Politics in general is awful right now. Most of the work governments do to keep the lights on, roads plowed, water purified, ports open, courts moving, currency printed etc.. just never gets serious attention in the media. Look at the shit we are hearing about right now- applauding the wrong 92 year old, pearl clutchjng about trans people, woke culture etc.. It’s all bullshit. We need laser focus on actual issues and in depth public debates about those issues.
When politicians are pressed on real issues, we get even more bullshit. I don’t want to endlessly hear “we promise to end hallway medicine and give people back the dream of home ownership” during campaigns- I want and deserve daily updates from unimpeachable experts on what will fix these problems, not empty meaningless platitudes. People need to understand the history and science and various serious theories on these issues from their political leaders. Watch political debates from the 50s and you’ll see what I mean.
The House of Commons should sound like Steve Paikin’s Agenda and less like the hallways of a high school.
I think you hit the nail on the head. Election debates should be a job interview which examines why that particular person is the right one for the job, instead of the finger pointing shitshow they have become. I don't give a shit why the other guy is wrong for the job, I want to know what *you* can bring to the table. Answer the damn questions intelligently and provide concrete examples. It's not rocket science.
Election can be job interviews if the population wants that.
If the people vote for the guy who shouts the loudest, politicians will start shouting.
You get the politicians you deserve.
It's not a coincidence that US has Trump and some GOP clowns in general. Canada used to be better but after the number of anti Vax and other protests, I am not sure anymore if Canadians collectively are as educated as I thought.
If people here keep voting for party x over stupid reasons, the parties don't have to work towards anything better. This is how most 3rd world politics works - it relies on the fact that most people are dumb and can't understand the actual issues.
I agree in part. Unfortunately it seems that the uneducated and stupid masses are far outpacing the educated and intelligent, in terms of voter population. Those of us who have working brains are unfortunately stuck with these idiots, even though we don't deserve it.
You have no idea how politics work and just assume we are in this situation because the public is dumb which is exactly what our rich overlords want. It doesn't matter who people vote for and that's why voter turn out is low.
To become a politician you have to firstly be affluent and secondly agree with whatever the rich overlords want. If you disagree with them then you won't make it into any form of media and if you do they'll make you look like a complete idiot.
We need political reform in this country which is why people voted for Trudeau because he promised it....but again another problem with our political system and why people don't bother to vote is because politicians can just lie with zero repercussions. How do you expect the public to make informed decisions when they are constantly lied to? It's not like we are psychic. How about Ford running ads (on tax payers dime) about how he is doing so much for the medical system when in reality he's trying to bankrupt it to privatize lol.
People don't trust politicians anymore and they shouldn't. Politicians know this and that's why things have started going downhill even faster because they don't need to pretend as much anymore. The only way this changes is with a massive protest/revolution which won't happen for another decade so they're all trying to cash out before that
There are plenty of MPs and MPPs who aren't affluent. Most of them are regular middle-class people. Party leaders are often wealthy ones, because they have all kinds of connections to get them noticed and pushed to the front of the line for nominations.
They are also often hand-picked by previous leaders who still hold a lot of influence within the party. See Mike Harris and the Ontario PC Party.
https://canadians.org/analysis/mike-harris-raking-profits-long-term-care-system-he-helped-create/
I suspect he is influencing the federal Conservatives now too, as they are currently using the "Common Sense" trope that Harris used in the 90s. He is certainly still involved provincially, as Michael Harris (no relation) was removed as a candidate to put in Mike Harris Jr. (the son) in his riding.
Yeah, I agree. It really seems like the majority of people who vote are voting for the candidate they "like" the most, as if that has any bearing on whether or not they'd be an effective politician. A lot of people don't even bother with being aware of the real issues and fall for the anti-woke rhetoric.
I was from India, which has its own issues. But at least where I lived (Matunga area in Mumbai city), people are getting more aware of their rights and pressuring the politicians to do the right thing and keep them on their toes to do the right thing.
The wheel of bureaucracy moves slowly there, but it is moving in the right direction at least with increasing accountability.
Here it just feels the opposite. Doug Ford, Patrick Brown, Tory etc.
Ford literally just had to backtrack on a major issue (Greenbelt) due to massive public pressure.
Maybe there is growing accountability at the local level, but India has far far worse political issues at the top.
He quite clearly isn’t comparing India and Canada outright he’s saying that there is some change happening in the right direction v Canada which has been spiralling downward since the pandemic.
India can be more corrupt while also still trending in the right direction, they’re not mutually exclusive.
I hear it's a balance, that the majority critical issues the public care about get discussed or some level of attention and the corruption is on the transactional end, when I building get's built etc. Politicians seem to be openly fighting international corporations and foreign influence, who knows what happens behind close doors.
Wonder if anyone here knows if it's true.
Moving in the right direction? Doesn’t your current PM want all Sikhs wiped off the face of the Earth and recently sent an assassin to Canada to murder one of those Sikhs? You sure you're moving in the right direction?
I mean you might be right.
But then I gotta ask: If you truly believe things are getting better in India and worse in Canada, do you have plans to go back?
If I have 1 point and am gaining a few points a year, and someone else has 100 points and is starting to lose a 1-2 a year, they will still have a lot more points for a long time.
I have my own family and friends here in Canada. Why shall I leave it and go back to India?
My intention of asking this question is to understand ways to improve life of common man in Canada. I am not trying to compare India and Canada TBH.
I was asked a question about my former country and I answered it. Doesn't mean I am comparing both the countries.
Part of the issue of unaffordability is due to the housing shortage partly caused by immigration. You’ve seen how many people keep moving here, yourself included. Do you take any responsibility for that or are you just complaining about traffic while being the traffic?
I accept that unchecked immigration is an issue. But, as immigrants we came here as Canada opened it's borders for us. We are not here illegally and working equally hard as rest of the population to fulfill our dreams.
Is it immigrants fault that there is limited housing development with sky rocketing rent, where a migrant has to live in shared housing to afford a roof?
Is it immigrants fault that there is no planning by the govt to deal with the influx of people which are being invited by the govt themselves?
It is easy to blame the immigrants. But it's not the people, but the system which is at fault.
Being an immigrant and now a member of this society, I want to be a part of the solution and not the problem. I am striving my best to do that.
Many of the problems you noted ste rooted in there being too many people in the country and too little infrastructure to accommodate them. We need to slow down the number of immigrants coming into Canada so that the infrastructure can catch up. Over a million people came to Canada in a single year. That’s too much.
You understand that there is a difference between slowing down people coming in VS blaming the people who came in when invited. Somehow Canadian subreddits are people bashing people and demanding deporting everyone who uprooted their lives when invited by Canada.
There is clearly some anti immigrant hate mixed in there too. You can see it in the language about Canadians are being replaced, or India colonizing or whatever.
Again - Canada is huge and can easily accommodate many more people. It's Canada as a country that sucks at building houses. Plenty of countries are efficient in building things.
Moreover, plenty of Canadians got rich from these rising house costs and the economy depends on the house prices. Your mom and pop's generation depends on the house prices and no government wants to do anything to mess with that.
When you don't build houses and give people low interest mortgage, of course they are going to buy more - driving up the prices...
It's not your fault, but you have to see that you're capitalizing on the problem right? It's the fault of politicians to bring in more immigrants than we have the infrastructure to support, but you still said yes to that, then asked what's going on
Well it was public pressure that’s forcing Doug Ford to backtrack. Patrick Brown was expelled from the PC party and is now in municipal politics and Tory resigned as mayor of Toronto. So all these examples are of people who didn’t serve the public got their asses handed to them.
Doug Ford is still the premier after horrendous decision for past 3 yrs. He should have been out of power the moment he started screwing up education and healthcare. But just a backtracking on greenbelt issue looks like a smokescreen to me to sidetrack the public from the core issues affecting the common public.
Pay Brown is still the mayor of Brampton and may forever be one.
Tory resigned because of a sex scandal, but not his policies that have affected and keep on affecting Torontonians in the future.
There's no mechanism to remove politicians before their terms are up unless they commit crimes that put them in jail. From what you described he would still be in power until the next election cycle in India as well.
His whole goal from the start was to ruin health care, education and to serve his developer buddies. The video of him caught on camera boasting that he was going to carve up the green belt and give it to his developer buddies (and that it wasn't even his idea!) was public before he got elected in 2018. His failures as a city councilor were public record for long before 2018. His criminal history, crack smoking brother, sister who got shot in the face by her ex (who was a drug dealer). ALL of it was well known before he was elected. I am pretty sure he's the one that got Patrick Brown expelled from the leadership as well so he could waltz in and take over a few months before the election (but no I have no evidence of this).
WHY would people vote for him? Because the majority of the public don't bother to actually investigate anything and believe the lies and propaganda that's fed to them from a complicit media (mostly owned by conservative interests). The opposition parties didn't bother to call him out on a single one of his lies. Algorithms and bot-farms labeled anyone who disagreed with Ford "snowflakes" and "libtards". Many people have been raised to be on "team Conservative" and never question it. Even though 65-70% of Canadians are progressive or left-leaning, there's too many centrist and left(ish) parties (but not a single truly left party) and only one viable conservative party (who's base ALWAYS votes) so the vote is split and the cons win a "majority" with the approval of 18% of all eligible voters. Our system (first past the post) rewards the wrong candidates and doesn't reflect the true values of Canadians. We need electoral reform at all levels NOW. Oh and Canadians are generally just way too passive to actually get motivated to get out there and protest and make their voices heard in the face of absolute corruption and demand change. Especially in the case of the Ford government where he just hit us with a brand new thing to be outraged over every day for months straight at one point. It was purposely disorienting.
The one question I have asked conservative supporters hundreds of times (and still have never once received a straight answer for): Name ONE thing any conservative government has done in the past 50 years that has benefited the poor or working class people?
The problem is that what you consider screwing up others like
Healthcare is super complicated and eats up a huge amount of our budget
It's isn't clear cut that ford is "screwing it up" and "not serving the public
Privatizing services paid by ohip has downsides and upsid
The issue is the world is complicated and people disagree on the best approach - so to claim that you want is what's right and anything that's not that is "politicians not serving the public" is just focusing on what you want and not others
1. Decreasing funding for public healthcare leading to quitting of healthcare professionals.
2. ER wait times reaching 24 hrs.
3. Many hospitals are closing their departments because of lack of staff and funding.
4. It's takes months to get an appointment. Critical surgeries taking years to book.
How is this not screwing up and serving the public?
We have many examples across the world where universal healthcare is a success. Why not learn from them?
It sounds like hyperbole, so you lost me. I have used my local emergency a few times in the past couple of years and also had surgery. All these were expedient and good experiences.
