I've had intermittent contact with monarchists over the years. A monarchist is one who supports the role of the monarch in a country, or in this case, Queen Elizabeth II, the Queen of Canada. During those encounters, I've found that there are several assumptions that monarchists make. When I was recently reading the Monarchist's League's Arguments for the Crown I noticed they packaged up several of the assumptions that monarchists make that I don't think or necessarily true. I think that Queen Elizabeth II has been a very hands off monarch. She has essentially not interfered at all in ...

I was recently reading some arguments for the crown. As a Canadian republican, I believe that Canadian values would best be reflected in making Canada a democratic republic, rather than what it is, a democratic monarchy. Reading over the document I noticed a very interesting thing. Monarchists generally believe that the Queen has several important roles in our country. One of them is an embodiment of the country itself. And they believe that this is better then many of the alternatives. Consider the US Pledge of Allegiance. You pledge "to the flag of the United States of America, and ...

Some people lament Canada's supposed multicultural society, thinking that we lack culture. I don't think this is true. Canadian culture is a new thing—Canada is a new country after all. Its culture is a new type of culture. Culture used to be defined by a shared history, a shared identity, and shared set of values or beliefs. But I think that modern culture is changing, and not only in Canada. I think that the future of Canadian culture is still about values and beliefs, or, more specifically, about a shared attitude. (Thank Iain M. Banks.) An attitude of of working and living ...

The Liberal Party of Ontario had 15% of the people living in Ontario vote for them on October 10, 2007. "But wait!" you say, "that's not what I heard!" Your correct. Let me explain. The Liberal Party of Ontario has 71 seats out of 109. This gives them 65% of the votes in the Legislature. With a majority number of seats, they get to be the government, and end up with 100% of the power. But there's more to the story. The people of Ontario have spoken tonight with clarity and with purpose. They have chosen the Ontario Liberal Party to govern for four more years. (Dalton McGuinty's ...

I've read the book "Stephen Harper and the Future of Canada", by William Johnson, and it left me thoroughly confused. The book itself is well written, and a very in depth look at Canada's 22nd Prime Minister up to shortly after his election victory in 2006. (I read the updated edition.) Even before we get introduced to Stephen Harper, it's pretty clear where William Johnson sits. Just reading about one of Stephen Harper's relatives you can here the awe and respect coming from the page. This utter adoration of Stephen Harper saturates the pages, and would leak if you ever squeezed the ...

2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms: freedom of conscience and religion;freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;freedom of peaceful assembly; andfreedom of association. (Canadian Chart of Rights and Freedoms) Living in Canada is like living next to a loud mouthed neighbour. Many Canadians have a better understanding of American history than Canadian history. This is probably because American patriotism and nationalism oozes out of their media, and we Canadians to to see a lot of it. As a ...

I was reading the Globe and Mail's article announcing that the New Brunswick primer is going to work toward having a referendum on proportional representation. Good news, that. But then I found this in the article: Other provinces are presently at various stages of electoral reform, with British Columbia and Prince Edward Island having voted to reject versions of proportional representation. This is actually untrue. In BC most people voted for it, but just because a majority voted for the system, doesn't mean to the BC government that they should get it. They needed to get over 60% ...

Canada wasn't won by war or revolution. Rather, by evolution. Canada was negotiated in to existence. Even confederation itself was slid in on champaign. But you can argue that Canada wasn't independent then. It was slow, gradual steps. And no one had to die. Yay Canada. This is not always the case with politics. Here is a selection of political phases over the past few thousand years. First was the emporers and kings. Since ancient Mesopotamia (the Bablyon Empire), empire building has been all the rage, and lasted until the 20th century. Pretty soon after that we realized that ...

I've gone off on a few rants about why Proportional Representation will fix all our problems, do our laundry, and even clean our windows. I'm not sure if it will make you breakfast in bed, however. In fact, it probably won't. I'll go on the record to say that. But, what is it? We use a system called "first past the post", aka winner takes all. It works like this. Canada is divided up in to over 300 "ridings". Each riding is over 100 000 people big. So large cities like Calgary have several ridings in them, whereas small communities have several villages and townships in one riding. ...

In 2004, a half million Canadians voted for the Green Party of Canada, but not one Green MP was elected. In the same election, half a million people in Atlantic Canada voted for the Liberal Party of Canada, and elected 22 Liberal MPs. This is made possible because in Canada we use the "First Past The Post" voting system. In 1984 the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada got 50% of the votes of Canadians, yet had 75% of the members of Parliament. They got a lot more power than Canadians actually wanted to give them. In 1993 the Liberal Party of Canada got 42% of the vote, yet still ...