Reasons Why I’m Campaigning for FAIR VOTE CANADA

This is the online launch of my campaign to get elected to the National Council of Fair Vote Canada, to be held at the Annual General Meeting June 2013.

I’m looking to get as many votes as I can get from members of FVC so that I can be successful over all the other excellent, highly educated, and impressive candidates. Also, it would also be amazing to increase FVC membership and with the membership’s help, make great strides forward on getting electoral reform back on the main table. Please read on, and if you think I have some ideas you like, please reply below with comments, suggestions, and encouragement to my efforts, whatever they turn out to be.

The debate about changing the system has been going on for so many decades, it’s hard to believe anyone still cares. But I do, and so do a lot of other informed people. I’m not talking about Senate reform right now, not talking about provincial reform (perhaps the appetite for that conversation will come back for provinces in the future). I’m talking about National Electoral Reform for Democracy (yes, the acronym for that is NERD). I would like the frustrated people of the regions of this country to come together in learning, come together in proper, well-funded discussion and come together to change the way this whole, magnificent country of ours is affected by the decisions of our elected officials in parliament, once and for all.

The democratic system is really not working properly right now, it just isn’t. There are a lot of voices in Canada that are being silenced, ignored, or falsely-welcomed (for example, you get to write to a government ministry about your concern, but it’s never actually acknowledged). Getting “face time” or writing a letter to the elected officials may get a little speech time in the House or a polite email reply, but those token responses are not enough to effect change if the majority of the Members are being whipped into “proper puppet position” to keep in line with the dictated party message. If that message is not in line with the thinking of a large cross-section of the demographic, for example environmentalists (from any and all political parties), then that pool of people, regardless of which affected provinces and regions they are living in, are not represented. More simply put, a system is not purely democratic if a large majority of people do not get their first ballot choice as their elected official, because they may not have the representation they need after the election.

We need a system that uses some form of proportional representation (PR). There is more to come on this topic in future letters to be posted. Fair Vote Canada (FVC) is the organization of choice to get the topic of electoral reform back on the high-priority list of government, and the priority of FVC has always been to pick the most fair system, and that happens to be a PR system. These are my beliefs also, and so I want to help change the system, and obviously, I need to do it in a non-partisan way. No worries, I can do that.

It’s just “you and me and FVC”, looking forward to volunteering for Fair Vote Canada and hopefully working with you in the process. Hey, don’t forget to write a response.