Liberal Minority Government 2021 - ????

[The Bread Guy]

Sure they eat the occasional tide pod but adults are dying by falling off cliffs and buildings trying to take pictures.

A lot of society summed up in one sentence right there

 

[Brad Sallows]

It's not the criminal liability that's interesting; it's the fiscal and civil liability.

I am not seriously in favour of lowering the voting age. I propose a trade-off because the people who assume they're going to collect most of the votes want something for nothing. ("We allow these things; therefore we should allow this thing" has no obvious limit except "all things".) My cynical prediction is that they basically want to float one "legalize marijuana" plank every few years (shouldn't tax the imagination too much) for an election and then ignore young people the rest of the time, including perhaps not even honouring the election promise. Supposing proponents accepted the trade-off, it would be only a short time before they would be clamouring to pass laws selectively limiting the autonomy of under-18s again. (Passing laws to protect people from themselves is institutionally ingrained in those parties.) The first such law should be a legislated trigger for lifting the voting age back to 18. There will be some high-profile (media) stories about youngsters getting themselves in over their heads financially, or someone whose life has been ruined and is unable to meaningfully sue for compensation because youngsters have few assets, and the ball will begin rolling. The response from teachers having to face students as adult equals alone would be entertaining.

"Some voters are fools, so we ought allow more fools to vote" is not a compelling argument. If maturity increases non-linearly in the closing teen years, the gap descending from one cohort year to the next lower becomes larger with each step.

 

[kratz]

Flip the coin...the UN and some member countries define youth up to the age of 25, even 30.

If we raise adult responsibilities, including the vote until age 30 vs lowering the age to 16, how would that go?

 

[torg003]

Just go back to 21 yrs. old being the legal adult age (the way it was before the baby boomers demanded it be lowered to 18).

 

[Remius]

Just go back to 21 yrs. old being the legal adult age (the way it was before the baby boomers demanded it be lowered to 18).

If we are going to go back to that how about we add property ownership as part of that.

I say that tongue and cheek but it used to be a requirement.

At the end of the day the only requirement in the constitution is being a citizen.

So we can subjectively tie whatever age requirement we want based on whatever metric (drinking age, driving age, taxes, working, civil and legal liability) etc etc. No one scan agree though.

Just drop age, add a test. Or use the Demeny Voting, which may be a good compromise.

Until it can sort itself out status quo remains.

 

[The Bread Guy]

... Just drop age, add a test ...

Instead of how "mature" a voter or someone running for office is, how about "how much do you know about what the level of government you want to work in?" Quick civics test for voters & candidates as a way in to the ballot booth or the office?

Would you rather have a 17-year-old who knows realistically what can be done voting/running for office over, say, a 50-year-old who can't even tell you correctly what the level of government they're voting/running for does?

Discuss ....

 

[Altair]

Instead of how "mature" a voter or someone running for office is, how about "how much do you know about what the level of government you want to work in?" Quick civics test for voters & candidates as a way in to the ballot booth or the office?

Would you rather have a 17-year-old who knows realistically what can be done voting/running for office over, say, a 50-year-old who can't even tell you correctly what the level of government they're voting/running for does?

Discuss ....

If we had multiple levels of government being elected on the same day, it would be cool to have a bunch of names with no party affiliation, and a blank spot for federal, provincial and municipal candidates that the voter needed to put these names into.

Those that got the correct person for the right level of government has their vote counted.

 

[RangerRay]

It does remind me of how many times people tell me the Prime Minister is responsible for fixing their streets’ potholes, or thinking that the local council has anything to do with forestry or wildlife management…

 

[RangerRay]

Young people may not be the bulwarks of democracy. According to research, they may have given up on it and are open to authoritarianism.

Are Americans losing faith in democracy?

