Quote:
Originally Posted by direwolf
I used to be proud of being from Alberta. Not anymore. What an embarrassing f***ing province. The UCP has to be the worst provincial government in the history of this country. What they're doing to the province and their citizens is absolutely f'n shameful.
|
It is very difficult. On one hand, I hate the idea of bailing on the fight to fix the province and get things back on track. On the other hand, raising kids changes my priorities and makes me think that leaving Alberta might be better for them as our quality of life (and the public school system specifically) continues to be attacked by the UCP.
Over the last few weeks I have been thinking more and more about referendums and petitions. I am glad to see what is happening with the Forever Canadian petition but it is frustrating because "winning" is just maintaining the status quo (and not blowing up our country for the selfish short-sighted greed of a few dolts).
I would like winning to actually push the needle back away from the madness. So then I was looking at these guys again with the Lethbridge gerrymandering conversation:
https://www.fairvote.ca/
https://fairvoteedmonton.com/
Overall their message is great but I do not feel like they are
doing enough. They want to have events and meetings and talk and learn more about the problem and the potential solutions... but I want action to counteract the UCP flooding the zone against us.
To me, the answer is layered but in the short term I would stress 2 things:
1) The biggest thing is that everyone needs to start joining the political parties. Currently these parties are small and pretty easy to usurp. Just look at how the Wildrose managed to take over the PCs in the UCP merger or how TBA has tilted the party even further right. More people need to be in the parties and the parties need to be better regulated to ensure small extremist groups are not able to take over a party.
2) More immediately, I think speeding up the end-game from the Fair Vote team might be the answer. I think it would be worthwhile to put forth a constitutional referendum proposal to change Alberta from a First Past The Post (FPTP) electoral system to Proportional Representation.
With the new petition rules in place (less signatures needed over a longer period of time) and all of the attention that Forever-Canadian is bringing to petition signing to get a citizen led referendum in place, now might be the time to get Alberta out of FPTP.
Would it really help? I think so. I think a lot of voters do not turn out because they feel like their vote is wasted / won't count for anything because their riding is locked into one party or the other.... but if they felt like their vote would always have value then maybe we could get bigger turnouts? With bigger turnouts experts suggest that the more progressive party will typically win.
So, my question to the brain trust here would be:
Would you support a referendum/petition for electoral reform right now? Has the UCP pissed you off enough to want to do more and force a change onto them instead of them perpetually doing it to us? Or do you think it is something that should wait until the current petition is wrapped up?
