The Liberal Party of Canada - my party - is driving me insane. The longer Stephen Harper sits in the Prime Minister’s Office and gets a free ride from the Liberals, the more I wish that I was a Conservative.

It has been so long since I’ve been proud of my party that I’m just getting sick of it. If it wasn’t a complete abandonment of all sense and reason to do so, I would love to switch parties, just to be on the winning team for a while; to remember what that feels like.

The Ontario Liberal Party is no better than the federal Liberals. Premier Dalton McGuinty’s wins are paper-thin, and unless Progressive Conservative leader John Tory eats a kitten in the middle of town square, McGuinty isn’t going to have a job after the next provincial election.

It’s really sad that we Liberals have to understand and accept that the one and only reason our party managed to stay in power in Ontario is because the other guy came out with that crackpot promise to fund private faith-based schools. If Tory had just coasted through election day, this province would be awash in Conservative blue.

I don’t know what the Liberal Party of Canada and the Ontario Liberal Party are thinking, or how exactly they managed to collectively get brain damage, but they need to get their act together - and soon.

I hope everyone is starting to realize that Stephane Dion was a bad choice for leader of the federal party; I was against his leadership bid from the beginning. The new-direction blitz that carried him to the leadership hasn’t served Canadian Liberals very well, given that they’re staring down the barrel of yet more Stephen Harper with no election in sight.

And I am sick and tired of being told that I don’t want an election. Open up the polls, baby, ’cause I’ll show up, and I know a lot of other Canadians who’ll show up, too.

The Liberals need to start trying to save face with the electorate. This means they have to start living up to their title as Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition. Stephane Dion’s Liberals have been anything but a loyal opposition - to their members, to the nation and to the Queen.

I would like to see the Liberals vote against future confidence motions in the House of Commons immediately and unwaveringly; if someone has to stop Canadians from having their say at the polls, let it be the Bloc Quebecois or the NDP. Then, for a change, it won’t be the Liberal Party that gets horse-whipped for having to concede to the Conservatives yet again. Maybe then I’ll even feel a little bit proud that the Liberals are my party.

I am so frustrated.

The Cuban people are just as welcomed to use any form of governmental selection process they choose. In fact, in Cuba, the candidates for nominations require at least 50% support of the electorate in order for successful nomination. So far no candidate has failed to receive this support - ever. Most candidates receive a vast majority support from their constituents.

While, yes, the national government of Cuba is a one-party government, meaning that all successful nominees are acclaimed to their positions, that doesn’t make it any less viable as a choice than so-called true democracy. The constituents of Cuba have a voice in the nomination of their candidates. They have a voice in the selection of their representatives.

Each of those candidates has received at least 50% support of the populace in their district; many American and Canadian representatives cannot make the same claim. President Bust, for example, in the year 2000 received only 47.9% support of his electorate in direct elections. However, due to fun electoral math, he was elected president… even though 543,816 more people thought that the other guy was the better guy.

Cuba, similarly, has indirect elections for its President of the Council of State, a position which Fidel Castro has held since its creation. He has received overwhelming support from the members of the council, and has been a charismatic and popular leader to the vast majority of his country.

It is my opinion, therefore, that Cuba be allowed to continue to elect its leaders through whatever means it chooses. It would anger me a great deal if someone else were to suggest that my electoral system - the Westminster System - is flawed or undemocratic.

That is why I hope that this fellow wins his case.

If he tries to get monetary compensation based on psychological or emotional distress, though, I am going to want to punch him in the nose.

If your member switched parties, would you vote for them in spite of their new party affiliation?

So, since I got such a kick out of seeing what other people thought about Stephan Dion’s performance as leader (or appropriateness as leader, or however people interpreted the question), I have another informal poll. Since we live in Canada - most of us - where Party Politics is King I have the following question to ask: do you vote along party lines versus voting for your member based on his or her own qualifications/opinions/etc.

I am referring specifically to your member of federal parliament.

