Potemkin Democracy

An interesting story this morning in the Globe about our undemocratic seat allocation in the House. It suggests that the need to make the House more reflective of the reality of Canada is an urgent need. Somehow, I doubt the government sees giving more seats to the cities and fewer from rural areas, a top priority. Conservatives like having the farm vote with a larger share than is its due. It suits their interests just fine thank you. As for the other parties, they are such chicken shits, they would never insult our rural masters by suggesting that they wield too much power in this country.

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A Modest Proposal

The House is a very uncivilized place these days. It has gotten to the point where Jack Layton had to make a statement about the lack of civility, yesterday. It made no difference, apparently.

MP's are able to get away with bad behaviour in the House because they are anonymous. The rules of the House forbid moving the single TV camera away from the member speaking at that moment. I propose that that rule be dropped. Instead there should be several cameras in the House and they should be able to switch shots at any time from speaker to any other part of the House. Let's see the yahoo's in action. I am willing to bet you a steak dinner that it would take about three days before the whips enforced a level of decorum we have not witnessed in the House in years. It is time our MP's stopped acting like pigs and grow the Hell up.

Update: Apparently, I am not the only one who thinks this should be changed.

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