I'm not going to bother summarizing what Mr Topp has already said. I'm going to cut right to the chase.
First off, our electoral system is not an "undemocratic perversity". These days we have far to many people saying this. But the truth is, our electoral system is actually one of the most democratic systems in the world. Now if you twist your viewpoint and look at the system in terms of the country as a whole, if may seem "undemocratic". But the system is not meant to be looked at in this manner. Rather than focusing on 35 million people at once, our system seeks to narrow down where our focal point is. We instead choose to focus on a much smaller number, of about 150,000 people, the average number of people in a Canadian federal riding. Each of these people is given the opportunity to send one person to parliament to represent them and their specific needs. Is the economy poor in your riding? Then it is the elected representative's job to bring this to the house of commons. Obviously however, there are going to be several people who want this job as representative. Originally, people merely voted for these people on the basis of who they were and what they stood for. When the representatives reached parliament, they segregated themselves into two sections with other like-minded people. One side would take the right side (the more conservative side) and the other the left side (the more liberal-thinking side). Eventually people took note of this and developed official parties under which candidates would run, at the same time creating a new system for electing a Prime Minister. Because of the formation of these parties, we have over time have begun to focus on the parties as a whole more, even merely voting for someone because of their party. This is unfortunately not the way the system was meant to work and has caused us to rather then want an individual represent our individual needs, to have a party as a whole elected and bring forward their general values to our government. Perhaps this is just a testament to how people these days just want an easier choice. Rather then pay attention to our own debates happening in our own ridings as candidates discuss things that will affect us very personally, we pay more attention to the party and the party leader. This has over time caused a great shift in focus and thinking.
So how does this proposed alternate system work, one that is evidently more "democratic" then our existing system? All 35 million people from all over Canada would be able to vote for the party and respective leader. The party with the most votes would form the government. The party leaders would then choose any people they wanted to form the government. These people could be absolutely anybody, from relatives to friends to teachers to Joe X off of the street. Suddenly Canada is run be a large portion of people who are unconnected and completely unknown to the Canadian population.
I'm not saying our system is perfect. It is with our system that the Bloc dominates Quebec as a whole. Under the alternative system, we wouldn't have this problem. The Bloc would likely gain little to no seats whatsoever. But this problem, despite the fact that it threatens the very productivity and efficiency of our government, is still extremely insignificant when compared to the alternative system.
You can see I've hardly gotten into Topp's article and I've found already what I believe to be a serious fallacy. However, let's move on to what I believe is his next problem. This is his accusation of Harper being "unfair" towards citizens through his actions, and thus the citizens are now disinterested in him and his party. I will agree that the media has caused people to think that Mr Harper is quite "unfair", however, I believe that this is merely because the media buy and large, including Mr Topp, is largely liberal. Which comes down to why I believe this article is largely flawed. Topp goes on to list what most liberals usually slam conservatives over: the prorogation of parliament, the gun registry program, the census issue, the Afghan detainee issue, etc. etc. Most of us have heard all of this by this point. When one looks into these issues individually, they will find that they are not nearly as flawed as the media makes them out to be. I don't have time to go into each and every one of them now, as my response to this article is dragging on long enough as it is. I believe that these "hot-button" issues show the truth that Canadians can't find anything legitimate to blame the Conservatives for. Why do the people want to find fault in the tories? Because quite frankly, the Tories are not the fun party. They, in complete contrast to what Mr Topp says, are responsible. They don't promise as big and grandiose expenses like the Grits do, because they know they, or anyone, can't deliver these expenses.
If any wishes to defend the Liberals, I welcome it. I however, believe there is not much to defend. The scandals of Chretien, the ineffectiveness of Martin, the immaturity of Dion, and the disinterest of Ignatieff are only the most recent examples of why this party isn't in power anymore. The fun is over. Now, the serious and difficult time is restraint has come.