Vox is a general interest news site for the 21st century. Its mission: to help everyone understand our complicated world, so that we can all help shape it. In text, video and audio, our reporters explain politics, policy, world affairs, technology, culture, science, the climate crisis, money...

www.vox.com

 

[The Bread Guy]

It does remind me of how many times people tell me the Prime Minister is responsible for fixing their streets’ potholes, or thinking that the local council has anything to do with forestry or wildlife management…

Got that aaaaaaaaaaaaaall the time when I used to report on city hall as a reporter - sadly, sometimes council didn't realize that they couldn't move the levers of some bits of power, only express non-binding opinions via resolutions.

 

[ModlrMike]

Young people may not be the bulwarks of democracy. According to research, they may have given up on it and are open to authoritarianism.

Are Americans losing faith in democracy?

Vox is a general interest news site for the 21st century. Its mission: to help everyone understand our complicated world, so that we can all help shape it. In text, video and audio, our reporters explain politics, policy, world affairs, technology, culture, science, the climate crisis, money...

www.vox.com

That's some not very comforting data right there.

 

[torg003]

Not too surprising. My nieces and nephews tend to reflect those views. Not too enamored with democracy (most don't bother to vote) and seem more open to more authoritarian type governance (leaders or parties who would get things done more directly instead of wasting so much time with argument and disagreement). May be due to declining educational standards and/or too much reliance on social media for info.

 

[Altair]

Not too surprising. My nieces and nephews tend to reflect those views. Not too enamored with democracy (most don't bother to vote) and seem more open to more authoritarian type governance (leaders or parties who would get things done more directly instead of wasting so much time with argument and disagreement). May be due to declining educational standards and/or too much reliance on social media for info.

Less to do this and more to do with democracy being ineffective at times.

For those wanting immediate drastic action on climate change for example, having to go through parliament or congress with compromising and watering down of proposals is less attractive than someone just being able to get things done.

 

[RangerRay]

Sounds a lot like “I alone can fix it”. That doesn’t give me the warm and fuzzies.

Anakin Skywalker, through the malignant influence of Chancellor Palpatine (Darth Sideous) became frustrated with the Galactic Senate. That ended well.

It scares me that young people feel that way.

 

[YZT580]

Not too surprising. My nieces and nephews tend to reflect those views. Not too enamored with democracy (most don't bother to vote) and seem more open to more authoritarian type governance (leaders or parties who would get things done more directly instead of wasting so much time with argument and disagreement). May be due to declining educational standards and/or too much reliance on social media for info.

On a serious note, Couldn't this concept be what Justin was alluding to when he said that he admired the Chinese dictatorship?

 

[ModlrMike]

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those others that have been


Winston Churchill

 

[The Bread Guy]

If we had multiple levels of government being elected on the same day, it would be cool to have a bunch of names with no party affiliation, and a blank spot for federal, provincial and municipal candidates that the voter needed to put these names into.

Those that got the correct person for the right level of government has their vote counted.

Harsh, but ... culling, indeed

 

[Brad Sallows]

"Can't get this thing done in a democracy!"

"Sure. But look at all the others things that democracies did in the past 250 years."

 

[The Bread Guy]

Some of the latest on the "what to do about Quebec" thing ...

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau shares his late father's disdain for the constitutional "notwithstanding clause" and he's not ruling out asking the Supreme Court to weigh in on Quebec's pre-emptive use of it to trample the rights of religious minorities.

In a year-end interview with the Ottawa bureau of The Canadian Press, Trudeau said the the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is supposed to be "a bulwark against popular measures that attack the rights of … minorities."

But the charter's notwithstanding clause allows a government to say, "regardless of the fact that we are attacking your fundamental rights or limiting your fundamental rights, and the charter says that's wrong, we're still going to go ahead and do it."

"It's basically a loophole that allows a majority to override fundamental rights of a minority. And that's why I agree with my father that it's not a great thing to have in a Charter of Rights and Freedoms." ...

 

[Halifax Tar]

Some of the latest on the "what to do about Quebec" thing ...

I'd be surprised if any Canadian politician would touch this. Que has too many seats at play for this to quantify any actual action.