In this episode, I talk about the proposed legislation from the Longer Ballot Committee, and the hypocrisy of the committee's recommendations, as well as the fact that they don't actually care about democracy. They just care about harassing people who don't agree with them.
00:00:02.940Hopefully we are going to be seeing this longest ballot committee nonsense coming to an end in the fall session of Parliament.
00:00:10.440Vyropolyev and the Federal Conservative Party are pushing for legislation to be passed in order to prevent activists from flooding ballots with hundreds of fake candidates.
00:00:20.600In this video today, I want to talk a bit about that proposed legislation as well as talk about the crushing hypocrisy of the longest ballot committee.
00:00:31.000Because these people pretend that they care so much about democracy and they're just doing this activistic protest in order to get the system's attention and push for proportional representation or a single transferable voting system.
00:00:46.500They don't actually care about democracy and they really don't care about making these changes.
00:00:51.640They just care about harassing people who don't agree with them.
00:00:54.540Because as I will get into later in this video, they keep losing every single time one of these different election systems is put to voters in different provinces around Canada.
00:01:05.160But before we get into it, guys, if you like my political coverage, make sure to leave a like on this video, leave a comment on what you think about this whole situation, and subscribe if you are not yet a subscriber.
00:01:18.200But here is Pierre Polyev on X talking about what the Conservatives want to see in new legislation passed this fall.
00:01:27.720By the way, they can also use a private member's bill to make these changes, but obviously parties don't usually like to give up private member's bills because you don't usually get many of them.
00:01:44.260But I want to read through the recommendations they have in this letter and what they're calling for.
00:01:50.080Some of it I agree with, some of it I don't agree with, in the sense that it might be a bit of an overkill solution.
00:01:56.920But their first recommendation is raise the bar for candidate nominations by requiring 0.5% of the population in any given writing to sign, not just 100 people.
00:02:08.040So if you want to become a candidate, your nomination forms, you must have 0.5% of the writing's population sign on to a nomination form.
00:02:17.900Number two is require that each signature in support of a candidate be exclusive, with no signatory permitted to endorse more than one candidate in the same election.
00:02:28.540And then number three up here is restrict official agents to representing only a single election candidate at any given time.
00:02:37.720I actually think number three is pretty much all you really have to do.
00:02:41.900I would make a little bit of an addendum and also mention that candidates cannot be official agents for other candidates.
00:02:49.340Because the way I would see the longest ballot committee pivoting on number three is that if you sign up to be a candidate, you also sign up to be somebody's official agent.
00:02:59.340And then it just basically, you know, becomes just a back padding circle where everyone is supporting everybody to become a candidate.
00:03:07.280I don't necessarily agree with the other things that Polly and the Conservatives are pushing for.
00:03:14.120The requiring 0.5% of the population of any given writing to sign, not just 100 people, is a little bit much.
00:03:22.300Because some of these writings have 140,000 person populations.
00:03:27.380And so if you need 0.5% of those people to sign, that's going to take you a while.
00:03:32.020Now, considering that even if someone supports you, they may not necessarily want to sign the form, they may mess up signing the form, or your volunteers may not just be very good at getting people to sign the form.
00:03:45.780I really just think we could just raise the signature requirement to 250.
00:03:50.360That's pretty doable for one person in two or three days if you're serious.
00:03:54.000But, and then the saying that requiring each signature be exclusive may be a bit much because there's tons of people out there who will never sign anything.
00:04:04.000And I don't think it's a bad thing that if a Liberal, a Conservative, and a Green candidate come to the same door that that person signs for all of them.
00:04:10.360Because, you know, you guys are all serious candidates.
00:04:14.120I would actually, another recommendation I'd make, I wouldn't actually put in number one or number two.
00:04:19.280Maybe you can raise the signature requirement a bit, you know, go from 100 to 200.
00:04:23.600But one thing I would recommend is that if you're going to run in a riding, you don't have to live there.
00:04:28.760I don't care if you live somewhere or not because you end up in these weird situations where you can't live in a, you can't run in a riding, even though basically that riding's boundary is right across the street from you.