Not nearly long enough.

Oh well, here’s hoping he ends up penniless, too.

I love this quote.

I hate lobbyists.

Well, not so much the lobbyists themselves, but the lobby in general. I disagree with the use of a few high-paid well-networked individuals to sway the decisions of elected officials. Special interests are not and should not be any more important than the general interest. In fact, the term special interest itself should just disappear.

It isn’t really a bad article inasmuch as it does outline some of the pros and cons of the two elections styles. It does lay out some facts and an benefits to the current system as well as list of pertinent concerns of the new system. However, I don’t think that it goes far enough to really explain how profound a change this could make it our government.

I have been shocked and dismayed at the lack of play this particular issue has received in mainstream media - and we’re really getting down to the wire now. I am not concerned that the referendum is going to pass. I am quite certain that it will not receive the two-thirds majority that it requires. But I am nonetheless wary and aware that this is a possibility for our future.

I am not fond of the idea that the number of ridings in the province will be reduced from 107 to 90. That means that 17 ridings will disappear in an instant - that is not a good harbinger of success for a supposedly proportionally representative system, in my opinion. Riding sizes will increase, the power of the individual will be lost immediately.

I dislike, too, that the balance of the seats will increase the size of the legislature by an additional 22 members - at minimum. If the electoral math cannot be worked out within the framework of a 129 member body, the legislature is within its rights - according to the MMP principal - to increase its own size for the duration of the term of office in order to reflect the electoral math set down by the voters.

I am dismayed that, at least in the Whig article, this is being proposed as a way to bring more diversity to Ontario politics. Two reasons for this are, firstly, that diversity for the sake of diversity helps no one. I don’t want a woman in politics if there is a man who is more qualified for her position who would be passed over. Perhaps that shifts my political views to the right somewhat, but I don’t care. Secondly this diversity relies on the parties themselves stepping up and supplying lists with diverse candidates on them. In other areas of the world where the MMP system is used many parties simple run the same candidates on the list as those who are running in local elections - with a few differences for persons eminent.

Most governments in Ontario - and indeed in Canada - are elected with a minority of the popular vote. While not exactly the same, the popular vote is basically correlative to the MMP party vote. This means that the MMP system is more prone to minority governments than our current system. And, more likely than not, the MMP system is apt to turn up minority governments on a regular basis. Proponents of the system would tell you that this leads to coalition building. In all its history Canada and Ontario have seen only one coalition government - in 1917.

I fear the that MMP system could fracture our political party system as the parties learn that smaller parties are more viable for coalition building. The huge parties are unlikely to ever come to an agreement on policy such that they would be able to form a coalition and so, out of necessity, smaller parties - parties that don’t even exist yet, to be sure - will be the ones that swing the tide.

The article would have you believe that these coalition government are more stable than the shaky issue-by-issue coalitions that minority governments form nowadays, but I have my doubts. Canadian politicians are notably my-way-or-the-highway and thus there is nothing to stop them from breaking ranks and bringing down a government and forcing an election due to lack of confidence in the government. The MMP system has no check or balance to force the membership of a coalition to continue working within the framework of the coalition. The MMP system may give the appearance of stability on paper, but what we will see in the legislature could be very different.

I am convinced that this is not a step in the right direction for Ontario. I will be voting NO on MMP in October, and I encourage you to research the facts, form your own opinion and vote on the issue as well - hopefully the will of the Ontario people will be heard.

I have often found Canada Day - or Dominion Day, which I prefer - to be in stark contrast to make other “independence-type” days in other nations. Friends of mine who know my activist spirit who are from nations other than Canada (read: the U.S.) have asked if I attend protests on Canada Day.

Hardly.

Perhaps it is due to the fact that we didn’t really fight for our independence from Britain, rather we asked and they said “cheerio” - or something equally as British.

Whether tomorrow we call ourselves native, French, Ontarian or Western-Canadian, today is the day when we are all Canadian.