James O'Grady
I am the founder of Unpublished Media Inc., a company I started in 2012. I am also a communications professional and community activist, living in Nepean, Ontario. And, I am a hockey goaltender, political hack and most importantly, an advocate for grassroots, participatory democracy at all levels of government.
Contributor's
Unpublished Opinions
I was happy to read this morning on Macleans.ca that NDP leader Tom Mulcair took a strong stand...
The open letter below is on behalf of Canadian artists who are concerned about how Bill C-51...
This is a brief chronology of the current Conservative Canadian government’s long campaign to...
Last week the Canadian political website iPolitics.ca published an article about the release of a...
In response to Ottawa City Councillor Jan Harder's comments in the Ottawa Citizen about the...
Everything Daniel Alfredsson touches turns to gold... when it comes to the Ottawa Senators that is...
Comments by James O'Grady
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Very interesting. Almost all say no because "it's their land". The women appear to be the most ardent. Pretty much makes it impossible to live together in peace if one side or even both sides refuse to live with one another. The core of their position seems to have been formed around the force used to displace them and the disrespect shown to Palestinians by Israel settlers.
Thoughts?
Don't disagree with most of what you're saying. We need a change in leadership at a very minimum. The world is moving faster than we seem to be.
FPTP hasn't worked since multiple parties started to arise, over 100 years ago. Strategic voting has been a things for a long time. I think it's why the NPD have never formed government at the federal level. Many ridings are often won by less than 50% of the popular vote. Which is what we've seen every election in my 57 years except for Brian Mulroney's first majority government. It was a true majority. But, it has been the only one.
The problem is that this means more than 50% of the votes cast were cast for other parties or candidates. Leading to a majority of the people being dissatisfied with the outcome from the outset. And, of course, as time moves on they become less and less engaged. Low turnout becomes the outcome, which is the opposite of what a strong democracy needs. Corruption loves a vacuum, people need to engage in our democracy. I believe voting is mandatory in Australia. Is that a solution? They also use a proportional system.
I think it would help if we could find some way to better reflect the will of the collective majority in parliament rather than that of the minority. Somehow doesn't make sense to me.
Thanks for the feedback.