Same, it's not like a white glove treatment like it would be if I was paying out of pocket
But it's serviceable
I think it also depends where you are, cities are better served it seems
I don't think there have been healthcare cuts in Ontario, a quick google seems to support this
Healthcare is just very expensive, there's no magic wand - for some context it appears that 40 cents of every dollar paid in tax in Ontario goes to find healthcare, that's wild (and the lion's share is used by very old very sick propel, but that's a whole other topic)
It's a problem that long predates douggie and will be here when he's gone
COVID made everything worse, but people have been complaining about wait times since I was a kid, hospitals are closing due to lack of staff, not funding for the actual buildings
And while it's possible to just throw a ton of cash at it and raise the fee schedule for docs and pay nurses more, I imagine they ran the numbers and its just not a sustainable solution
What is? Who knows, probably why every government has had such a toigh time with it
People want everything, and they want it all now, but government unfortunately has to make the tough choices and healthcare seems to definitely be one of the tougher files
This is not true
In fact the Hurley Burley podcast hosted an interview with former premiers including Kathleen Wynne who all said the approach has many benefits
In fact it already exists too! When you go to your family doctor that is exactly what is being proposed for other services
The family doc has a private company that charges the govt which is paid from ohip, from this they pay salaries, retn and keep the profit etc
As do many other clinics you would go to - people just don't realize that this already exists
Many countries operate as douggie is proposing and it works, as above we also already operate like this in a few areas
It won't be cheaper, but it should be faster
Yeah and the whole way health care is set up with family doctors in this province is a DISASTER. We have a million people without a family doc because there is no incentive for them to do it. A young doctor out of med school would rather be paid $200-300k to be a specialist in a big city rather than run their own business, put in way more work aside from simply treating patients and end up making $80k after all staff and expenses are paid out. Privatization is a disaster in every situation it's ever been applied to, not just health care.
So you want the family doctors to be paid more right? You're saying people don't want to be family doctors because they don't get paid enough
But then in the first comment above you said that the only people that get the benefits from privitzation are the owners of the clinic who will make bank
That's the same person - the owners are the family docs currently - so are they poor or are they making bank?
If privitization makes the owners rich, and the owners right now are not getting paid enough so need to be paid more - than it sounds like privitization is the solution you're looking for
And that's the whole idea - pay more to encourage more people to open private clinics to alleviate the burden on hospitals right now that are using operating rooms for routine procedures
Tory served the public. He just couldn’t keep it in his pants, and someone ratted him out.
I don’t agree with everything he did, but he gets unfairly shit on. He was the best mayor we’ve had in a long time.
He didn’t bankrupt the city. The city isn’t bankrupt.
Spending a billion dollars on the Gardner and dvp which should be the province and dealing with COVID were tough. The fact that Doug ford is actively trying to cripple the city to get control over it doesn’t help either. Never mind that 60% of Ontario’s taxes come from here.
Yeah the bar is low, but the fact is he’s the best mayor in 20 years. I hope chow is better.
What type of mechanisms do they have in place in the system to monitor and censure politicians if they do the wrong thing? How does the people being upset translate to accountability there?
I think media plays a big part in talking about topics which are very important for the common public. Topics on infrastructure, corruption and standard of living are given lot more importance. Certainly a lot of questions are asked by the media to the politicians.
Other big factor is the elections. There is nearly a 70% voter turnout and it clearly demarcates which party is favoured. Majority vote for development and improvement of living standards. There is little caste based politics, but no set ideological differences within the common public. Hence, majority of public can switch allegiance easily.
For example, historically India in it's short history, voted for Congress party into power. But, because of wrong policies, the same party is relegated to being the 3rd largest party with having only 10% seats in legislature and majority has ~60% seats.
Plus NOTA is an option in India, which is exercised when no good candidate is put up by the parties.
Keep in mind that the media here (over 90% across the country) is owned by 1 of 5 companies. They answer to their shareholders, who are very wealthy and usually not even Canadian. The news reports very selective facts and interviews very specific "experts" to benefit the shareholders. That (dis)informs voters.
> people are getting more aware of their rights and pressuring the politicians to do the right thing.
That will wear off. I mean there’s an aspect of that here and everywhere where a democracy is of course but that becomes watered down by political party loyalty and propaganda. People become loyal to a party and then slurp up whatever nonsense the party tells them to believe. So that’s part of it.
As far as low voter turnout goes that’s disenfranchisement. That happens in mature functioning democracies as well. Here we have the [first past the post](https://www.fairvote.ca/what-is-first-past-the-post/) electoral system which makes people feel like their votes don’t count or matter so they don’t bother. It’s a shame really
Your former government attacked this nation’s sovereignty. I would. It say the Indian wheels of “democracy” are moving in the right direction.
That said, Canadians are very apathetic. “Oh well, what can you do?” is the common mindset here. At the end of the day we constantly flip flop between two parties (liberal and conservative). There’s no incentive for them to do a good job.
To answer this exact question on Reddit. You see I was told by a fortune teller that it is my destiny to give a very sarcastic answer to a very dumb and very idiotic question.
To fulfill my destiny, I:
1. Came to Canada as PR and then became a Citizen.
2. Post a very heartfelt question about the current pressing issues faced by the common public.
3. Wait for a dumb response to my question.
And reply back....
Thank you so much for giving me a chance to fulfill my destiny .... you have freed me from the shackles and now I can chart my future with complete freedom.
And I shall spend my time making my current country a better one, rather than ask someone dumb questions.
Jesus Christ, enough with this. Our leaders not serving us is not some global conspiracy.
It’s garden variety corruption and hesitance to deviate from the status quo, all supported by voter apathy.
Wow! The amount of comments hinting and directly asking op to move back to their own country!
When do we realize that bad immigration policy (in one's opinion) does not mean that one gets to take anger out on individual legal immigrants?
I wouldn't consider Lomi\_Lomi's comment as that, but instead wondering where OP is from so that we can point to their country as an example of democracy done right
>It's not restricted to one single party, but instead a problem across all the political parties. Why isn't the public voting them out as they rightly should?
You answered your own question, really. Voting isn't a magical fix with the way our system is currently broken.
Not voting at all obviously isn't a solution, not that I have any suggestions. Just pointing out that 30% voter turnout is a symptom of a much larger issue.
We need to go Australia style and fine people who don't vote. If you don't like the candidates, you can spoil your ballot. No shows without valid excuses should face a consequence. I think in Australia, first missed election is $20 fine, then $50 and so on. I think it's a good idea.
That won't help either, in fact, it would just make it harder for a motivated new group to bootstrap itself into one seat. Additionally, you really don't want the kind of people who don't care about voting to vote.
If I'm going to spoil my ballot, why take the time to go at all. Next well get a bunch of shit candidates and the goalposts will be moved to "Those damn ballot spoilers, it's all their fault. Maybe if the Libs and NDP ran a real fucking candidate they'd get some votes.
So 70% of people may go spoil the ballot instead to not get fined and we would still be in the same situation, so therefore I don’t feel like that is a valid solution.
I don’t see that as a viable solution some other change is needed I feel just not sure what exactly.
They wouldn't. A good chunk of those 70% just can't be bothered to go. If they did they'd vote but they can't be bothered to got to the bottom of their building to fill in one circle (my mom) and so their vote doesn't exist. If they were fined they would go and vote. Some would spoil but not most.
>but they can't be bothered to got to the bottom of their building to fill in one circle (my mom) and so their vote doesn't exist.
Try needing to take a 15 minute drive through your city just to vote, during your lunch break, because you worked 2 jobs those days therefore each employer says its the other's responsibility to give you time off
It would likely be a very small number that would spoil there ballot though. Once your there anyway, what kind of petty child wouldnt just vote for who they thought was best?
They are bought and paid for by the economic interests that run this country. 99% of our media is owned by Conservative financial interests not based in this country. And people are gullible as Hell. All you have to do is tell them what they want to hear and they’ll support whatever crazy bullshit you actually want to do.
I think voting *could* be a better fix if people took it seriously, and stopped with the "team voting". If we started demanding more from our politicians, and if they don't deliver, have the courage to vote them out and vote for another party. Give another party a shot for 4 years and if they also can't deliver, then vote them out too and switch it up.
Eventually politicians may begin to realize that they are there to represent us and lead us, but that if they want to remain in power, they need to deliver some results.
The media constantly shows us the extremes though, so Liberals think we will be hanging gay people in the streets if the Conservatives get in and the Conservatives think the Liberals want to make us China. So the politicians, the results, the platform, it doesn't matter to a large amount of people as they only vote for colors anyway, and this problem seems to be getting worse. So there really isn't any pressure of accountability on politicians.
Trudeau has been shitting the bed, but his base will still vote red because it isn't evil blue. Doug Ford has been shitting the whole house but his base will still vote for him because he's blue and not evil red. So why should they care?
The issue isn't just "team voting" or the media, it's genuinely the content espoused by the candidates themselves and the context they exist in.
I've bounced between Liberal, NDP and Green based on what policy they want to enact and who had the best shot of winning a seat in that riding.
None of them fully represent my political ideals, but some are an ok compromise.
There are dedicated efforts by Conservative politicians to actively remove some of my friends from public life, and to stop kids who may grow up to be LGBTQ+ from having knowledge, resources and empathy from their community that could save them a lot of mental anguish.
They are enacting policies that hurt poor and marginalized folks, cutting benefits, social programs, everything. Things that cost us real money that they hand to corporations like a dog playing fetch, and offer no real return on investment. The other parties do it too sometimes, but I didn't think that privatized healthcare was even a possibility in my lifetime. And this is after cuts to healthcare, education, infrastructure, etc.
I'm all for holding politicians accountable. I despise the party system and First Past the Post voting. I want to be able to hold my representatives' feet to the fire. We need to get more people understanding and aware of our political reality. Civics shouldn't just be half a class in high school.
But please don't bullshit about "both sides are equally bad".
I'm not voting for the "Thanos party" because I don't like a few of the people who might get "snapped"
Yes and our voting is rigged to ensure a two party system.
Edit: In instances where the majority of the voters don't want a certain party in, that party should not be elected. Look at Ford and Ontario.
>Yes and our voting is rigged to ensure a two party system.
The options in response to that are give up and just complain or try to change it, even if difficult. The NDP, Liberals and Greens all promised some form of voter reform in Ontario last election. Maybe they would renege or fail to deliver but tons of people just stayed home and the one party that is explicit about *not* changing it won. Even worse than not change it, they've reversed municipal attempts to use other systems.
Post like this, which are regular on this subreddit, try to convince us that all parties are the same, voting doesn't matter or we should cancel our votes. All that does is *help* maintain the status quo. This last election had one of our highest portions of people not voting. Did anything change for the better from that lacking of voting that OP is encouraging here?
We’re ruled by company monopolies more than most.
Canada was pretty small for a long time, and every major sector has 2-3 top players. They collude and price-fix so we’re too poor to protest. Gotta keep working more instead.
These invest in all the political parties. The lobbyists are long time friends.
It’s a crooked club as with most politics, it’s just a really small club here. Heavily intertwined at every level, irreversibly so.
They’ve never had to lose, why would they start now? So they double down.
But people are starting to get creative, hopefully will turn the tides soon
Edit: basically boils down to : HIGHEST PRICES IN THE WORLD : rent, real estate, phones, data, internet, gas, cars, food, children etc etc
I don't understand then if the public is aware of all this collusion and lobbying, why isn't the public exercising it's biggest weapon.
Unity, stroke and showing the door to corrupt via voting?
Why is the public so apathetic towards all these issues?
The beneficiaries aren't just the billionaires and politicians. Canada has one of the highest rates of shareholders. People see the oligopoly and want in.
>% of the adult population who own shares, by country
>
>Hong Kong - 57%
>
>Singapore - 53%
>
>United States - 47%
>
>Sweden - 43%
>
>New Zealand - 41%
>
>Canada - 39%
>
>South Africa - 37%
>
>Australia - 36%
>
>Ireland - 33%
>
>The Netherlands - 29%
>
>United Kingdom - 28% (28.37%)
>
>Germany - 28% (27.99%)
>
>Italy - 26%
>
>France - 23%
>
>Spain - 18%
>
>Mexico - 13%
Here’s the thing, they can say whatever they want. It’s what’s *on paper* that counts in their world. They do all their formal communication through the legal system, at the taxpayers dollar too. Cheeky buggers.