00:04:38.300I think if you're a serious candidate, you can run wherever you please.
00:04:41.840But I think you should have to show up in person in that riding.
00:04:44.940I think you should have to go to a district office within that riding or maybe set up in the closest large municipality, like in a place like Battle River, Crowfoot.
00:04:55.300So maybe you can have a district office in Calgary people can go to.
00:04:58.700And then there's another office in there that Elections Canada can verify that you're the actual person who wants to run.
00:05:04.140I think that would clear this up immediately because it's really, it's going to be very hard in most ridings to find 150 idiots who want to put their name on a ballot as fake candidates.
00:05:13.240It's easier when your draw area is the entire country.
00:05:17.760But if you then require someone in Newfoundland to show up and actually prove that they're a serious candidate, they're not going to do that because that's a large cost to show up for a joke.
00:05:29.400And that's not, you can't reimburse for that.
00:05:31.880Or, again, I actually like the Japanese method where what you do if you're a serious candidate is you pay $3,000 to run.
00:05:40.220And maybe we could make it that the donation limit to your own campaign, if you're the candidate, can be raised to this limit.
00:05:46.640But if you're going to run, you give Elections Canada $3,000, $4,000, $5,000.
00:05:51.500The amount could depend on whatever we figure out.
00:05:55.340But you get certain amounts of guaranteed advertising.
00:05:59.800Like a Canada Post is going to deliver a piece of your literature to every single household in the riding.
00:06:05.700If you put that money down, you're saying, I'm serious.
00:06:33.860If you're saying that nobody believes in you and you can't even scratch together a couple thou to run, then don't run honestly.
00:06:40.220Unless it's like a small town mayor or ship where you probably don't even need to spend anything.
00:06:43.940When it comes to a federal office, you probably need more than 30 people who actually believe in you who are willing to give you some cash.
00:06:51.920But, anyways, now I want to get into what is the stupid hypocrisy of longest ballot committee.
00:06:59.700Because these people will lash out at anyone who says that they're being horrible and that, you know, or people.
00:07:05.360I had one of their people attack me because I nearly said I just don't really have any sympathy that someone threw a rock through your window for constantly putting your name on all these ballots around the country.
00:07:33.220You're encouraging other people to sign up.
00:07:34.780This is very difficult for scrutineers to actually look over.
00:07:39.920It's very difficult for people to count the ballots.
00:07:42.280It's especially difficult for people, the average person, it's more difficult to vote.
00:07:46.280Imagine if someone's old, has bad vision, someone has mobility issues, and now they have to vote on a two-meter-long ballot like what will probably end up occurring in Battle River Crowfoot.
00:07:59.460But I want to get into the idea that they're just pushing for proportional representation.
00:08:03.300The system isn't listening to them, and so they have to do this in order to get their message out there.
00:08:09.280Well, there has been three provinces where they have had referendums on electoral reform.
00:08:15.600And you will not be shocked to hear that in all three provinces, in sometimes three referendums in two of them, they lost every single time.
00:08:24.680Let's start off in probably what should be their best province to do something like this.
00:08:30.320Maybe you could argue on the third one we're going to get to.
00:08:51.280So on May 17, 2005, which was the same date as the provincial election, naturally it's smarter to do a referendum when more people are turning out to vote anyways.
00:09:00.080The question was, should British Columbia change to be BCC STV electoral system as recommended by the Citizens Assembly on electoral reform?
00:09:13.760And that basically means that after the first round of voting, if nobody's at 50%, whoever's candidate didn't get above a certain percentage, or basically you get everyone whose candidate is below a certain percentage, your second vote goes to the next person.
00:09:31.560And so then if the person who was in first and only had like 35% the first time that has 42% the second time and is still leading, they win.
00:09:40.220If they had more than 50% the first on the first ballot, they automatically win, obviously.
00:09:59.860But the thing that you have to know about this referendum vote is that the yes side got to advertise.
00:10:10.360That organization that was mentioned above, the organization, the Citizens Assembly on electoral reform, they had a budget.
00:10:17.480They were allowed to go around marketing why people should vote yes.
