poverty reduction program, increased educational opportunities and environmental solutions to name a few.

Lastly there are the one issue parties they only want to change one thing. An example would be the marijuana party who want to legalize marijuana. We can’t forget the humour parties that have a laugh at the expense of politicians.

Democracy is defined as: A form of government or organization in which the citizens or members choose leaders or make other important decisions by voting.

We in Canada have the right to vote and are able to exercise that right with out interference. So why do forty percent stay home on voting day? Maybe they just aren’t into it or maybe they aren’t into to the political party system or the leaders.

I’ve talked to many people who believe that their vote doesn’t count. That it doesn’t matter which party gets elected nothing will change. I’ve been told that politicians are all lairs and will say what you want to hear to get a vote. There is truth in those observations but not for the reasons one might think.

How did we get to the point where so many people are disillusioned? Well simply put we are elected by poles and governed by ideology. Political parties poll the voters to find out what the important issues are for the majority. Sometimes it’s easy for example when there is high unemployment and a poor economy they develop a position which they believe would get the majority of voters to vote for them. It works because they regurgitate the information that the pollsters got from you and me.

Companies that do poles ( surveys)on voters are very good at getting the most accurate information from voters. They know for example that of the 40% that don’t vote the vast majority come from 2 groups the young and the poor. When they call to find out what’s on the voters mind the don’t call poor neighborhoods or apt buildings. They know that baby boomers and seniors are the largest voting block so they will ask qualifying questions like are you between 18 and 30, 30 and 45, 45 and 60 and over 60.

Another question might be: how important is the environment to you “not important”, “somewhat important”, “very important”, “extremely important” to you. Hopefully you get the idea. The party strategists then develop an election platform based on the poles results.

The next step is to develop an advertisement campaign. There are 2 types of ads. First they develop ads based on the polling information. They incorporate the concerns that were identified in the poles and the proposed solution for those concerns in ads targeted towards to people that normally vote.

Second they develop ads that discredit the other party, it’s leaders and their proposed solutions. In Canada the attack ads are usually directed toward the other party platforms. Recently they have become more vicious and directed at party leaders. Ads work for companies and they work for election campaigns.

So what can we do? Well for starters we can ignore the political ads and do our own research.  When we get poled we could give false answers or not do the poles. We could make it illegal to do poles during an election campaign. We could have the party leaders hooked up to a lie detectors during the debates hey I’m just say’in it might help. One thing is for sure we need to find a better way to hold politicians to a higher standard.

Most Canadians know we have a House of Commons and a Senate. Ask someone about the House of Commons you’ll get an answer for example: home of the spin doctors, say anything to get elected, you probably have your own less flattering description. But at least we elect them.

How did we end up with a second level of Government that are not required to be elected? Well back in the 1860’s when the Canadian colonies negotiated Confederation the primary worry was that the participation of “regular citizens” would be detrimental to good government. Having witnessed the behavior of the Members of Parliament over the last few years it appears that there was reason for concern.

The Fathers of Confederation decided to provide an appointed body ( the Senate) which would exercise sober second thought. The Senate was to comprise of economic and social elite. They would act as a check on the commoners or lower classes in the House of Commons. Gee the more things change the more they stay the same. Now the MP’s we elect think the voters are commoners.

There are 105 sears in the Senate the base pay is 130,500. The tax payers pay $13,920,000.00 a year in Senators base salaries. That doesn’t count additional pay for additional responsibilities which increases their pay or perks like car allowance.

So what to do? Currently the Prime Minister gets to appoint people to the Senate. I guess if you give to the cause or have botox injected lips you could get a $130,000 a year gift.

How can we change it? What if we hold a lottery? There are 105 seats, so we could hold a draw for 21 seats every 5 years. We’ll need qualifications right! Ok you need a high school diploma and be between 30 and 70 years old.

Now we will need some skill testing questions here are just a few possibilities:

Name a Prime Minister not born in Canada.

Name a Prime Minister that was in frequent contact with his deceased mother, relatives and friends.

Name a Prime Minister who declared war on a Canadian Province.

Name 2 candidates who ran in your riding in the last Federal election. ( Oct 2008)

Name the Prime Minister who won the Nobel Peace Prize.

After you pass the skill testing questions then comes the hard part for example can you sleep sitting up for long periods of time. Can you wake up and ask in depth or any questions. Can you take vacations to a warm countries in the winter time and call them trade missions. If you can do all this and more on tax payers expense then you might be a Senator.

Under our current system the Political party members elect the party leaders. About 5% of Canadian voters gets to decide who will be the Prime Minister of Canada, the party members. Up until now that means either the Liberals or Conservatives. So out of 27,000,000 voters only about 500,000 voters decide which party leader will be Prime Minister. That doesn’t seem fair but that’s the way the system works.

The party that wins the most seats in the House of Commons leads the Government and that party’s leader becomes the Prime Minister. She/He then selects members of his/her party to hold Ministerial positions in the Government. When a party doesn’t hold the majority of seats but more that any of the other parties then they govern as long as they have the confidence of a majority of the Members. If they lose confidence then there could be an election (most often) or 2 or more parties COULD form the Government by forming a coalition. That’s very rare.

What options are there? Don’t we have to keep the system that we have?

Well since we are a democracy we can make changes to the current system or we could even develop a completely new system if we want. Actually we could do a number of things.

Let’s have some fun with this. You could eliminate the parties and elect Members of Parliament the same way we elect Municipal Governments vote for the best candidate. Each candidate would have to put forward their own platform, answer questions based on what they thought was the best solution. We could elect the Prime Minister the same way we elect the Mayor, separate from the Member races.

It could make elections a lot more interesting. Suppose the candidates included comedians Rick Mercer, Ron James or Russell Peters or athletes Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Steve Nash and Jason Bay or environmentalists David Suzuki or Elizabeth May. We could really have interesting elections then.

Maybe we could get people to run who want to make Canada a better country, to provide good government, to have vision for the future, to be part of the solution not part of the problem.

In Canada we like parties not just the parties where you go and drink and have a good old time. We like political parties. Well we must because since July 1st 1867 when we became the Dominion of Canada there have been 169 political parties.

Currently there are 4 political parties with members in the house of commons. They are the Conservative Party of Canada, the Liberal Party of Canada, the New Democratic Party and the Bloc Que’be’cois. There are also 15 other parties registered by Elections Canada, 24 unregistered parties, 45 historical parties that have elected members to Parliament and 68 historical parties that nominated candidates.

There are unique and interesting political parties in Canada like the Sex Party, the Work Less Party, the Marijuana Party, the Party Party, the Canadian Extreme Wrestling Party, the Absolutely Absurd Party, the Neorhino Party and Popular Party of Prostitutes among many others. From time to time political parties will merge to form a new political party the latest was the Progressive Conservative party and Reform Alliance party to form the Conservative Party of Canada. I liked it better when they called themselves the Canadian Conservative Reform Alliance Party or CCRAP for short.

So what if some of these parties decided to merge well how about these suggestions:

The Sex Party joins the Work Less Party to become the Work Less More Sex Party or

The Marijuana Party and the Party Party to form the Marijuana Party Party or

The Conservative Party and the Canadian Extreme Wrestling Party to form the Conservative Extreme Wrestling Party or

Popular Party of Prostitutes and the Bloc Que’be’cois to form the Popular Party of Bloc Prostitutes or

The Absolutely Absurd Party and the Liberal Party to form the Absolutely Absurd Liberal Party.

I’m just saying that it would make politics more fun and maybe more people would vote.

So why do we have now and in the past so many political parties? Clearly it’s about agenda’s. The members of each political party has a political view that they want to put in place. Some are dedicated to their cause (Green Party), some want to bring a lighter side to the political process (the Neorhino party) and others want a stage to promote change (the Marijuana party).They range from the extreme on each side. Each party has members that don’t think it’s party goes far enough or thinks it goes to far. Some parties are one issue parties for example the work less party advocates for shorter hours of work so that unemployment will be eliminated or at least reduced. The main parties want to Govern, power is their goal and will often say what the voters want to hear to get elected.

The current system is called first past the post system which means that like a horse race the candidate with the most votes wins. This usually means a candidate from one of the three main parties. The party that elects the most members usually Governs. (It has happened when there isn’t one party with a majority of the members two parties will form a coalition government.) In recent years this means that a party could and often does have the majority of sitting members with less than 50% of the popular vote.

There is a movement advocating change to the current electoral system. In fact British Columbia and Ontario explored changing the electoral system in those Provinces. Both of the recommended systems were voted down by the electorate. It appeared that both Provincial Governments lacked much enthusiasm for the recommend change and it was defeated. It would have been simpler to ask if the people want to change the system first then developed options.

Next article we’ll talk about option’s.