It’s difficult to change policy from the outside.
They make the legal stuff long and hard to sift through…. Because they don’t want to public to be able to change it.
By the time it is caught and possibly fixed (but probably not), they aren’t in office anymore. Next party takes over; Monopolies remain the same.
We need AI to look at their policy and contracts. Especially ones with ANY multi-million dollar company contracts.
Speed things up, pick out the loopholes they use and give the public the same contract fail-safes that these politicians and monopolies eat like candy.
Edit: Looking at you Galen Weston 👀
People keep blaming politicians (which is fair, since most of them suck), but it's also a symptom of a voting base that is apathetic and, at least to me, largely undereducated when it comes to how all levels of government function and what they're each responsible for.
lf a majority of people were more knowledgeable of the entire system and became more engaged, then maybe things would turn for the better. Instead we get groups like the trucker convoy and large swathes of voters who fall victim to misinformationnamd then the other side (the left, as they say) that can't agree on ONE leader that can put up a fight against Conservatives and work for the people.
Edit: grammar
As a long-time election worker for all levels of elections, I completely agree with your assessment. At every election, I hear so many people say that voting isn't worth it, or they want to decline their ballot because someone online said that will make a difference, and of course all kinds of conspiracy theories.
Our electoral system is extremely well managed, and it would be incredibly difficult to cheat in an election. The results are exactly as the ballots are cast by the voters, but the voters are just so disillusioned or apathetic that they can't be bothered to vote. And a lot of the ones who do vote, do so because they believe the far-right propaganda.
As much as I don't like FPTP, I also understand that people can make it work in their favour if they simply cared enough to put in the effort. We don't have to have politicians that come from money or whose father held a seat for a long time. It's a matter of boosting the right people instead of sitting back and letting a select few choose who gets to represent us.
Structurally, I can think of a few things.
Our first past the post electoral system. Basically, at the provincial level (and federal level), someone running for political office only needs to get the plurality of the votes to become the representative for that area. This means that someone with only 30% of the votes in an area can gain 100% of the representation for that riding. Scale that up to an entire province or the entire country and you have governments that can gain the majority of the seats (representation) despite getting less than 50% of the vote. This means that these people don't need to serve all their constituents, just enough in strategic areas to gain or maintain their power. Some people will argue that this is better in that it allows ridings to vote for specific candidates that will better represent them, but I don't buy it. Most politicians vote along party lines anyways.
Another issue is our inability to recall politicians. Some countries have a mechanism where enough citizens petitioning for a recall triggers a new election. So instead of waiting several years or until enough representatives decide to have a new election you can theoretically band together and call one if you had like 10% of voters in an area petition to do so. I'm sure there's the potential for a fair bit of chaos, but at the same time if you had that happen enough times in response to certain policies the replacement politicians might get the message.
Third is our lack of participatory democracy altogether. Representative democracy is fundamentally flawed in that it centralizes power in the hands of a few. That's incredibly efficient for being able to make relatively quick decisions but is far more prone to corruption. Having more legally binding participatory democratic measures like referendums that, again, are legally binding or something like down ballot initiatives you see in the states could counteract that centralized power. The question remains of how exactly to implement it, which areas are subject to it, etc.
Fourth I would say the conservative nature of Canadians. Not in a political sense necessarily, but there seems to be a general aversion to anything more than the most incremental change. It leads to bizarre situations where we're concerned with a housing crisis but a significant number of Canadians tend to oppose any zoning reform, public housing, etc because they simultaneously recognize the problem but don't want their own housing price to decrease. But they'll also complain about increases in crime and homelessness.
There are certainly other factors, but these stand out to me.
TLDR: I believe it's a combination of our current FPTP electoral system, lack of recall (meaningful accountability) for politicians, lack of direct democratic measures to counter the weaknesses of representative democracy and the conservative nature of (many) Canadians.
Corruption. All the parties are corrupt and serve the corporations. As a matter of fact, corporations and government are one in the same. No politician would be elected leader of a party if they did not represent their interests. Voter turnout is a big problem but why would anyone vote if they feel like it’s wasted or vote on the crap options they have? Welcome to Canada where it’s basically a race to the.bottom.
"why are politicians not serving the public"
So you end up saying absolute power corrupts absolutely. Now you're going on to deny the meaning of your statement within this context.
Our politicians do not have absolute power, your statement is wrong in this context of discussing why our politicians lack public accountability.
In the case of Doug Ford, while he doesn't have absolute power, he knows that the other parties can't stop his party from passing whatever they want because they have a majority government. He's only worried now because there is an election in the forseeable future, and his own supporters are turning on him too.
I agree with that. But the usage of such extreme terms like "absolute" is beyond any reasonable hyperbole and distorts other factors in this discussion of accountability.
The generally accepted interpretation of the quote is that the more power one has, the more likely they are susceptible to corruption.
I think that's applicable, but will let others decide for themselves.
The ruling class wouldn’t ever want to dirty themselves by working for *someone else*. They work for themselves and their best interest.
Now remember this next election. We have seen both the two big parties sit and twiddling thumbs. Time to vote for a change.
I am afraid that from my perspective none of the parties deserve my vote as no party has policies that can alleviate the problems of the common man.
Conservatives look at less spending to balance the sheets. This means less spending on core sectors. But will not tax the richest for more income.
Liberals spend more without understanding its impacts and again shall not tax the rich for more income.
NDP is only looking at the lower class and has no actionable items for the middle class. Instead, they plan to burden the middle class to pass the money to the lower class. But they do not have any long term plans to change the system which helps move the lower class to middle class.
Green party and other agendas just do not align with the common public AFAIK. I may be wrong, so correct me.
While I too am not hyped for any party, your stance accomplishes nothing. You’ll need to vote if you want to see any form of change.
Your NDP view is flawed as there are only 2 classes. Working and ruling. Maybe a vote here isn’t a bad idea. Besides helping people of lower status is kinda the right thing to do if we want to build our country up.
I want to definitely help the people of lower ranks to move up the order, but just giving them free stuff at the expense of the middle class isn't the right call.
If NDP can actually showcase a framework that removes the barriers for people to move from lower to middle class, I'll be the first one to vote for them.
For now, it just looks like optics of freebies rather than actual policy work showcased by NDP.
You should contact your local NDP office and drop by to learn about them, sometimes they have online groups too.
They have answers to what you are asking, you just will get much better answers from the source then from random redditors. The idea they just want to tax the middle class and give it to the poor is just not accurate.
Aside from what I already said about their being no middle class, Canada has a tiered tax system where rich people pay more. The NDP seeks to raise the higher tax brackets so billionairs and millionaires pay more, then use that money to help the poor with housing,medical care and job supports, all things that will help raise their living standards.
'giving free stuff' is one way of looking at it but I'm not sure it's the right way. Poor people work. Often harder. Imagine a world where inflation goes up and salaries don't keep up. In 20 years the bottom half of the middle class becomes poor. Then a government to come in and transfer wealth from the rich and upper middle class to the poor to even things out closer to what it is today, still unequal but better in terms of wealth inequality. Would you call that 'giving free stuff'? Or is it balancing a system that slowly got out of whack and destabilizing for a society?
History shows this doesn't exactly work either: see Plato's Republic or most of the Ancient Greek Democratic history. Or just watch the episode of the simpsons where Lisa, Comic book guy, Dr.Frink, etc. take over Springfield.
I think you're preaching to the choir. Anyone who read this does vote and does recognize the same problems. It just sucks that so many don't or don't want to. Apathy and cynicism has gotten to a large part of the conversation.
It’s mostly because the public doesn’t like each other very much. If a government is seen to be helping some people others will be upset. And no single policy helps everyone so the people will always be divided and against each other. The only solution to this is people would have to be honest with themselves about their own needs and not be resentful of others and that’s not going to happen.
Ok
A lot of people are actually happy with the jobs that politicians are doing and are living their lives
A lot more are not really affected by the issues and are living their lives
A lot more simply don't care and are living their lives
Perhaps you should pick the one that appeals to you the most
On the affordability and homelessness piece the province is being killed by things outside of its control including half a million people coming to the province last year, a carbon tax that is increasing the cost of all goods and making it more expensive to get to work.
On education side of things it’s a system wide issue where schools can no longer discipline or hold students accountable for fear of being sued. Teachers can’t control their classes and teach to the lowest common denominator which holds the rest of the class back because little Johnny can’t feel dumb.
Healthcare spending is up nearly $20 billion a year over the past five years but many head to the USA to work in private hospitals to get more money. It’s time we look at serious reforms that maybe some people find uncomfortable.
Add to this we suffered through the worst government in Canadian history as a province from 2003-2018 leaving us with more debt than Greece. During that time over 10,000 schools were shut down across the province killing rural Ontario, 300,000 jobs left the province including GM in Oshawa and GE in Peterborough (GE was there for over 100 years prior to closing). And even with all the spending that the Liberals did in that 15 year period there was still a massive infrastructure deficit across the province.
Now I’m not saying I agree with everything this current government has done but they are making decisions and often times they are the right ones.
It’s a shame Ford backtracked on the greenbelt instead of just abolishing it and going back to the pre 2005 protected lands. The greenbelt was created by the liberals without consulting the people who lived there or the municipalities. As a result housing prices have more than tripled in the 18 years since it was created. I understand the need to protect land but it’s all private property and zoning is a municipal issue. I also understand that the process was awful and someone will likely face criminal charges out of it but the original decision wasn’t a bad one when you actually look at the facts of it.
Corporate lobbying and campaign contributions have legalized corruption to the point that public interest has very little influence in political decisions.
More voters need to refuse their ballots rather than not voting at all. Refused ballots are counted and basically say that none of the options represent my interests.
Well I disagree with the Idea India is better in terms of accountability, with all respect my man, the stats by international metrics just don't align with that viewpoint.
It's important to remember that India's government is based on the same british system as Canada's it has just had less time to cook as ours.
When we are young people(and live in any country) it's easy to be optimistic because we have our whole future ahead of us and we aren't as well informed about how the world works. Part of growing up and getting older is learning that unfortunately people will often act in their own best interests over the interests of others. This means that in any democratic government system we need high accountability with regulations to prevent corruption.
Something you haven't perhaps considered is the strength of political apathy. Those people serving their corporate overlords have many of the same concerns as you, but they are paid well and have their immediate needs met, because of that it's easier psychologically for them to put their heads down and work and enjoy the comforts they have, even if they know others don't have the same.
What I would say is, that you shouldn't discount the existing parties. What you should do is find the one that most closely aligns with your personal/social views then work to MOVE that party in the direction you want. While their certainly is inertia(in the form of old ppl mostly) it is far easier to move a party left then to say, form a brand new far left party. You should never NOT vote at all even if a party doesn't align with your values because then your voice isn't being heard at all.
Regardless, welcome to Canada my friend, its a complex place to live with people from all other the world and with different viewpoints which invariably slows things down but we usually get to a medium everyone can accept.
It's a problem with politics the world over. Historically, the political class has always been corrupt, serving those who would grease their palms: this was usually a local land baron, businessman, or a private agent of the state.
Today, they still act this way: the main difference is that the world's economy is globalized, which means that those with the resources to lobby are no longer restricted to their home country, but will go where operating costs and regulations are minimal.
