One of the best ways to sidetrack a conference from the real issues is to create controversy that detracts from what people really want to discuss. A good example is the preferential voting resolution that now stands as the second most popular issue to be discussed at the Liberal Party of Canada’s biennial conference in January. With this resolution, the party’s managerial class show that their managerial skills are slipping.
The preferential ballot question is a silly resolution. Just read the first sentence: “Whereas it is recognized that first past the post voting systems do not properly reflect the will of the people in a multiparty country.” “Recognized” by whom? Who writes this B.S? While we can all appreciate the frustration we sometimes feel about the first-past-the-post system of voting, like democracy, it is still better than the alternatives.
The people in Canada trying to promote proportional forms of voting are promoting mediocrity. They want to enshrine the top-down management of political parties. They want to put the political parties ahead of good candidates.
We have a system that can work for us. It is a system that is strong only as long as the power rests with the electoral districts. It is why democratic renewal of the Liberal Party is the most important resolution at the conference.
But the democratic renewal needs to be now. Here again the managerial class in the party has failed the membership. They are stretching out democratic renewal for at least three years—making the party wait until after the choosing of a new leader. That is unfair to the party membership and it is unfair to the new leader.
And that is why we cannot allow the conference to be detracted with spurious debate on issues that the party need not resolve. If people really wanted a new voting system, they would put it in the hands of a constitutional conference. Such a conference would have elected participants from the major political parties, academics and experienced political experts. It would work in the public eye, it would consider how people want their country to be run. Its recommendations would then be put to a referendum. For how we are governed is too important a question to be left to politicians.
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Copyright 2011 © Peter Lowry
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