00:10:20.340And so when you see a bunch of signs saying vote yes for electoral reform, vote for STV everywhere, naturally it's going to become the default choice.
00:10:29.080And they still didn't win because you needed to get 60% of the vote because naturally we're not going to change the electoral system based on a 51 to 49 margin.
00:10:38.360And some people just slept in that day or there was a rainstorm in the north and a bunch of people against it didn't show up.
00:10:45.100Now, you're going to need to have a decisive result.
00:10:48.640And they didn't have it, despite the fact that the yes side was the only side that was allowed to actually campaign.
00:10:54.340They were the only ones who had an official campaigning organization going around pushing for their side of the issue.
00:11:01.080And so Gordon Campbell, who at the time, the premier of British Columbia, who could have just said, no, you lost fair and square.
00:11:08.660In fact, you lost not even fair and square.
00:11:11.500You actually had every advantage and you still lost.
00:11:14.400That we'll rerun the referendum in four years at the next provincial election.
00:11:21.060And but with the stipulation that the no side also gets to be able to spend money.
00:11:27.500So what they did is each side, the organization that had the most obvious clout as the main organization pushing for this.
00:11:34.100So the organization that collected the signatures the first time to get this on a referendum ballot, they got five hundred thousand dollars from the government.
00:11:42.120And the no side that had the most support in terms of of fund of their own fundraising and signatures and members and whatnot.
00:11:49.480They got to represent the no side and got to use the money.
00:11:52.520And actually, the no side was represented by someone from the NDP.
00:11:56.260So like the yes side is usually NDP and the no side was NDP.
00:11:59.460This wasn't like political in the sense that, like, you know, a bunch of B.C. liberals were showing up to vote no.
00:12:05.760But all the NDP and the Greens were showing up to vote yes.
00:12:08.720In fact, usually politicians supported the yes side outside the B.C. liberals because it was like the good it was like it was a good look at the time.
00:12:17.300And in 2009, they got absolutely walloped.
00:12:23.480The existing electoral system first past the post got 60.91 percent of the vote.
00:12:28.680It actually got the supermajority that if it was flipped, the result was flipped, that would have actually changed the system.
00:12:35.660They just needed to prevent the yes side from getting to 60.
00:14:10.020And so they basically asked people what the electoral system should be.
00:14:14.300Mixed member proportional representation and first past the post.
00:14:18.220Mixed member is basically having like mega districts in which based on the percentage of the vote, that district will elect certain people.
00:14:26.620It's proportional representation with a little bit more of a spin on it.
00:14:30.540So it's not just like you get the exact proportion of the vote in the province.
00:14:37.020You need a specific percentage of the vote in a specific region in order to elect MPPs.
00:14:43.220And which makes sense if you're going to do something like this.
00:14:46.460It should be like Toronto and northern Ontario.
00:14:50.320Like you should basically have a concentration of support.
00:14:54.640Although I find the proportional representation people hypocritical because they talk so much about how we need proper representation.
00:15:02.340But then they have all these stipulations.
00:15:04.060But no, we need a 5% threshold and it's going to be regionalized.
00:15:07.800And then we're going to do this and that.
00:15:09.500It's like, do you believe in proportional representation or not?
00:15:11.780Or is it because you want to change to a system that benefits your current favorite party?
00:15:16.340Because you'll notice a lot of people who like proportional representation are people who vote for the NDP or the Green Party or the PPC.
00:15:25.580It's parties that, yeah, technically would get seats if you change the system, but can't actually prove that they are popular in a concentrated area.
00:15:34.100They've never actually tried to expand their appeal.
00:15:37.220They've never worked harder at campaigning.
00:15:39.580They just basically say the election rules are not helping them.
00:15:42.580It's like, okay, well, this has been the system.
00:16:22.460But in this election, again, in Ontario, in 2007, first past the post won with 63.18% of the vote to 36.
00:16:32.120Now, maybe the proportional representation people are going to start whining and saying, well, this means that 36% of the voting system should now be proportional representation.
00:16:42.140But whenever something is truly democratic, a vote where to change the system, you just got to get to 60% because it's a big change.
00:16:49.280You got to show that a lot of people are on board.