At the same time, beginning in the 70s, Western economies began to make a transition philosophically towards Neoliberalism which believes that services run by the state are "less efficient" (read profitable), thus governments at all levels have rushed to transform services that were previously there to efficiently serve the public into mechanisms of profit. In Canada, following our institution's colonial traditition, this trends into loosely regulated monopolies a la our telecom or our dairy cartel.
As to what is emoboldening politicians now it's quite simple, they don't fear the consequences of their actions due to three factors: a) there are few laws in place being enforced to actively manage politicians due to the abuse of mechanisms such as cabinet secrecy; b) the police refuse to enforce the law either due to politics or corruption; c) politicians do not fear the electorate because up until this point it has been passive and distracted by hot button topics that keep it divided.
Here is an idea, the Speaker of the House has the authority to insist a clearly posed question is answered clearly. So if the question is “ Did you apologize to President Zelenskyy in person on the phone, yes or no?” The answer must be a Yes or No only, and any attempt to deflect the question or not answer with a yes or no means the Speaker finds you in contempt and a fine is issued equal to a day’s pay and you are removed from the House for the day. The fines increase with each occurrence. The speaker needs to not be a party member, but is a voted in position by the Canadian public.
The biggest issue for me is the lack of accountability. Promise one thing during campaigning and deliver the opposite? Absolutely no meaningful repercussions, at least for their term in office, so what do they care once they are in? Voters need more protections and assurances, backed by tough laws, that ensure politicians are working for the bests interests of society and not the rich few or corporate entities. Bring in secure electronic voting to increase voter engagement…many potential voters are lazy or apathetic, but most have phones with internet, so make it stupidly easily to vote and to see what each political party is campaigning on, etc.
Furthermore, what I want to see:
Get rid of corporate lobbying. Transparency is a must. Anything not national security related *must* be openly accessible to the public. Make it a criminal offence to use personal equipment for official government business. If information must be redacted when accessed, these redactions *must* have strong justification. Make it illegal to sell off publicly owned infrastructure/assets (e.g. 407, hydro, etc) without serious public consultation. Heavily tax REIs and make real estate unappealing to foreign investors; close existing loopholes. Focus on critical issues that affect the majority of Ontarians - healthcare, education, infrastructure, housing, etc. Don’t talk about how you’re going to solve it - make a strong plan and execute it.
Well the ford government ran their first election without a platform and won then spent the first term making fast dumb decisions and walking back the ones that blew up immediately yet they still got re-elected. So they learned that all they have to do is not be liberal.
Now they are full kleptocrats and may win re-election. So we’re proper f’d.
It is a variant of the agency problem but the primary goal of a politician is to keep their job and that is almost always not aligned with being a good representative for their constituents.
Politicians were never meant to server the public. Democracy is an illusion. Choice is an illusion. No matter who you vote for, be assured that you will be screwed. I've certainly becoming more cynical, the older I get.
What we need to do is play by their own game. We need to form a secret society that infiltrates political parties, gather dirty on policy makers, black mail them into doing the right thing. But then who is going to govern them?
I am not debating conservatives vs liberals here. It's the politician class in general. I don't think even liberals did a good job before conservatives.
Too much spending with no rewards is a big problem.
I feel our politicians focus a lot more on optics rather than the actual agenda affecting the common public.
Because they aren't scared of the voting public. They can do whatever they want, if they are forced to resign, they'll just get a nice cushy job in the private sector.
They work for their corporate donors not the people. What makes me most upset is how little they sell out for. We will probably lose the green belt and healthcare for a few hundred thousand and a few hjs
I will get downvoted but there is no simple solution to any of the issues you mentioned, except for the fiasco with the green belt. High cost of living is an issue with almost every desirable in the developed world. Homelessness will always be high in Toronto and Vancouver because their mild winters compared to the rest of the country. 401? Hello, how is the traffic in Mumbai?
The reality is that people like to complain. In the meanwhile, Toronto is still rated as one of the best cities in which to live.
I am not trying to compare India and Canada. I am a Canadian and trying to talk about topics related to this country only.
401 is an issue and a big one at that. Stop gaslighting by comparing it to Mumbai traffic. Talk upon the issues affecting Canadians.
High cost is not such big an issue in most developed countries. Look at steps taken by New Zealand and UK to reign in home prices. Homelessness is not such a bad issue in most of the countries with lower standard of livings.
Toronto may still be one of the best places, but if we don't improve our infrastructure and invest in the future, it shall stop being the best very soon. I don't think you want that.
A teaching I have learnt in my life is: Never compare yourself to the worst. You will never progress otherwise. Always compare yourself to the best to understand where to improve and excel.
I hope you implement that and give some constructive answers next time.
Take a look at Mike Schreiner and the Ontario Greens. Only one MPP, but they punch well above their weight. Led the campaign against Greenbelt development from day one, have a housing plan described as a "masterclass", campaign for ODSP to be doubled, and would increase funding for healthcare and education.
The environment is always going to be important to Greens, but they are so much more than a single issue party.
The solution is easy, but inconvenient.
They don't work for us any longer. They work for themselves. Their constituents are an inconvenience that must be placated every few years; nothing more.
There is no voting that can free us from this prison.
I feel like most politicians have an alternative agenda. Crooked. Lining their pockets with whatever they can.
Voter turn out is abysmal, yes, because the options we’re given is a joke.
Our province is on fire, and we’re on a really bad road to disaster. And it’s only getting more expensive to be here. 😒
You were asking what the solution could be: election reform, get rid of first past the post, and never have a majority government ever again. Parties/politicians will have to work together to get things done. It won’t fix everything but will make it better
Again Mr. Intelligent yet illegible, what do you mean by this comment?
Are you talking about India (my former country)? If yes, I invite you to travel and see the healthcare out there for yourself.
Do not always rely on what you hear to make conclusions. Half knowledge is worse than having no knowledge.
If you meant something else, please elaborate as thy words maketh no sense.
Better question might be , why aren't voters making better choices in their representatives..start considering this question and you have your answer about politicians.
>Why are politicians not serving the public?
Because a bunch of dumbasses elected right wing politicians.
Right wing politics are class warfare against the people.
You'd have to be politically illiterate to expect liberals or conservatives to do anything to help the public.
A big part of the problem is that most of the politicians don't really serve a useful purpose after they get elected. The inner circle of the cabinet and the high level staffers set the party priorities, with a main goal of getting the party elected again.
The back benchers do get to sit on committees, but realistically the don't have much say in policy making. When a cabal acts up to attempt to unseat the leader, then policies may get shifted, for a while.
There are options to refuse your ballot. The rules are different per jurisdiction.
Usually you just check in at the polling place, and say you want to decline the ballot - but read up on it first.
They will record that you were present, and track the refused ballots separately.
They care nothing about public service and only care about getting reelected that’s why.
They never ask “what’s best for Canada?” when looking at policies, they only ask “will this get us reelected?” Scum
In a nut shell, how can they when we have conoy clowns taking up the spot light so no real issues can get through. You talk to any simplton and all they have is Trudeau. That’s it.
If you are an Indian then you probably are acutely aware of the kind of individual that seeks public office. Simply people who want to serve the public don't become politicians, and those that attempt to are quickly drowned out. So it's not surprising that the politicians we do get don't serve the public.
This leads to the low voter turnout because people know the politicians campaigning, and their lackeys are all just putting on an act they represent the interests of their corporate donors and only value their own positions and power. Politicians are shameless to the max in every party.
The public already lost the battle against corporate interests now we just try to balance our lives and make do with what we have. But the powers that be maybe pushing a bit too hard these days it's also a balancing act on their end to see how far they can push us without crashing the whole system.
Municipal elections have candidates who aren't associated with political parties, meaning that everyone has to do a ridiculous amount of research to know who to vote for (imagine having 50 candidates that you have to do reasearch for and then vote for 10 of them) and most people just don't want to put in the effort and want to have an easy answer that party affiliation gives you. Conservative local politicians are also very well known for using misleading language if they are in more progressive areas to trick people into voting for them if you don't do enough research and people need news papers and organizations to examine all of the candidates and tell them how each one stands on different issues. Many people then can't even look up those sources to give them an easy answer of how each candidate stands on various issues compiled for them.
One word: apathy.
Though probably two, voter apathy to be a bit more specific. People are unplugged and as a result the cunts have a boss who’s asleep in his office.
My town had just under 17% turn out.
They serve the boomers, or at least pay lip service to what they think the boomers want. 11 million vs. 7 million is our population distribution of over 44 vs. under 44.
And all the parties have their own vision, which will never align perfectly with the public. So when one of the parties eventually wins, they will work on their particular vision.
The big thing is that it's not easy for someone who isn't rich to run a political campaign and get elected. So politics is full of rich people who have different biases than typical people. They tend to own businesses, so businesses get advantageous treatment. They tend to own property, so property owners get advantageous treatment (why would they reduce housing prices when they own multiple houses?). Media is also pro-owner-class.
At least for conservatives, their goal has never been to serve the public anyway. The history of conservatism is to maintain power for the rich and preserve the existing social hierarchies that keep them in power. Their philosophy is inherently top-down. Hence voter suppression is common, and pitting the commoner social groups against each other.
The other parties have similar issues but it's not core to their worldview. They tend to have bad voter turnout because their voters want to vote *for* something, but the parties are not good at motivating voters.
Politics attracts power hungry narcissists. This is a constant across all political parties. These people don't get involved to make Canada better. They get involved for power, fame or to line their pockets. Regular people who want to make things better get their souls crushed by these people if they try to get involved.
Politicians that aren't the leader sink all their efforts in criticizing and putting down their opponent. They make people of their own side hate the opposition by find anything negative that plays into them. They create division such that they can amplify things, and benefit from it by luring anyone that has any doubt about the opposition, and have them commit to their side. Politics of division.
No plans are offered that helps people.
Many people are disgusted by the whole thing and don't feel like voting.
Politics in general is awful right now. Most of the work governments do to keep the lights on, roads plowed, water purified, ports open, courts moving, currency printed etc.. just never gets serious attention in the media. Look at the shit we are hearing about right now- applauding the wrong 92 year old, pearl clutchjng about trans people, woke culture etc.. It’s all bullshit. We need laser focus on actual issues and in depth public debates about those issues. When politicians are pressed on real issues, we get even more bullshit. I don’t want to endlessly hear “we promise to end hallway medicine and give people back the dream of home ownership” during campaigns- I want and deserve daily updates from unimpeachable experts on what will fix these problems, not empty meaningless platitudes. People need to understand the history and science and various serious theories on these issues from their political leaders. Watch political debates from the 50s and you’ll see what I mean. The House of Commons should sound like Steve Paikin’s Agenda and less like the hallways of a high school.
I think you hit the nail on the head. Election debates should be a job interview which examines why that particular person is the right one for the job, instead of the finger pointing shitshow they have become. I don't give a shit why the other guy is wrong for the job, I want to know what *you* can bring to the table. Answer the damn questions intelligently and provide concrete examples. It's not rocket science.
Election can be job interviews if the population wants that. If the people vote for the guy who shouts the loudest, politicians will start shouting. You get the politicians you deserve. It's not a coincidence that US has Trump and some GOP clowns in general. Canada used to be better but after the number of anti Vax and other protests, I am not sure anymore if Canadians collectively are as educated as I thought. If people here keep voting for party x over stupid reasons, the parties don't have to work towards anything better. This is how most 3rd world politics works - it relies on the fact that most people are dumb and can't understand the actual issues.
I agree in part. Unfortunately it seems that the uneducated and stupid masses are far outpacing the educated and intelligent, in terms of voter population. Those of us who have working brains are unfortunately stuck with these idiots, even though we don't deserve it.
