Should Congress Be Expanded?

[Ben Kenobi]

Did he ever have disciples?

[notyoueither]

Given recent developments, I'm thinking the NDP will outpoll the entire right east of Manitoba. People will be left with no other palatable choice.

I'll tell you what. If Westerners were really serious about reform, they would join one main stream party or other, en masse. The Tories would have been a good choice given their devastated prospects, but then we've been in a snit to prove something to someone so we're gonna wreck the Tories too by staging a take over that no one east of Calgary is ever gonna vote for.

Lord, I hope I'm wrong.

[Ben Kenobi]

Why are the NDP with 12 seats considered more mainstream than the union of Alliance and conservatives? Far more people voted for them than for the fringe lefties.

[notyoueither]

I'm fearing for the perception of the Tories in the East. I am thinking that many would turn to the NDP or not vote at all rather than vote for something that Joe Clark is disowning.

If the same energy that was put into Refooooorm had been put into the Tories to begin with, Chretein would likely have lost that last election. That is a nose cut off to spite face in my books.

[MrFun]

You mean we need MORE spineless, no-good politicians (from both parties, mind you)??

[Ben Kenobi]

I see what you mean, for the Atlantic provinces. Problem is there is just not enough seats there to really make a difference one way or another.

The real battleground is Ontario. Will the voters in Ontario vote NDP to spite the old Tories? That I don't know. Most folks in Ontario I would think have little love for the NDP.

And who cares about Joe Who? He's a Westerner in the first place!

What if the new Conservative party ran Mike Harris?

[notyoueither]

Joe Clark has respect, even from Eastern media. Mike Harris would be road kill.

You are right that Ontario is where it is played out, and I don't see Ontario ever voting for anything it perceives to be motivated [by] Western temper tantrums.

[Ned]

I personally think that all major bills involving tax increases, decreases, or spending more than 10% of the budget, or any new entitlement programs should be voted on directly by the people.

Ditto declarartions of war.

[Ben Kenobi]

Funny he should get respect for almost running the Conservative Party into the ground. Maybe those praising him were Liberals, there are are lots of them back east. So long as the Right was divided the Liberals would forever ramin in power.

What troubles me are the numbers. There needs to be a decline in Liberal support translating into a gain for the new Conservatives in order to unseat Martin. Not a big one, just 10 seats. Can you see that happening?

[aaglo]

I think that the con-grease should be expelled - not expanded...

[Ned]

Originally posted by aaglo
I think that the con-grease should be expelled - not expanded...

I am thinking the same thing. This is why I would limit their power to do damage and leave all the big issues to a direct vote of the people.

[notyoueither]

It was Preston and Refoooooorm, along with a Western snit fit that ran the Tories into the ground. Again, if the same energy were put into the Tories as was put into Reform, the Liberals would not have had a cake walk the last time around.

Why did this happen? Half of Mulroney's cabinet was from Alberta and BC, practically. His successor was from BC, and a smart woman to boot. The West had its best time in power in Ottawa up til that time in Confederation, or since. But noooooo, that was not good enough for us. We needed to exclude ourselves. We needed Refooooooooorm!

10 seats? How are you counting the last election where the Right got 78 out of 301 seats?

[aaglo]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Right now we have about one Representative for every half million people.

I think the population of the country is not in any relation to the number of the congress members. At your ratio 1/0.5million, China should have 2000 members in congress, which I think they don't

And don't you have there some deciding instances in every state?

[Ben Kenobi]

When you combine the Tory and Alliance votes in the last election, we work out to be about 10 seats short of the Liberals. I can look for a source if you want, but this is just off the top of my head.

if the same energy were put into the Tories

They've had more than 10 years to revive themselves after Kim Campbell, who helped make the Tories unelectable. Joe Who loses the leadership convention and now all of a sudden we are talking about one party on the right? Seems to me that he's been keeping the party down.

And before you get to dissing the West, remember that the Bloc were the Official opposition. More Quebeckers jumped ship than the Westerners after the debacle in 1992.

[notyoueither]

Hard to blame Quebec nationalists for looking after the best interests of Quebec over Canada. That I understand.

What I don't understand is Westerners all around me screaming how we are hard done by and need reform when the PM we turned our collective backs on was from BC and when her party had given us 3 PMs from Western Canada since 1950.

And it is sort of hard to revive yourself when your core constituants are dedicated to cutting their own noses off to spite their faces while being led down the garden path by the pied piper of forlorn hopes.

And don't get your hopes up. Unless the Tory establishment in the East comes out as for this, you can kiss electoral chances in Ontario good bye. It will take a great deal more Liberal corruption before Central Canada is willing to bite down and welcome a solution made in Western Canada to a Confederation they do not see as broken.