00:18:06.260This one was a little bit odd where they kind of, like, they have, like, a, basically you would vote in the first round on which system you liked the most.
00:18:16.260And, yeah, so, like, it's kind of a bit odd.
00:18:20.760Like, first past the post actually still wins in this thing, 31%, with the next closest being mixed member proportional representation.
00:18:27.320And when it went to the vote on which one they want, mixed member got 52.42 and first past the post got 42.84.
00:18:37.180Now, I also blame a little bit of this on just the way that it's all pitched.
00:19:19.280What do people want between the mixed member and the keeping it the same and making it the current first past the post?
00:19:26.840So, electoral reform referendum, April 23rd, 2019, should Prince Edward of Rhode Island change its voting system to a mixed member proportional voting system?
00:19:35.400And remember, this is the same question in 2005.
00:20:01.220They haven't been winning these referendums.
00:20:03.440So, ergo, it's the system or the establishment that's holding them back.
00:20:08.380I had a guy argue with me on X the other day saying, well, the only reason that the referendum side, the pro-reform side, hasn't been able to win is because there's a lot of money in the first-past-the-post lobby.
00:20:23.600It's like, the first-past-the-post lobby, I didn't know that existed.
00:20:27.560By the way, did I mention in 2018 in British Columbia when the pro-reform side got walloped the absolute hardest?
00:20:35.240Do you know who endorsed the yes side?
00:20:39.820It was not just Sonia Firstenow, the Green Party leader.
00:20:43.100It was, in fact, John Horgan, who was then to become the next premier of British Columbia.
00:20:50.840The liberals got destroyed in that election.
00:20:55.580But considering it was close, but the Greens and the NDP, in terms of the popular vote, won by quite a wide margin, it demonstrates that not only did the BC liberals all vote no, but a large portion of the Greens and the NDP would have also voted no.
00:21:11.980So these people who are usually more on the progressive side of politics, who think their positions are super popular, have been proven to time and time again that people don't agree.
00:21:22.020People don't want to change the system.
00:21:24.220It's a system we've had for a long time.
00:21:26.300And simply changing it doesn't just make things more fair.
00:21:29.180Changing the voting system changes a lot about politics, especially if we were pure proportional representation.
00:21:35.180If you can get 0.23% of the vote in Canada, you get a seat, because that, if we take 343 seats and we divide it by 100, or divide 100 by 343 seats, that's how much you need.
00:21:47.960Do you really think we're just going to have the same parties that we have now running, or do you think everyone's going to start a party?
00:21:54.340Not like, literally, I'm being a bit hyperbolic, but do you think the Christian Heritage Party is now going to put a candidate in every single riding,
00:22:02.040or they're going to try and make sure their party is on the federal ballot?
00:22:06.920Because if they get 0.23% of the vote, they already basically get that without even running candidates in every riding.
00:22:13.860Wouldn't they try a little bit harder in order to get a few Christian Heritage MPs?
00:22:18.380Wouldn't a lot of parties try a lot harder because now suddenly you can get an elected MP for not that much trouble?
00:22:26.320I think electoral systems are trying to get us coherent governments.
00:22:30.920Proportional representation does not get anything coherent.
00:22:33.540I have never liked the idea that we are going to overrule 42% of people who all voted for one thing with 52% of people who didn't actually all vote for one thing,
00:22:45.800but 27% of them voted for the Socialist Party, and 14% voted for the Green Party, and 5% voted for the Democracy Party,
00:22:54.920and another 8% voted for animal welfare or whatever, because that's what goes on in proportional representation systems.
00:23:02.440Even when they have a threshold, it just becomes chaos.
00:23:05.400Nothing ever changes because every time someone gets tired of voting for the socialists in Spain,
00:23:10.280and this is how it works, Spain has basically had a socialist government since the 70s.
00:23:15.500Every time people get sick of the socialists, because people have egos naturally,
00:23:19.700they don't want to say, well, I've been voting wrong.
00:23:21.720They're like, no, no, the party was just not doing it right.
00:23:25.160And so they vote for the Communist Party, or they vote for the Eco-Socialist Party,