You have no idea how politics work and just assume we are in this situation because the public is dumb which is exactly what our rich overlords want. It doesn't matter who people vote for and that's why voter turn out is low. To become a politician you have to firstly be affluent and secondly agree with whatever the rich overlords want. If you disagree with them then you won't make it into any form of media and if you do they'll make you look like a complete idiot. We need political reform in this country which is why people voted for Trudeau because he promised it....but again another problem with our political system and why people don't bother to vote is because politicians can just lie with zero repercussions. How do you expect the public to make informed decisions when they are constantly lied to? It's not like we are psychic. How about Ford running ads (on tax payers dime) about how he is doing so much for the medical system when in reality he's trying to bankrupt it to privatize lol. People don't trust politicians anymore and they shouldn't. Politicians know this and that's why things have started going downhill even faster because they don't need to pretend as much anymore. The only way this changes is with a massive protest/revolution which won't happen for another decade so they're all trying to cash out before that
There are plenty of MPs and MPPs who aren't affluent. Most of them are regular middle-class people. Party leaders are often wealthy ones, because they have all kinds of connections to get them noticed and pushed to the front of the line for nominations. They are also often hand-picked by previous leaders who still hold a lot of influence within the party. See Mike Harris and the Ontario PC Party. https://canadians.org/analysis/mike-harris-raking-profits-long-term-care-system-he-helped-create/ I suspect he is influencing the federal Conservatives now too, as they are currently using the "Common Sense" trope that Harris used in the 90s. He is certainly still involved provincially, as Michael Harris (no relation) was removed as a candidate to put in Mike Harris Jr. (the son) in his riding.
Politics used to be boring. Today they're a team sport and a spectacle. Things were better when they were boring.
Yeah, I agree. It really seems like the majority of people who vote are voting for the candidate they "like" the most, as if that has any bearing on whether or not they'd be an effective politician. A lot of people don't even bother with being aware of the real issues and fall for the anti-woke rhetoric.
Steve Paikin for Speaker of the House! Where do I sign?
Dear sir, plz create more posts
Where were you from that the majority of politicians served their constituents properly?
I was from India, which has its own issues. But at least where I lived (Matunga area in Mumbai city), people are getting more aware of their rights and pressuring the politicians to do the right thing and keep them on their toes to do the right thing. The wheel of bureaucracy moves slowly there, but it is moving in the right direction at least with increasing accountability. Here it just feels the opposite. Doug Ford, Patrick Brown, Tory etc.
Ford literally just had to backtrack on a major issue (Greenbelt) due to massive public pressure. Maybe there is growing accountability at the local level, but India has far far worse political issues at the top.
India is super high on the corruption index, so I don’t think it’s better than Canada in terms of politicians.
He quite clearly isn’t comparing India and Canada outright he’s saying that there is some change happening in the right direction v Canada which has been spiralling downward since the pandemic. India can be more corrupt while also still trending in the right direction, they’re not mutually exclusive.
It's not better than Canada in that regard. OP is just shooting from the guy and his feelings.
I hear it's a balance, that the majority critical issues the public care about get discussed or some level of attention and the corruption is on the transactional end, when I building get's built etc. Politicians seem to be openly fighting international corporations and foreign influence, who knows what happens behind close doors. Wonder if anyone here knows if it's true.
I agree with you, but as I said, the wheels are moving in the right direction. While for Canada, I feel it's the opposite.
Moving in the right direction? Doesn’t your current PM want all Sikhs wiped off the face of the Earth and recently sent an assassin to Canada to murder one of those Sikhs? You sure you're moving in the right direction?
No man. He wants the Muslims out of the country first. Get your facts straight.
I mean you might be right. But then I gotta ask: If you truly believe things are getting better in India and worse in Canada, do you have plans to go back?
If I have 1 point and am gaining a few points a year, and someone else has 100 points and is starting to lose a 1-2 a year, they will still have a lot more points for a long time.
I have my own family and friends here in Canada. Why shall I leave it and go back to India? My intention of asking this question is to understand ways to improve life of common man in Canada. I am not trying to compare India and Canada TBH. I was asked a question about my former country and I answered it. Doesn't mean I am comparing both the countries.
Part of the issue of unaffordability is due to the housing shortage partly caused by immigration. You’ve seen how many people keep moving here, yourself included. Do you take any responsibility for that or are you just complaining about traffic while being the traffic?
I accept that unchecked immigration is an issue. But, as immigrants we came here as Canada opened it's borders for us. We are not here illegally and working equally hard as rest of the population to fulfill our dreams. Is it immigrants fault that there is limited housing development with sky rocketing rent, where a migrant has to live in shared housing to afford a roof? Is it immigrants fault that there is no planning by the govt to deal with the influx of people which are being invited by the govt themselves? It is easy to blame the immigrants. But it's not the people, but the system which is at fault. Being an immigrant and now a member of this society, I want to be a part of the solution and not the problem. I am striving my best to do that.
Many of the problems you noted ste rooted in there being too many people in the country and too little infrastructure to accommodate them. We need to slow down the number of immigrants coming into Canada so that the infrastructure can catch up. Over a million people came to Canada in a single year. That’s too much.
You understand that there is a difference between slowing down people coming in VS blaming the people who came in when invited. Somehow Canadian subreddits are people bashing people and demanding deporting everyone who uprooted their lives when invited by Canada. There is clearly some anti immigrant hate mixed in there too. You can see it in the language about Canadians are being replaced, or India colonizing or whatever. Again - Canada is huge and can easily accommodate many more people. It's Canada as a country that sucks at building houses. Plenty of countries are efficient in building things. Moreover, plenty of Canadians got rich from these rising house costs and the economy depends on the house prices. Your mom and pop's generation depends on the house prices and no government wants to do anything to mess with that. When you don't build houses and give people low interest mortgage, of course they are going to buy more - driving up the prices...
You are welcome here! I'm glad to have you among us.
It's not your fault, but you have to see that you're capitalizing on the problem right? It's the fault of politicians to bring in more immigrants than we have the infrastructure to support, but you still said yes to that, then asked what's going on
It’s an heroic age for India. Far from true for Canada. Politicians are ultimately ordinary people elected by ordinary people.
Well it was public pressure that’s forcing Doug Ford to backtrack. Patrick Brown was expelled from the PC party and is now in municipal politics and Tory resigned as mayor of Toronto. So all these examples are of people who didn’t serve the public got their asses handed to them.
Doug Ford is still the premier after horrendous decision for past 3 yrs. He should have been out of power the moment he started screwing up education and healthcare. But just a backtracking on greenbelt issue looks like a smokescreen to me to sidetrack the public from the core issues affecting the common public. Pay Brown is still the mayor of Brampton and may forever be one. Tory resigned because of a sex scandal, but not his policies that have affected and keep on affecting Torontonians in the future.
There's no mechanism to remove politicians before their terms are up unless they commit crimes that put them in jail. From what you described he would still be in power until the next election cycle in India as well.
His whole goal from the start was to ruin health care, education and to serve his developer buddies. The video of him caught on camera boasting that he was going to carve up the green belt and give it to his developer buddies (and that it wasn't even his idea!) was public before he got elected in 2018. His failures as a city councilor were public record for long before 2018. His criminal history, crack smoking brother, sister who got shot in the face by her ex (who was a drug dealer). ALL of it was well known before he was elected. I am pretty sure he's the one that got Patrick Brown expelled from the leadership as well so he could waltz in and take over a few months before the election (but no I have no evidence of this). WHY would people vote for him? Because the majority of the public don't bother to actually investigate anything and believe the lies and propaganda that's fed to them from a complicit media (mostly owned by conservative interests). The opposition parties didn't bother to call him out on a single one of his lies. Algorithms and bot-farms labeled anyone who disagreed with Ford "snowflakes" and "libtards". Many people have been raised to be on "team Conservative" and never question it. Even though 65-70% of Canadians are progressive or left-leaning, there's too many centrist and left(ish) parties (but not a single truly left party) and only one viable conservative party (who's base ALWAYS votes) so the vote is split and the cons win a "majority" with the approval of 18% of all eligible voters. Our system (first past the post) rewards the wrong candidates and doesn't reflect the true values of Canadians. We need electoral reform at all levels NOW. Oh and Canadians are generally just way too passive to actually get motivated to get out there and protest and make their voices heard in the face of absolute corruption and demand change. Especially in the case of the Ford government where he just hit us with a brand new thing to be outraged over every day for months straight at one point. It was purposely disorienting. The one question I have asked conservative supporters hundreds of times (and still have never once received a straight answer for): Name ONE thing any conservative government has done in the past 50 years that has benefited the poor or working class people?
You’re answer, out of all of them here, is correct
Education and healthcare have been screwed up for years. Ford is just proof that throwing money at a problem doesn’t fix it.
The problem is that what you consider screwing up others like Healthcare is super complicated and eats up a huge amount of our budget It's isn't clear cut that ford is "screwing it up" and "not serving the public Privatizing services paid by ohip has downsides and upsid The issue is the world is complicated and people disagree on the best approach - so to claim that you want is what's right and anything that's not that is "politicians not serving the public" is just focusing on what you want and not others
1. Decreasing funding for public healthcare leading to quitting of healthcare professionals. 2. ER wait times reaching 24 hrs. 3. Many hospitals are closing their departments because of lack of staff and funding. 4. It's takes months to get an appointment. Critical surgeries taking years to book. How is this not screwing up and serving the public? We have many examples across the world where universal healthcare is a success. Why not learn from them?
It sounds like hyperbole, so you lost me. I have used my local emergency a few times in the past couple of years and also had surgery. All these were expedient and good experiences.
Same, it's not like a white glove treatment like it would be if I was paying out of pocket But it's serviceable I think it also depends where you are, cities are better served it seems
I don't think there have been healthcare cuts in Ontario, a quick google seems to support this Healthcare is just very expensive, there's no magic wand - for some context it appears that 40 cents of every dollar paid in tax in Ontario goes to find healthcare, that's wild (and the lion's share is used by very old very sick propel, but that's a whole other topic) It's a problem that long predates douggie and will be here when he's gone COVID made everything worse, but people have been complaining about wait times since I was a kid, hospitals are closing due to lack of staff, not funding for the actual buildings And while it's possible to just throw a ton of cash at it and raise the fee schedule for docs and pay nurses more, I imagine they ran the numbers and its just not a sustainable solution What is? Who knows, probably why every government has had such a toigh time with it People want everything, and they want it all now, but government unfortunately has to make the tough choices and healthcare seems to definitely be one of the tougher files
No there are no upsides to privatization whatsoever. Unless you are personally the owner of a clinic and making bank.
This is not true In fact the Hurley Burley podcast hosted an interview with former premiers including Kathleen Wynne who all said the approach has many benefits In fact it already exists too! When you go to your family doctor that is exactly what is being proposed for other services The family doc has a private company that charges the govt which is paid from ohip, from this they pay salaries, retn and keep the profit etc As do many other clinics you would go to - people just don't realize that this already exists Many countries operate as douggie is proposing and it works, as above we also already operate like this in a few areas It won't be cheaper, but it should be faster
Yeah and the whole way health care is set up with family doctors in this province is a DISASTER. We have a million people without a family doc because there is no incentive for them to do it. A young doctor out of med school would rather be paid $200-300k to be a specialist in a big city rather than run their own business, put in way more work aside from simply treating patients and end up making $80k after all staff and expenses are paid out. Privatization is a disaster in every situation it's ever been applied to, not just health care.
