The idea of 8 year term limits is a small change, but it is an incremental improvement, and once this change is actually implemented, it will open the floodgates to Senate Reform. The can’t do anything cycle will have been broken.

As for Senate numbers, it would be easier for Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to surrender 4 seats each, and PEI to surrender 2, and give 6 more to BC and 4 more to Alberta. It’s not the ideal rejigging of the numbers but it is doable, a start, and is more equitable than what we now have. It is also least likely to annoy Quebec.

Keep it simple. The problem with Senate reform is that it always gets too complicated and gores too many sacred cows. That’s the way to get nothing accomplished.

The last three Ekos polls have shown the Conservatives and Liberals neck and neck, hovering just over the 30 % mark, and in a statistical tie (Liberals a nose ahead based on actual numbers. Not sure what other polling companies have come up with.

How would this pan out in terms of seat projections?

I am guessing the liberals would pick up a handful of seats in Ontario and Quebec, and perhaps one or more in BC, based on the less reliable regional numbers.

The greens are polling at an implausibly high level in these Ekos polls, though — are Conservative parking their vote there for now?

Apathy took a blow when masses of people spontaneously organized to protest against Harper’s abuse of prorogation. Far from being pathetic, I’d say these grassroots efforts added an inspiring dimension to Canadian politics.

As for the thought that “democracy has become inconvenient for all of Canada’s federal parties,” I can agree that all parties are struggling with their relationship to democratic principles. They’re all playing catch-up with citizens who want politics to be done differently and are starting to do it differently themselves. But the inconvenience of democracy doesn’t apply equally to all parties; some are adjusting better than others.

Democracy seems most inconvenient for the Conservatives, particularly for their autocratic leader, Stephen Harper. Even Conservative pundits like Tom Flanagan thought prorogation was a dumb move, albeit for strategic reasons more than any love for democracy. Fortunately, a few Conservative supporters did think Harper’s move to suspend Parliament was anti-democratic as they voiced their displeasure at rallies and by rethinking their voting intentions as evidenced in recent polls.

Democracy is still an inconvenience for the Old Guard of the Liberal party, as evidenced in the coronation of Michael Ignatieff. Chretien also used prorogation to avoid having to deal with the Sponsorship Scandal, too. But a younger generation of Liberals support some sort of renewal when they have the chance to vote for it. It’s too bad Stephane Dion was the “best” those Liberals could find.

The Greens used to be a lot more democratic than they are now. The trend of their party establishment to centralize power is indeed troubling. Jim Harris did a lot to change the party’s structure in this regard, and I fear what Frank de Jong would do if he ever became leader. These latest moves to change the constitution and avoid a leadership vote add continuity to this anti-democratic trend. Fortunately, the general membership of the Green Party seems much more committed to grassroots democracy than does the party establishment.

The NDP has similar internal challenges where many of its members are struggling to decentralize and democratize the party, but I don’t think democracy became inconvenient for New Democrats in the fall. The “flip flop” was a Liberal talking point echoed by the same uncritical media that initially thought Ignatieff was being strong for wanting an election and that the NDP was somehow being weak for not following along. But what was the “flip flop”? According to Liberals and the media it was that the NDP would break their continuity of voting 79 times in a row against the Conservatives. But a vote in favour of expanding EI benefits was a Conservative concession to the NDP, not the other way around. If the criterion for the NDP was voting against measures that hurt their constituents and voting for measures that helped them, then voting for EI improvements was no flip flop. In the end, the pundits were wrong on both counts; the NDP remained true to their policies and principles and stayed stable in the polls for avoiding an election that Canadians didn’t want. On the other hand, Michael Ignatieff and the Liberals took the biggest hit in the polls for wanting an election without any convincing reason.

As for the point about the NDP fearing an election because they were down in the polls…. while pundits cited Ipsos Reid (which consistently reports lower-than-average support for the NDP and higher-than-average support for the Conservatives), all other polls reported the NDP remaining stable in the mid-teens where they generally are between elections. It’s during elections, with greater media coverage, that the NDP tends to rise in the polls. *If* polling had any factor in the NDP’s decision, it would be that the Conservatives were polling in majority territory after benefiting from Ignatieff’s miscalculation. The NDP can be more influential holding the balance of power in a minority government than it can be with more or less seats in a Conservative majority, so polls don’t matter as much as context to the NDP.

Some have even gone further to suggest the NDP couldn’t afford another election, but the party was in full election-readiness mode, had secured loans to spend a fully-funded campaign, and was already in the process of nominating its candidates before Ignatieff threatened to pull the plug.

Like I said in September when most pundits still thought Ignatieff was going to come out on top of this episode:

“A fall election will probably be delayed, if not prevented, if the NDP can extract EI reforms out of the Conservatives. Apply self-interest to this manoeuver, if you will, but whatever one makes of it, it would be good politics for both of those parties (the NDP gets something for its constituents and the Conservatives get to continue governing). More importantly, it would be good policy to ease access to the EI system, especially for Canadian workers who’ve been paying into it for years and have lost their jobs due to no fault of their own.”

Self-interested? Perhaps, although that’s not always a bad thing if the consequence (EI reform) helps a lot of people (nearly 200,000 Canadians).

An anti-democratic flip-flop? That talking point doesn’t really hold up since the NDP was ready for an election if it came to that. Their vote for EI reform also remained consistent with their policies and principles.

Democracy may be “inconvenient for all of Canada’s federal parties” to various degrees, but that inconvenience is not shared equally. To suggest all the parties are the same in this regard is disingenuous. And to apply Harper’s pathetic contempt for democracy so broadly to Canadian politics as a whole is a suggestion that engenders the very cynicism that we should be avoiding. There are important differences between Canadian political parties, especially in their respect (or lack of it) for democratic principles. And if “Canadian politics” is to be thought of so broadly as to include those people who organized and rallied against Harper’s contempt for democracy, then a good part of Canadian politics is far more inspired than it is apathetic or pathetic. The challenge lies in maintaining and building upon this engagement now that people are aroused and willing to stand up for democracy.

Have a look here please
http://www.kelowna.com/forums/topic/green-party-leader-testifies-at-bc-libel-trial

The process of renewal is a bit ugly, granted.

I had seen the Green Party as one that could be trusted to show responsibility and have the right priorities for the future, as one of the only parties actually thinking long-term, which is the only way to achieve the successes Canada needs. But with this leadership debacle, and for what their sister party in Ireland permitted to happen to free speech, I’m greatly concerned. I agree with the sentiment that leadership vote, and the childishly defensive talk of “traitors”, are as serious problems as Harper’s prorogations.