Quote:
Originally Posted by belsarius
The Netherlands also has a system in place where the previous Cabinet is not simply dissolved and the government left in Limbo while the new government sorts itself out. The government is still functioning, in a more limited manner, for the time it takes to sort out the new leaders. The powers are reduced, but it isn't just left in Limbo like we are here.
And that has always been the trade-off in a democracy, the efficiency. People will need to work together, which makes things difficult, because compromise is difficult. What we have now is the illusion of democracy where we want to silence the "fringe" or "single issue" voters because it is easier to do things that way. We go from 4 parties, to 3, to 2 and end up like the US which is a hop skip and jump away from autocracy.
Yes there are issues with having more voices, but I would rather have more voices and the challenges of actually compromising and listening to people, than the challenges of divisive one side or the other politics. But if there were enough people in this country that the PPC should have 6 people representing them in the government, then how can we claim to be democratic when we want to silence people?
Besides, we've already seen the fringe infect the mainstream conservative parties in both Canada and the US and steer them towards values that don't represent the whole. I'd rather see them in their own place than in the backrooms of the UCP/CPC/Republicans.
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I guess to me having an incentive for parties to move toward the centre to be electable makes it more likely the country is governed from a place closest to what the majority of Canadians want.
If you end up with 15 parties you can end up being governed by a cobbled together set of interests where the pro-life party and the socialist party each get something they want to support the government, and the things they want aren't close to the values of the majority of Canadians.