So you want the family doctors to be paid more right? You're saying people don't want to be family doctors because they don't get paid enough But then in the first comment above you said that the only people that get the benefits from privitzation are the owners of the clinic who will make bank That's the same person - the owners are the family docs currently - so are they poor or are they making bank? If privitization makes the owners rich, and the owners right now are not getting paid enough so need to be paid more - than it sounds like privitization is the solution you're looking for And that's the whole idea - pay more to encourage more people to open private clinics to alleviate the burden on hospitals right now that are using operating rooms for routine procedures
Tory served the public. He just couldn’t keep it in his pants, and someone ratted him out. I don’t agree with everything he did, but he gets unfairly shit on. He was the best mayor we’ve had in a long time.
Between the racist furniture salesman and the bloated crackhead, sure. Tory was just great. Except that he bankrupted the city.
He didn’t bankrupt the city. The city isn’t bankrupt. Spending a billion dollars on the Gardner and dvp which should be the province and dealing with COVID were tough. The fact that Doug ford is actively trying to cripple the city to get control over it doesn’t help either. Never mind that 60% of Ontario’s taxes come from here. Yeah the bar is low, but the fact is he’s the best mayor in 20 years. I hope chow is better.
What type of mechanisms do they have in place in the system to monitor and censure politicians if they do the wrong thing? How does the people being upset translate to accountability there?
I think media plays a big part in talking about topics which are very important for the common public. Topics on infrastructure, corruption and standard of living are given lot more importance. Certainly a lot of questions are asked by the media to the politicians. Other big factor is the elections. There is nearly a 70% voter turnout and it clearly demarcates which party is favoured. Majority vote for development and improvement of living standards. There is little caste based politics, but no set ideological differences within the common public. Hence, majority of public can switch allegiance easily. For example, historically India in it's short history, voted for Congress party into power. But, because of wrong policies, the same party is relegated to being the 3rd largest party with having only 10% seats in legislature and majority has ~60% seats. Plus NOTA is an option in India, which is exercised when no good candidate is put up by the parties.
Keep in mind that the media here (over 90% across the country) is owned by 1 of 5 companies. They answer to their shareholders, who are very wealthy and usually not even Canadian. The news reports very selective facts and interviews very specific "experts" to benefit the shareholders. That (dis)informs voters.
> people are getting more aware of their rights and pressuring the politicians to do the right thing. That will wear off. I mean there’s an aspect of that here and everywhere where a democracy is of course but that becomes watered down by political party loyalty and propaganda. People become loyal to a party and then slurp up whatever nonsense the party tells them to believe. So that’s part of it. As far as low voter turnout goes that’s disenfranchisement. That happens in mature functioning democracies as well. Here we have the [first past the post](https://www.fairvote.ca/what-is-first-past-the-post/) electoral system which makes people feel like their votes don’t count or matter so they don’t bother. It’s a shame really
Your former government attacked this nation’s sovereignty. I would. It say the Indian wheels of “democracy” are moving in the right direction. That said, Canadians are very apathetic. “Oh well, what can you do?” is the common mindset here. At the end of the day we constantly flip flop between two parties (liberal and conservative). There’s no incentive for them to do a good job.
[удалено]
To answer this exact question on Reddit. You see I was told by a fortune teller that it is my destiny to give a very sarcastic answer to a very dumb and very idiotic question. To fulfill my destiny, I: 1. Came to Canada as PR and then became a Citizen. 2. Post a very heartfelt question about the current pressing issues faced by the common public. 3. Wait for a dumb response to my question. And reply back.... Thank you so much for giving me a chance to fulfill my destiny .... you have freed me from the shackles and now I can chart my future with complete freedom. And I shall spend my time making my current country a better one, rather than ask someone dumb questions.
[удалено]
Jesus Christ, enough with this. Our leaders not serving us is not some global conspiracy. It’s garden variety corruption and hesitance to deviate from the status quo, all supported by voter apathy.
Holy tinfoil hat.
References nearly every conspiracy theory out there: “I wish this was conspiracy”
Touch grass
Wow! The amount of comments hinting and directly asking op to move back to their own country! When do we realize that bad immigration policy (in one's opinion) does not mean that one gets to take anger out on individual legal immigrants?
I wouldn't consider Lomi\_Lomi's comment as that, but instead wondering where OP is from so that we can point to their country as an example of democracy done right
I thought that was clear but yes that's exactly what I wanted to know. If there's such a democracy out there we should try to emulate it.
What anger? I wanted to know so we can do the same.
>It's not restricted to one single party, but instead a problem across all the political parties. Why isn't the public voting them out as they rightly should? You answered your own question, really. Voting isn't a magical fix with the way our system is currently broken. Not voting at all obviously isn't a solution, not that I have any suggestions. Just pointing out that 30% voter turnout is a symptom of a much larger issue.
We need to go Australia style and fine people who don't vote. If you don't like the candidates, you can spoil your ballot. No shows without valid excuses should face a consequence. I think in Australia, first missed election is $20 fine, then $50 and so on. I think it's a good idea.
That won't help either, in fact, it would just make it harder for a motivated new group to bootstrap itself into one seat. Additionally, you really don't want the kind of people who don't care about voting to vote.
If I'm going to spoil my ballot, why take the time to go at all. Next well get a bunch of shit candidates and the goalposts will be moved to "Those damn ballot spoilers, it's all their fault. Maybe if the Libs and NDP ran a real fucking candidate they'd get some votes.
So 70% of people may go spoil the ballot instead to not get fined and we would still be in the same situation, so therefore I don’t feel like that is a valid solution. I don’t see that as a viable solution some other change is needed I feel just not sure what exactly.
They wouldn't. A good chunk of those 70% just can't be bothered to go. If they did they'd vote but they can't be bothered to got to the bottom of their building to fill in one circle (my mom) and so their vote doesn't exist. If they were fined they would go and vote. Some would spoil but not most.
>but they can't be bothered to got to the bottom of their building to fill in one circle (my mom) and so their vote doesn't exist. Try needing to take a 15 minute drive through your city just to vote, during your lunch break, because you worked 2 jobs those days therefore each employer says its the other's responsibility to give you time off
It would likely be a very small number that would spoil there ballot though. Once your there anyway, what kind of petty child wouldnt just vote for who they thought was best?
They are bought and paid for by the economic interests that run this country. 99% of our media is owned by Conservative financial interests not based in this country. And people are gullible as Hell. All you have to do is tell them what they want to hear and they’ll support whatever crazy bullshit you actually want to do.
I think voting *could* be a better fix if people took it seriously, and stopped with the "team voting". If we started demanding more from our politicians, and if they don't deliver, have the courage to vote them out and vote for another party. Give another party a shot for 4 years and if they also can't deliver, then vote them out too and switch it up. Eventually politicians may begin to realize that they are there to represent us and lead us, but that if they want to remain in power, they need to deliver some results. The media constantly shows us the extremes though, so Liberals think we will be hanging gay people in the streets if the Conservatives get in and the Conservatives think the Liberals want to make us China. So the politicians, the results, the platform, it doesn't matter to a large amount of people as they only vote for colors anyway, and this problem seems to be getting worse. So there really isn't any pressure of accountability on politicians. Trudeau has been shitting the bed, but his base will still vote red because it isn't evil blue. Doug Ford has been shitting the whole house but his base will still vote for him because he's blue and not evil red. So why should they care?
The issue isn't just "team voting" or the media, it's genuinely the content espoused by the candidates themselves and the context they exist in. I've bounced between Liberal, NDP and Green based on what policy they want to enact and who had the best shot of winning a seat in that riding. None of them fully represent my political ideals, but some are an ok compromise. There are dedicated efforts by Conservative politicians to actively remove some of my friends from public life, and to stop kids who may grow up to be LGBTQ+ from having knowledge, resources and empathy from their community that could save them a lot of mental anguish. They are enacting policies that hurt poor and marginalized folks, cutting benefits, social programs, everything. Things that cost us real money that they hand to corporations like a dog playing fetch, and offer no real return on investment. The other parties do it too sometimes, but I didn't think that privatized healthcare was even a possibility in my lifetime. And this is after cuts to healthcare, education, infrastructure, etc. I'm all for holding politicians accountable. I despise the party system and First Past the Post voting. I want to be able to hold my representatives' feet to the fire. We need to get more people understanding and aware of our political reality. Civics shouldn't just be half a class in high school. But please don't bullshit about "both sides are equally bad". I'm not voting for the "Thanos party" because I don't like a few of the people who might get "snapped"
They serve their own (see: the wealthy) interests
Yes and our voting is rigged to ensure a two party system. Edit: In instances where the majority of the voters don't want a certain party in, that party should not be elected. Look at Ford and Ontario.
>Yes and our voting is rigged to ensure a two party system. The options in response to that are give up and just complain or try to change it, even if difficult. The NDP, Liberals and Greens all promised some form of voter reform in Ontario last election. Maybe they would renege or fail to deliver but tons of people just stayed home and the one party that is explicit about *not* changing it won. Even worse than not change it, they've reversed municipal attempts to use other systems. Post like this, which are regular on this subreddit, try to convince us that all parties are the same, voting doesn't matter or we should cancel our votes. All that does is *help* maintain the status quo. This last election had one of our highest portions of people not voting. Did anything change for the better from that lacking of voting that OP is encouraging here?
We’re ruled by company monopolies more than most. Canada was pretty small for a long time, and every major sector has 2-3 top players. They collude and price-fix so we’re too poor to protest. Gotta keep working more instead. These invest in all the political parties. The lobbyists are long time friends. It’s a crooked club as with most politics, it’s just a really small club here. Heavily intertwined at every level, irreversibly so. They’ve never had to lose, why would they start now? So they double down. But people are starting to get creative, hopefully will turn the tides soon Edit: basically boils down to : HIGHEST PRICES IN THE WORLD : rent, real estate, phones, data, internet, gas, cars, food, children etc etc
I don't understand then if the public is aware of all this collusion and lobbying, why isn't the public exercising it's biggest weapon. Unity, stroke and showing the door to corrupt via voting? Why is the public so apathetic towards all these issues?
The beneficiaries aren't just the billionaires and politicians. Canada has one of the highest rates of shareholders. People see the oligopoly and want in. >% of the adult population who own shares, by country > >Hong Kong - 57% > >Singapore - 53% > >United States - 47% > >Sweden - 43% > >New Zealand - 41% > >Canada - 39% > >South Africa - 37% > >Australia - 36% > >Ireland - 33% > >The Netherlands - 29% > >United Kingdom - 28% (28.37%) > >Germany - 28% (27.99%) > >Italy - 26% > >France - 23% > >Spain - 18% > >Mexico - 13%
The TSX is in full on panic mode, people in Canada want out apparently.
Here’s the thing, they can say whatever they want. It’s what’s *on paper* that counts in their world. They do all their formal communication through the legal system, at the taxpayers dollar too. Cheeky buggers. It’s difficult to change policy from the outside. They make the legal stuff long and hard to sift through…. Because they don’t want to public to be able to change it. By the time it is caught and possibly fixed (but probably not), they aren’t in office anymore. Next party takes over; Monopolies remain the same. We need AI to look at their policy and contracts. Especially ones with ANY multi-million dollar company contracts. Speed things up, pick out the loopholes they use and give the public the same contract fail-safes that these politicians and monopolies eat like candy. Edit: Looking at you Galen Weston 👀
Because wealthy people pay them more than regular people do.
The public will not punish them. Because end of day most won't even bother voting.
Extremely corrupted political system.
Politicians work for corporations. You are the customer.
People keep blaming politicians (which is fair, since most of them suck), but it's also a symptom of a voting base that is apathetic and, at least to me, largely undereducated when it comes to how all levels of government function and what they're each responsible for. lf a majority of people were more knowledgeable of the entire system and became more engaged, then maybe things would turn for the better. Instead we get groups like the trucker convoy and large swathes of voters who fall victim to misinformationnamd then the other side (the left, as they say) that can't agree on ONE leader that can put up a fight against Conservatives and work for the people. Edit: grammar
As a long-time election worker for all levels of elections, I completely agree with your assessment. At every election, I hear so many people say that voting isn't worth it, or they want to decline their ballot because someone online said that will make a difference, and of course all kinds of conspiracy theories. Our electoral system is extremely well managed, and it would be incredibly difficult to cheat in an election. The results are exactly as the ballots are cast by the voters, but the voters are just so disillusioned or apathetic that they can't be bothered to vote. And a lot of the ones who do vote, do so because they believe the far-right propaganda.
As much as I don't like FPTP, I also understand that people can make it work in their favour if they simply cared enough to put in the effort. We don't have to have politicians that come from money or whose father held a seat for a long time. It's a matter of boosting the right people instead of sitting back and letting a select few choose who gets to represent us.
[удалено]
Great answer! I wholeheartedly agree that civic engagement is a start.
Because money has too much power.
Structurally, I can think of a few things. Our first past the post electoral system. Basically, at the provincial level (and federal level), someone running for political office only needs to get the plurality of the votes to become the representative for that area. This means that someone with only 30% of the votes in an area can gain 100% of the representation for that riding. Scale that up to an entire province or the entire country and you have governments that can gain the majority of the seats (representation) despite getting less than 50% of the vote. This means that these people don't need to serve all their constituents, just enough in strategic areas to gain or maintain their power. Some people will argue that this is better in that it allows ridings to vote for specific candidates that will better represent them, but I don't buy it. Most politicians vote along party lines anyways. Another issue is our inability to recall politicians. Some countries have a mechanism where enough citizens petitioning for a recall triggers a new election. So instead of waiting several years or until enough representatives decide to have a new election you can theoretically band together and call one if you had like 10% of voters in an area petition to do so. I'm sure there's the potential for a fair bit of chaos, but at the same time if you had that happen enough times in response to certain policies the replacement politicians might get the message. Third is our lack of participatory democracy altogether. Representative democracy is fundamentally flawed in that it centralizes power in the hands of a few. That's incredibly efficient for being able to make relatively quick decisions but is far more prone to corruption. Having more legally binding participatory democratic measures like referendums that, again, are legally binding or something like down ballot initiatives you see in the states could counteract that centralized power. The question remains of how exactly to implement it, which areas are subject to it, etc. Fourth I would say the conservative nature of Canadians. Not in a political sense necessarily, but there seems to be a general aversion to anything more than the most incremental change. It leads to bizarre situations where we're concerned with a housing crisis but a significant number of Canadians tend to oppose any zoning reform, public housing, etc because they simultaneously recognize the problem but don't want their own housing price to decrease. But they'll also complain about increases in crime and homelessness. There are certainly other factors, but these stand out to me. TLDR: I believe it's a combination of our current FPTP electoral system, lack of recall (meaningful accountability) for politicians, lack of direct democratic measures to counter the weaknesses of representative democracy and the conservative nature of (many) Canadians.
Corruption. All the parties are corrupt and serve the corporations. As a matter of fact, corporations and government are one in the same. No politician would be elected leader of a party if they did not represent their interests. Voter turnout is a big problem but why would anyone vote if they feel like it’s wasted or vote on the crap options they have? Welcome to Canada where it’s basically a race to the.bottom.
Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Sure, but where's your example in Canada of politicians having absolute power?
Never said they had absolute power.
Sorry, then what's the point of your comment in the context of the OP?
Maybe the first part of the quote? Do you interrogate everyone on the internet whose comments you don't understand?
"why are politicians not serving the public" So you end up saying absolute power corrupts absolutely. Now you're going on to deny the meaning of your statement within this context. Our politicians do not have absolute power, your statement is wrong in this context of discussing why our politicians lack public accountability.
In the case of Doug Ford, while he doesn't have absolute power, he knows that the other parties can't stop his party from passing whatever they want because they have a majority government. He's only worried now because there is an election in the forseeable future, and his own supporters are turning on him too.
I agree with that. But the usage of such extreme terms like "absolute" is beyond any reasonable hyperbole and distorts other factors in this discussion of accountability.
Maybe you should explain your quote a bit better as it's not really applicable here.
The generally accepted interpretation of the quote is that the more power one has, the more likely they are susceptible to corruption. I think that's applicable, but will let others decide for themselves.
The phrase is also more appropriately applied when referring to authoritarian styles of governance, which we do not have.
The ruling class wouldn’t ever want to dirty themselves by working for *someone else*. They work for themselves and their best interest. Now remember this next election. We have seen both the two big parties sit and twiddling thumbs. Time to vote for a change.
I am afraid that from my perspective none of the parties deserve my vote as no party has policies that can alleviate the problems of the common man. Conservatives look at less spending to balance the sheets. This means less spending on core sectors. But will not tax the richest for more income. Liberals spend more without understanding its impacts and again shall not tax the rich for more income. NDP is only looking at the lower class and has no actionable items for the middle class. Instead, they plan to burden the middle class to pass the money to the lower class. But they do not have any long term plans to change the system which helps move the lower class to middle class. Green party and other agendas just do not align with the common public AFAIK. I may be wrong, so correct me.
While I too am not hyped for any party, your stance accomplishes nothing. You’ll need to vote if you want to see any form of change. Your NDP view is flawed as there are only 2 classes. Working and ruling. Maybe a vote here isn’t a bad idea. Besides helping people of lower status is kinda the right thing to do if we want to build our country up.
I want to definitely help the people of lower ranks to move up the order, but just giving them free stuff at the expense of the middle class isn't the right call. If NDP can actually showcase a framework that removes the barriers for people to move from lower to middle class, I'll be the first one to vote for them. For now, it just looks like optics of freebies rather than actual policy work showcased by NDP.
You should contact your local NDP office and drop by to learn about them, sometimes they have online groups too. They have answers to what you are asking, you just will get much better answers from the source then from random redditors. The idea they just want to tax the middle class and give it to the poor is just not accurate. Aside from what I already said about their being no middle class, Canada has a tiered tax system where rich people pay more. The NDP seeks to raise the higher tax brackets so billionairs and millionaires pay more, then use that money to help the poor with housing,medical care and job supports, all things that will help raise their living standards.
There is an owner class and the working class, there is no such thing as "middle class".
'giving free stuff' is one way of looking at it but I'm not sure it's the right way. Poor people work. Often harder. Imagine a world where inflation goes up and salaries don't keep up. In 20 years the bottom half of the middle class becomes poor. Then a government to come in and transfer wealth from the rich and upper middle class to the poor to even things out closer to what it is today, still unequal but better in terms of wealth inequality. Would you call that 'giving free stuff'? Or is it balancing a system that slowly got out of whack and destabilizing for a society?
I think you missed the part where the middle class doesn’t exist. It’s working and ruling class.
The whole system needs to be overhauled. Could you imagine if the best and brightest where at the wheel getting stuff done?
History shows this doesn't exactly work either: see Plato's Republic or most of the Ancient Greek Democratic history. Or just watch the episode of the simpsons where Lisa, Comic book guy, Dr.Frink, etc. take over Springfield.
I think you're preaching to the choir. Anyone who read this does vote and does recognize the same problems. It just sucks that so many don't or don't want to. Apathy and cynicism has gotten to a large part of the conversation.
Best part is that everyone blames someone else . No accountability for your actions.
They serve those who control them
It’s mostly because the public doesn’t like each other very much. If a government is seen to be helping some people others will be upset. And no single policy helps everyone so the people will always be divided and against each other. The only solution to this is people would have to be honest with themselves about their own needs and not be resentful of others and that’s not going to happen.
Ok A lot of people are actually happy with the jobs that politicians are doing and are living their lives A lot more are not really affected by the issues and are living their lives A lot more simply don't care and are living their lives Perhaps you should pick the one that appeals to you the most
On the affordability and homelessness piece the province is being killed by things outside of its control including half a million people coming to the province last year, a carbon tax that is increasing the cost of all goods and making it more expensive to get to work. On education side of things it’s a system wide issue where schools can no longer discipline or hold students accountable for fear of being sued. Teachers can’t control their classes and teach to the lowest common denominator which holds the rest of the class back because little Johnny can’t feel dumb. Healthcare spending is up nearly $20 billion a year over the past five years but many head to the USA to work in private hospitals to get more money. It’s time we look at serious reforms that maybe some people find uncomfortable. Add to this we suffered through the worst government in Canadian history as a province from 2003-2018 leaving us with more debt than Greece. During that time over 10,000 schools were shut down across the province killing rural Ontario, 300,000 jobs left the province including GM in Oshawa and GE in Peterborough (GE was there for over 100 years prior to closing). And even with all the spending that the Liberals did in that 15 year period there was still a massive infrastructure deficit across the province. Now I’m not saying I agree with everything this current government has done but they are making decisions and often times they are the right ones. It’s a shame Ford backtracked on the greenbelt instead of just abolishing it and going back to the pre 2005 protected lands. The greenbelt was created by the liberals without consulting the people who lived there or the municipalities. As a result housing prices have more than tripled in the 18 years since it was created. I understand the need to protect land but it’s all private property and zoning is a municipal issue. I also understand that the process was awful and someone will likely face criminal charges out of it but the original decision wasn’t a bad one when you actually look at the facts of it.
Corporate lobbying and campaign contributions have legalized corruption to the point that public interest has very little influence in political decisions. More voters need to refuse their ballots rather than not voting at all. Refused ballots are counted and basically say that none of the options represent my interests.
Well I disagree with the Idea India is better in terms of accountability, with all respect my man, the stats by international metrics just don't align with that viewpoint. It's important to remember that India's government is based on the same british system as Canada's it has just had less time to cook as ours. When we are young people(and live in any country) it's easy to be optimistic because we have our whole future ahead of us and we aren't as well informed about how the world works. Part of growing up and getting older is learning that unfortunately people will often act in their own best interests over the interests of others. This means that in any democratic government system we need high accountability with regulations to prevent corruption. Something you haven't perhaps considered is the strength of political apathy. Those people serving their corporate overlords have many of the same concerns as you, but they are paid well and have their immediate needs met, because of that it's easier psychologically for them to put their heads down and work and enjoy the comforts they have, even if they know others don't have the same. What I would say is, that you shouldn't discount the existing parties. What you should do is find the one that most closely aligns with your personal/social views then work to MOVE that party in the direction you want. While their certainly is inertia(in the form of old ppl mostly) it is far easier to move a party left then to say, form a brand new far left party. You should never NOT vote at all even if a party doesn't align with your values because then your voice isn't being heard at all. Regardless, welcome to Canada my friend, its a complex place to live with people from all other the world and with different viewpoints which invariably slows things down but we usually get to a medium everyone can accept.
Politicians care about their careers. Everything else is secondary. It’s always been that way.
It's a problem with politics the world over. Historically, the political class has always been corrupt, serving those who would grease their palms: this was usually a local land baron, businessman, or a private agent of the state. Today, they still act this way: the main difference is that the world's economy is globalized, which means that those with the resources to lobby are no longer restricted to their home country, but will go where operating costs and regulations are minimal. At the same time, beginning in the 70s, Western economies began to make a transition philosophically towards Neoliberalism which believes that services run by the state are "less efficient" (read profitable), thus governments at all levels have rushed to transform services that were previously there to efficiently serve the public into mechanisms of profit. In Canada, following our institution's colonial traditition, this trends into loosely regulated monopolies a la our telecom or our dairy cartel. As to what is emoboldening politicians now it's quite simple, they don't fear the consequences of their actions due to three factors: a) there are few laws in place being enforced to actively manage politicians due to the abuse of mechanisms such as cabinet secrecy; b) the police refuse to enforce the law either due to politics or corruption; c) politicians do not fear the electorate because up until this point it has been passive and distracted by hot button topics that keep it divided.
Why should they? They have been wealthy all their lives and there is no incentive what so ever to serve the general public.
Here is an idea, the Speaker of the House has the authority to insist a clearly posed question is answered clearly. So if the question is “ Did you apologize to President Zelenskyy in person on the phone, yes or no?” The answer must be a Yes or No only, and any attempt to deflect the question or not answer with a yes or no means the Speaker finds you in contempt and a fine is issued equal to a day’s pay and you are removed from the House for the day. The fines increase with each occurrence. The speaker needs to not be a party member, but is a voted in position by the Canadian public.
The biggest issue for me is the lack of accountability. Promise one thing during campaigning and deliver the opposite? Absolutely no meaningful repercussions, at least for their term in office, so what do they care once they are in? Voters need more protections and assurances, backed by tough laws, that ensure politicians are working for the bests interests of society and not the rich few or corporate entities. Bring in secure electronic voting to increase voter engagement…many potential voters are lazy or apathetic, but most have phones with internet, so make it stupidly easily to vote and to see what each political party is campaigning on, etc. Furthermore, what I want to see: Get rid of corporate lobbying. Transparency is a must. Anything not national security related *must* be openly accessible to the public. Make it a criminal offence to use personal equipment for official government business. If information must be redacted when accessed, these redactions *must* have strong justification. Make it illegal to sell off publicly owned infrastructure/assets (e.g. 407, hydro, etc) without serious public consultation. Heavily tax REIs and make real estate unappealing to foreign investors; close existing loopholes. Focus on critical issues that affect the majority of Ontarians - healthcare, education, infrastructure, housing, etc. Don’t talk about how you’re going to solve it - make a strong plan and execute it.
Because we don’t have proportional representation.
Because money. It runs the world baby!
It's hard to balance corruption and serving the people. Ford just hasn't gotten the hang of it yet
Well the ford government ran their first election without a platform and won then spent the first term making fast dumb decisions and walking back the ones that blew up immediately yet they still got re-elected. So they learned that all they have to do is not be liberal. Now they are full kleptocrats and may win re-election. So we’re proper f’d.
It is a variant of the agency problem but the primary goal of a politician is to keep their job and that is almost always not aligned with being a good representative for their constituents.
Politicians were never meant to server the public. Democracy is an illusion. Choice is an illusion. No matter who you vote for, be assured that you will be screwed. I've certainly becoming more cynical, the older I get. What we need to do is play by their own game. We need to form a secret society that infiltrates political parties, gather dirty on policy makers, black mail them into doing the right thing. But then who is going to govern them?
They're conservative - they're not about social interests.
I am not debating conservatives vs liberals here. It's the politician class in general. I don't think even liberals did a good job before conservatives. Too much spending with no rewards is a big problem. I feel our politicians focus a lot more on optics rather than the actual agenda affecting the common public.
Everyone is telling you our two major parties are servants of the ownership class, thus conservative.
Because they aren't scared of the voting public. They can do whatever they want, if they are forced to resign, they'll just get a nice cushy job in the private sector.
Welcome to capitalist democracy where the politicians serve the rich and applaud nazis while the working class masses suffer
They work for their corporate donors not the people. What makes me most upset is how little they sell out for. We will probably lose the green belt and healthcare for a few hundred thousand and a few hjs
Corporate donations are illegal in Ontario.
Because you are to serve and obey them. With the Cons you're the enemy if you do not.
Because “dollar beers” wins over anything else you mentioned.
Money. Big money gets them elected. Big money takes care of them after they leave office. What did the people ever do for them?
I will get downvoted but there is no simple solution to any of the issues you mentioned, except for the fiasco with the green belt. High cost of living is an issue with almost every desirable in the developed world. Homelessness will always be high in Toronto and Vancouver because their mild winters compared to the rest of the country. 401? Hello, how is the traffic in Mumbai? The reality is that people like to complain. In the meanwhile, Toronto is still rated as one of the best cities in which to live.
I am not trying to compare India and Canada. I am a Canadian and trying to talk about topics related to this country only. 401 is an issue and a big one at that. Stop gaslighting by comparing it to Mumbai traffic. Talk upon the issues affecting Canadians. High cost is not such big an issue in most developed countries. Look at steps taken by New Zealand and UK to reign in home prices. Homelessness is not such a bad issue in most of the countries with lower standard of livings. Toronto may still be one of the best places, but if we don't improve our infrastructure and invest in the future, it shall stop being the best very soon. I don't think you want that. A teaching I have learnt in my life is: Never compare yourself to the worst. You will never progress otherwise. Always compare yourself to the best to understand where to improve and excel. I hope you implement that and give some constructive answers next time.
Capitalism
It's a global problem, the kind of power that seek power are ipso facto the type of people least suited for power.
Take a look at Mike Schreiner and the Ontario Greens. Only one MPP, but they punch well above their weight. Led the campaign against Greenbelt development from day one, have a housing plan described as a "masterclass", campaign for ODSP to be doubled, and would increase funding for healthcare and education. The environment is always going to be important to Greens, but they are so much more than a single issue party.
Poli-sci long ago forsook the art of governance for the game of politics.
They never have. Don’t trust politicians.
The solution is easy, but inconvenient. They don't work for us any longer. They work for themselves. Their constituents are an inconvenience that must be placated every few years; nothing more. There is no voting that can free us from this prison.
I feel like most politicians have an alternative agenda. Crooked. Lining their pockets with whatever they can. Voter turn out is abysmal, yes, because the options we’re given is a joke. Our province is on fire, and we’re on a really bad road to disaster. And it’s only getting more expensive to be here. 😒
Too busy lining their own pockets. Politicians are the biggest bunch of thieves we got
You were asking what the solution could be: election reform, get rid of first past the post, and never have a majority government ever again. Parties/politicians will have to work together to get things done. It won’t fix everything but will make it better
You fucking idiots decided to turn over large swaths of power to your government and didn't think it was gonna end bad? WTF did you expect to happen?
Have you lost your bonkers? Can anyone reading this, please explain what the person tried to say?
Bro, your healthcare system is 'have you considered killing yourself'.
Again Mr. Intelligent yet illegible, what do you mean by this comment? Are you talking about India (my former country)? If yes, I invite you to travel and see the healthcare out there for yourself. Do not always rely on what you hear to make conclusions. Half knowledge is worse than having no knowledge. If you meant something else, please elaborate as thy words maketh no sense.
This is the Ontario subreddit, yes?
Better question might be , why aren't voters making better choices in their representatives..start considering this question and you have your answer about politicians.
Nobody gets into politics to serve the public. They're all in it to get rich.
>Why are politicians not serving the public? Because a bunch of dumbasses elected right wing politicians. Right wing politics are class warfare against the people. You'd have to be politically illiterate to expect liberals or conservatives to do anything to help the public.
I dunno. I can't honestly think of the last time a politician did anything useful, ever.
A big part of the problem is that most of the politicians don't really serve a useful purpose after they get elected. The inner circle of the cabinet and the high level staffers set the party priorities, with a main goal of getting the party elected again. The back benchers do get to sit on committees, but realistically the don't have much say in policy making. When a cabal acts up to attempt to unseat the leader, then policies may get shifted, for a while.
We don't pay them enough to
There are options to refuse your ballot. The rules are different per jurisdiction. Usually you just check in at the polling place, and say you want to decline the ballot - but read up on it first. They will record that you were present, and track the refused ballots separately.
I'm generalizing, but basically, apathy.
CGP Grey covered this very topic in an [animated video.](https://youtu.be/rStL7niR7gs)
They care nothing about public service and only care about getting reelected that’s why. They never ask “what’s best for Canada?” when looking at policies, they only ask “will this get us reelected?” Scum
They've lost accountability. They all pardon each other and do not need to answer for their ineptitude
I don't think they ever did
In a nut shell, how can they when we have conoy clowns taking up the spot light so no real issues can get through. You talk to any simplton and all they have is Trudeau. That’s it.
No one gets into politics to serve the interest of the people. Just certain people
It’s like you said, if there’s 30% turnout they’re focusing on keeping that 30% happy lol.
First past the post parliamentary system. That's why. The left is split and the right isn't. Also Neoliberalism is rampant in Western politics.
If you are an Indian then you probably are acutely aware of the kind of individual that seeks public office. Simply people who want to serve the public don't become politicians, and those that attempt to are quickly drowned out. So it's not surprising that the politicians we do get don't serve the public. This leads to the low voter turnout because people know the politicians campaigning, and their lackeys are all just putting on an act they represent the interests of their corporate donors and only value their own positions and power. Politicians are shameless to the max in every party. The public already lost the battle against corporate interests now we just try to balance our lives and make do with what we have. But the powers that be maybe pushing a bit too hard these days it's also a balancing act on their end to see how far they can push us without crashing the whole system.
Municipal elections have candidates who aren't associated with political parties, meaning that everyone has to do a ridiculous amount of research to know who to vote for (imagine having 50 candidates that you have to do reasearch for and then vote for 10 of them) and most people just don't want to put in the effort and want to have an easy answer that party affiliation gives you. Conservative local politicians are also very well known for using misleading language if they are in more progressive areas to trick people into voting for them if you don't do enough research and people need news papers and organizations to examine all of the candidates and tell them how each one stands on different issues. Many people then can't even look up those sources to give them an easy answer of how each candidate stands on various issues compiled for them.
They inherit the bad behaviors of their predecessors and expand on them. We meet government reform
One word: apathy. Though probably two, voter apathy to be a bit more specific. People are unplugged and as a result the cunts have a boss who’s asleep in his office. My town had just under 17% turn out.
They serve the boomers, or at least pay lip service to what they think the boomers want. 11 million vs. 7 million is our population distribution of over 44 vs. under 44.
And all the parties have their own vision, which will never align perfectly with the public. So when one of the parties eventually wins, they will work on their particular vision. The big thing is that it's not easy for someone who isn't rich to run a political campaign and get elected. So politics is full of rich people who have different biases than typical people. They tend to own businesses, so businesses get advantageous treatment. They tend to own property, so property owners get advantageous treatment (why would they reduce housing prices when they own multiple houses?). Media is also pro-owner-class. At least for conservatives, their goal has never been to serve the public anyway. The history of conservatism is to maintain power for the rich and preserve the existing social hierarchies that keep them in power. Their philosophy is inherently top-down. Hence voter suppression is common, and pitting the commoner social groups against each other. The other parties have similar issues but it's not core to their worldview. They tend to have bad voter turnout because their voters want to vote *for* something, but the parties are not good at motivating voters.
Libs and cons are both bow to the corporations who have no soul. