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From: acton@ubc-ean.CDN (Donald Acton)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: reform of government
Message-ID: <751@ubc-ean.CDN>
Date: Tue, 21-Aug-84 15:00:37 EDT
Article-I.D.: ubc-ean.751
Posted: Tue Aug 21 15:00:37 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 21-Aug-84 20:27:37 EDT
Organization: UBC EAN, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Lines: 58


   I know how our friend from Athabasca feels. During the last election 
those of us on the west coast were treated, around dinner time, 
to the depressing news that the Liberals had won. (For those of you 
back east I must remind you that even though we are out in the hinterland
we can receive, much to the chagrin of Francis Fox, American TV stations.)
We were able to celebrate later in the evening when it became apparent 
that western Canada was going to have enough foresight to refuse to elect 
Liberal MPs.

However, my disdain for the current Liberal party would not be so great 
if at least it appeared that those of us who do not live in central 
Canada had some inp[Cut into how we are governed. I believe that the 
feeling of western alienation could be diminished if politicians were 
made more accountable for their own actions.

To be more accountable the politicains must first and foremost
represent the views of their constituents in the House of Commons and not
those of the party. To accomplish this all votes (except perhaps ones
that are fundamental party policy) should be free votes. If a politicain
fails to vote for policy acceptable to his riding then the voters should
be able to recall him. Just remember that if you or I do a bad job we 
can be fired tomorrow but we can only fire a politicain at election time.
I can think of one specific example where I am reasonably sure someone
would have been out of a job. Several years ago Jack Horner, the MP 
for Crowfoot (Alberta), crossed the house to change colour from Tory 
blue to Liberal red. This did not go down very with the locals in that
during the next two federal elections our pal Jack went down to massive
defeats by ever increasing margins. If the locals could have recalled 
Jack I am sure they would have. (Jack didn't need to worry though,
because for his short stint as a liberal < 1 year he managed to get 
a nice soft patronage appointment to CN. Who said Crown Corporations
serve no useful purpose?)

In addition to being able to recall our politicians we should also have 
a means by which the people can get the legislation passed that the 
political hacks don't have the guts to pass for us. The example I site 
here is Capital Punishment. All polls that I have seen indicate that 
 >70% of the people support capital punishment for certain crimes. Yet 
the politicians, who are of course morally superior to the general 
population, refused to allow capital punishment. To get such legislation
passed some form of local initiative should be available to the electorate.

Finally something must be done with the Senate. Either the weak-kneed Senate 
should perform a useful function or we should get rid of it. To make it 
useful I propose that its original basic function remain the same 
but that members be elected for fixed terms instead of appointed for 
"life". I also beleive that if the Senate were elected it would 
exercise its power instead of being a rubber stamp. If we want a 
rubber stamp then I am sure a stationary store in Ottawa (there must
be lots of them our there to service the growing government bureaucracy)
would be happy to sell one for a couple of bucks instead of the few 
hundred thousand (million ?) dollars a year we are currently spending.

Now that I have said my bit I can get off my high horse  here at 
the edge of the rain forest where the mountains meet the sea. 
 
          Donald Acton