romanP romanP:
Well, it's true. If you can't breathe, how are you going to make money, and what would you do with money in a world where no one can even breathe anyway?
Yea, and the Conservatives are going to take away all your air.
$1:
You mean if a cause is rich enough. The Reform party had some rather large financial backers in their early days. I don't think the same can be said of the Green Party.
They get $1.95/vote/year (one instance of which has been mine since '08, but they won't get it again), so they're not exactly impoverished. And no, I don't believe for a second that the Reform party's success was based on money. They contested the '88 election and elected nobody, despite getting 2% of the vote. The political landscape shifted dramatically between '88 and '93, and
that gave rise to the Reform party (and the Bloc, for that matter).
$1:
That shouldn't matter. You're talking about a difference of one seat, not a difference of 146 seats changing to 127 seats. The argument of "you don't have a seat, you can't debate" doesn't hold much water when you consider that the only parties that have ever held seats are in the same position now as they were thirty years ago. The only thing that has changed is that two major parties became one, so we lost a choice. Our democracy is stagnating, and it's plainly obvious when we keep having elections with the same results that nobody wants.
It very much does matter. One is going from some to less, the other is going from a trifling to NOTHING. THat means something. It means that nothing was accomplished. That the effort was at best for nought, and at worst a serious distraction from those that do deliver.
And 30 years ago, by my math, is 1981. In 1981, we had Liberals, Progeressive Conservatives and NDP elected. Today we have Liberals, Conservatives, NDP and Bloc elected. That seems to me like one MORE choice than before, not one fewer. And among the nonelected, we used to have the Social Credit with 1%, and now we have the Greens with 7%, so we're not any poorer there either. Which two parties do you think became one between '81 and now?
$1:
That'll be great when our government is run by football coaches and the rules of football. But it isn't, so your analogy is irrelevant.
Ooo, pithy. Give the man a prize.
$1:
Whoa, what? Did we have a successful referendum to get rid of first-past-the-post that I missed? Wow, that must have been a long nap...
No, we didn't, and that's exactly my point. The system is the same now as it was in 2008, so there's no reason to expect that May's inclusion in the debate now won't be any different than it was in 2008 - a lot of sound and fury accomplishing nothing, to paraphrase some old guy.
Change the system, then we can change the metric for participation in the debate from seats to popular vote, but the standard remains the same - electability.
$1:
Of course it does, when there's always such a massive slander campaign against them to make sure nobody votes for them. Hell, a lot of people won't vote for them just because their leader is a woman. So much for progress?
Oh please, if nobody voted for them, how did they manage 7% of the popular vote??? Is a consitent argument too much to ask? Or are you drunk?
Kim Campbell, fall girl that she was, still managed to get two seats. McLaughlin won 9 in '93 (and with a
very similar popular vote as May got in '08). McDonough won 21 in '97. Women can elect MPs.
$1:
Just because you change your mind it doesn't make you right.
No, it doesn't. Logic and reason make me right.
CKA Elite 
CKA Elite 
Ya I know, not gonna happen.
