Proportional Representation (PR) Example Ballots:

1. Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) with a Ranked Ballot on the Local side and Open Lists on the Regional side.

 

2.  Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) with Open Lists on the Regional side.

 

3.  Mixed Member Proportional Ballots with Closed Lists on the Regional Side 

No one is advocating for this type of PR

4.  Single Transferable Vote (STV) Ballot - from the BC STV site found here: BC STV

In order for STV to work as proportional representation system you should rank all candidates.  In a riding with 18 candidates such as the one below, it IS possible to waste your votes if you rank only 5 candidates but don’t rank the 5 that won.   In STV, the voter should always rank every candidate to prevent potentially wasted votes.

 

How Leadnow betrayed their principles and lost their way. Could they be headed home?

Leadnow recommends NDP-Mira Oreck over LPC-Jody Wilson-Raybould (Vancouver-Granville) despite the CBC b.s. poll-tracker/marketing strategy

Leadnow has endorsed the NDP candidate over the Liberal candidate in Vancouver Granville.

A little History: Leadnow started out as an activist organization - at that task, they were awesome. They organized and coordinated many successful and well-attended demonstrations and events. Leadnow was very much an evidence based, supporter driven, social and environmental activist organization trying to influence politics to stop Harper and improve Canada.  They have championed many different campaigns, all within their 3 main principles of: 1 - Open Democracy, 2 - Fair Economy; and 3 - Climate Justice.

Read these principles and keep them in mind when you are reading through the rest of this blog.

• The Inter-web was abuzz with stopping Harper and lots of peeps were talking about cross-party cooperation. *Full confession - we wanted cross-party cooperation. 
• The NDP & Liberal leadership conventions happened one after the other. Activists joined the NDP to vote for Nathan Cullen.  Mr. Cullen was/is a progressive, he defends indigenous rights, wanted to defeat Harper and he was very much pro-environment over corporate profits and pipelines. *Nathan was and is awesome; but I am glad that Mulcair won, even though I voted for Cullen. Mulcair has proven to be the dude for the job at hand.  The Liberal convention came next and lots of activists joined the Liberals for a month to vote for Joyce Murray's pro-cooperation and pro-environment platform. Murray grew up in Point Grey in Vancouver (one of the richest postal codes in Canada, a daughter of a UBC prof mum and Survey company owner dad.  She and her husband started a very economically successful tree farm company in B.C. 
• We were all naive. *full disclosure - I'm a member of the NDP now.  We had hoped that maybe the Liberal party gave up its old ways of back door deals, scandals and rich white privileged back-room corporate control.  *sorry too many adjectives but I couldn't resist - maybe a rap tune. 
• Lead now 'took the lead' and tried to promote cross-party cooperation for the purpose of defeating Harper. If my memory is accurate, they may have organized the 'Join the NDP, vote Cullen and then join the Liberals and vote Murray action'  When that failed they decided to do their own polling and promote an ABC strategic voting approach to stopping Harper.  There were many of us who were either too young or not politically astute enough to realize that 'vote strategically' has been code for 'vote Liberal' for many, many elections.  *I can't remember where I left my keys, never mind what happened in elections 2011, 08, 06, 04, 2000, 1997,... They lost a few supporters over that. 
• Then the Liberals voted in favor of C51 (think big brother & George Orwells -1984), - more supporters left.  LeadNow continued to support keeping the LPC as a possible choice depending on the polls. ie they supported polling (fortune-telling) over principles. *articles & research all over, verifies that polls, especially large polls, are inaccurate and are really only used for a type of self-fulfilling prophecy marketing. 
• S-7 the #BarbaricCulturalPractices Act blew up on Twitter and Liberal, Green, and NDP supporters were all tweeting the hashtag.  It was largely the announcement of the CPC #BarbaricCulturalPractices Tip-line that resulted in looking into where exactly, this name came from - Bill S-7 vote 456.  Twitter then responded with 'But hey, wait a minute, the Liberals voted with the cons in favor of the #BarbaricCulturalPractices Act and the Tipline, 1-800-Muslims. (Kidding, sort of.  Dear Leaders party duzn't have a number yet and won't unless they win the election and get their RCMP task force set up. ;-) LeadNow lost more of their base.  Activists will mostly choose principles over polling. We each have our personal threshold of how many principles we will sacrifice to stop Harper. 
• THE BIG POLLS: The corporate polls looked good for the NDP initially, but many of us NDP supporters were skeptical.  We had already seen this play out in the BC provincial election. Polls look great in the beginning, everybody gets lazy and decides - 'maybe if we are just quiet, these great polls will stick?'. 
  
  NOPE, if you get lazy and don't fight back, jabbing with:
• every historical scandal, every contrary or hypocritical vote in parliament,
• every poor budget, dismal economic figure,
• jobs lost, economic inequality stat,
• public institution sold off or given away
• social & environmental cut and resultant tragedy... 
• you'll lose, no matter what the polls say. We can't afford to be kind; we have to be brutally true.  These are not subjective attacks of personal character, they are objective facts of political character - Big Difference.
• Humans have short memories. Articles and studies all over the internet show that Polls, especially large polls, are not representative and are really only used today as a kind of "self-fulling prophecy advertising scheme".
• I mean, come on:
• cell phones,
• call-screening, 
• too many advertising and marketing/survey calls 
• combined with cutting costs to increase or maintain the polling company's bottom line....
• result in  a 9% response rate compared to a 70% + response rate.  
• Yep, back in the day when pollsters went door to door; and we had a mandatory long-form-census, they would get a 70%+ response rate.
• So think about it, pollsters don't know what 91% of the population are thinking plus they don't know what the demographics of the population they are trying to sample - looks like.  NO LONG FORM CENSUS - NO DEMOGRAPHY STATISTICS.

• Then the Liberals came out in favor of the TPP.  They described the trade agreement as historic but said they couldn't comment because they hadn't seen the deal.  

  

  Screen Shot of TPP statement

• Funny thing is, Wikileaks had leaked so much of the secret TPP agreement over the last 2 to 3 years, that experts around the world had time to weigh in and reveal how the TPP will benefit multi-national corporations to the detriment of us regular folk - the 99%.  Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton and even Donald Trump are among the politicians, south of the border, who came out against the TPP. Sure, the LPC announcement gave them a certain amount of plausible deniability, but the rose wasn't only losing it's blush, it was starting to smell rotten. No doubt, Leadnow lost more supporters.  This is what the LPC web page description left out:
  
  

  

      

  
  

• This latest scandal - #Pipegate, #LPCknew - where we have Justin Trudeau’s campaign co-chair, Gagnier, advising Big Oil on how to get Energy East approved in the event of Liberal minority or a Liberal majority may be the last straw for LeadNow and maybe for the Liberal Party in this election.  I mean you have a known oil lobbiest working as the campaign co-chair f-f-s.  Seriously, this is so bad, even the Harpercons are yelling 'SCANDAL'.*To me, that is the most hilarious part - Pot meet Kettle.      

#PipeGate #LPCknew

Perhaps Leadnow will finally stop chasing the unicorn and realize that a Leopard rarely changes its spots and the fairy dust didn't take.

I hope so.  If Lead Now turns back to it's 3 principles over polls, they will gain back supporters. Until I know for sure that they have their P's in the proper order, I won't even set up a link in this Blog for them.  

The Problems with Polls - Often Wrong and Not Representative.

Get out the Vote and Vote with the Courage of your Convictions

Don't let this Happen:  

UK Election 2015 - Polls completely wrong.

Who answers polling phone calls on their cell? 

I am still a relic that has a landline & a cell phone & I hang up or don't answer Polling calls.  Caller ID allows everyone to screen calls.

• Much of the population don't have land-lines.
• Many Canadians (on landlines, VOIP, cellphones) have call screening.
• Cell phone only citizens don't want to waste money on minutes answering poll questions.
• Most cell-phone-only citizens don't want to waste their battery charge on answering poll questions.
• Most cell-phone-only citizens represent a younger demographic. 
• 9% is considered a good response rate (by Nanos) - so that means ***91%*** of people hang up, or don't answer. You have to wonder how those 91% would have responded.
• So, even aggregates of polls are still not contacting 91% of their target. 
• We no longer have a Mandatory Long Form Census, so it's difficult to discern the demographic of the Cdn population. 
  
  In A First Past the Post System, Polls do not translate into seats won eg:  Nanos poll May 02 of 2011 put Liberals at 20.5% support but that didn't translate to the 34 seats they won which represented only 11% of the seats in the house 34/308

 Link: From Michael Harris's article: Even Nick Nanos is reported to have run biased polls.

How do pollsters even know what Canada looks like demographically? Thanks to the Conservatives, we know longer have the statistics from the Mandatory Long Form Census to answer those questions.

Link: From Laurier Prof:  The Polls are Bad -- Their Accuracy, that is. 

To Wear or Not Wear A Niqab (or any piece of clothing) Should Be A Woman's Choice

Harper Government Loses Appeal.  Niqab Ban at Citizenship Ceremonies Found Unlawful AGAIN.

This should NOT be an election issue - Niqab women taking the citizenship oath are very small numbers; but the Bloc Québécois and the CPC are trying to appeal to the xenophobe in all of us.  

Even among progressives, there are a few rabid pro -'Ban the Niqab' advocates.   
       

A walk through the streets of cold Canadian cities reveals
citizens are very much in favor of face-covering.

They are few, but they're often the loudest and the most assertive, creating the illusion they are many, with their 'Ban the Niqab' opinions.  Most often, their opinions are based on a misunderstanding of the facts combined with the mainstream media's focus to 'sell' the news and reduce complex discussions to a few catchy headlines that stimulate the Amygdala part of our brains, the lizard fear center.

Rather than typing out the same argument in every social media discussion, I'm going to break the whole debate down into numbered sections easy to use as a quick go-to for referencing and getting people to examine their prejudices against the Niqab.

Overheard CPC Candidate:  "Damn, then leggy waitresses could sue so
they don't have to wear those awesome high heels. We can't allow that."

Turn OFF the Corporate Media & Turn On Alternative Media

 

Add caption

Alternative/Non-Corporate News Media Sources Focused on:

• Canada - English & French 
• US, UK, & International
• Radio

LPC History of Duplicity & Broken Promises

For those looking for more background on the history of Liberal duplicity and dishonesty and what they really are - neo-cons with a lighter social outlook - here's a partial list (it's a couple years old) of what they've done both in federal government and opposition, advancing the neo-liberal agenda or supporting the Conservatives.  




Let's not forget Liberal support for #C51, #CCFIPA, and #KXL.  In addition here is some of the legacy of Liberal-Conservative corporatist policies and contempt for the people of Canada:

148 years of Lib/Con governments - Time for Change.

Thomas Piketty: “Germany Has Never Repaid.” Pot Meet Kettle.

//One year after Tomas Piketty sold a record number of economic textbook paperweights which virtually nobody read past page 26, once again showing the power of constant media hype, the French economist and wealth redistributor is out and about, this time pouring more gasoline on the fire started by the IMF last week when it released the Greek debt sustainability analysis showing Greece needs a 30% haircut, only to be met with stern resistance by, who else, Germany who know very well that should Greece get a debt haircut it will unleash the European dominoes which not even all the bluster and rhetoric of the ECB can halt.
And while Piketty's book may have sold out in socialist France, it seems Germany did not leave a pleasant taste in the celebrity economist's mouth, and in an interview with Germany's Zeit magazine, translated into English, the Frenchman just made sure he will never sell another book east of the Rhine. Here is the reason why:

"When I hear the Germans say that they maintain a very moral stance about debt and strongly believe that debts must be repaid, then I think: what a huge joke! Germany is the country that has never repaid its debts. It has no standing to lecture other nations.

... Germany is really the single best example of a country that, throughout its history, has never repaid its external debt. Neither after the First nor the Second World War. However, it has frequently made other nations pay up, such as after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, when it demanded massive reparations from France and indeed received them. The French state suffered for decades under this debt. The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice."

What he said is perfectly factual and accurate, but in the new normal, truth is not a welcome commodity, especially when it pulls the scab on the single biggest problem with the modern economy, namely the gargantuan debt overhang (see Greece) which nobody can possibly default on without triggering massive contagion around the globe and thus leaving (hyper)inflation as the only possible way out.
A good question is whether this philosophical contrast exposed by Piketty is also indicative of the fundamental schism that is appearing not only within the Troika, where the IMF effectively won Tsipras' referendum for him, but also within the Eurogroup, where Germany may soon find itself increasingly isolated as not only peripheral countries but soon France start clamoring for debt haircuts not only abroad but also back at home...

Senate Reform or Abolition: How Can it Be Done?

So Bottom Line...... 

• The Senate can be abolished. 
• We don't need the senate's vote to agree to abolition.
• Yes, abolition would require a constitutional amendment;
• which would need the House of Commons and all 10 Provinces to agree to the abolition amendment.
• All provinces are protected under the constitutions minimum representation guarantee.

Senate Reform and/or Abolition: How can it be done?

1)  Some people believe that because Canada is a federation, there needs to be an Upper House, some kind of Senate, with representation based on membership in the federation. Germany, the US, Australia (and the list goes on) all have upper houses with equitable or equal representation of the sub-national units. ‘Canada has the only wholly appointed second chamber in the western world’ and that part, at the very least, needs to be eliminated if we are to keep the Senate.

The Green's Confusing Stance on Environmental Issues

Water Underneath a Sea of Petrochemical Plastics

1.  From the Green Party website: 

//The Green Party is the only party opposing any and all current bitumen pipeline plans. We will oppose any and all pipeline proposals committed to shipping raw bitumen out of Canada. We must move to a national energy policy with a strong climate plan.
We need to ensure that by 2100 Canada’s bitumen production is going to petrochemical products, not fuel. We need to recognize that *as a resource it is both too valuable* and too dangerous to burn.//

Click here to read it from the Green Party Blog.

So the Green plan is to give us the next 85 years to use bitumen for fuel, and then by 2100 have switched over to only petrochemical (plastics) production?

But Liz, You're not really breaking up with Bitumen:

http://elizabethmaymp.ca/news/blogs/2015/02/13/elizabeth-may-break-up-letter-to-bitumen/

Dear Ms. May,

Beaches of Plastic (PetroChemical) Waste Replace Sand

In response to your Break-up Letter to Bitumen:

You are not really breaking up with Bitumen or the tarsands are you, only changing the relationship dynamic, very very slowly over the next 85 years?  It doesn't really sound like a break-up to me. You still want to sell Bitumen, just to a different group of Big Corporate Bullies. 

Sure, out in public, petrochemicals are more fashionable than sticky dilbit; unless people take a closer look at what those petrochemicals are made of and what they do to our environment, our bodies, our food chain and our living oceans and water systems. 

Cancer Rates in Towns that Produce Petrochemicals http://www.chatelaine.com/health/canadas-toxic-town/ 

From your party website:  http://www.greenparty.ca/en/blog/2014-11-14/pipeline-politics

Sea Bird's Flesh and Bone Return
to Earth. Plastic that likely killed
the Bird, will remain for Decades.

 "The Green Party is the only party opposing any and all current bitumen pipeline plans.  We will oppose any and all pipeline proposals committed to shipping raw bitumen out of Canada. We must move to a national energy policy with a strong climate plan.
We need to ensure that by 2100 Canada’s bitumen production is going to petrochemical products, not fuel.  We need to recognize that as a resource it is both too valuable and too dangerous to burn."

So the Green plan is to give us the next 85 years to use bitumen for fuel, and then by 2100 switch over to petrochemical production? Isn’t that like going from one abusive relationship to another? 

Toxic chemicals in our air, land and oceans does not seem like a great long-term relationship either. Are you going to change the friends that you and Bitumen hang out with from Big Oil to Big Chemical like Dow, BASF, Formosa plastics, Dupont etc?  Does it really matter?  They are all Big Corporate Bullies and they are all TOXIC.  Did you know that some of them, like Exxon, Shell and Chevron, actually hang in both corporate gangs?

Don't make another bad relationship choice Liz.  Break the cycle, break up with OIL period.

With Love,
From the Earth Bubble and all it's Inhabitants  
p.s.:  Liz, If anyone else besides you reads this response tell them to Click here for more info on the Greens confusing stance on the environment.

Seal's Neck Grows Around
it's Plastic Choker

10 largest Petro Chemical Companies:
http://www.arabianoilandgas.com/article-6235-worlds_10_largest_petrochemicals_companies/ 

Plastics, Human Health & Environmental Impacts:

http://journalistsresource.org/studies/environment/pollution-environment/plastics-environmental-health-literature-review

Garbage Island - An Ocean Full of Plastic:
Part I: https://youtu.be/D41rO7mL6zM
Part II: https://youtu.be/3GX-y1Z1w00
Part III:  https://youtu.be/X5ZKk11R56o

Through the Gyre the Great Ocean Garbage Patch: 
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/oceans/fit-for-the-future/pollution/trash-vortex/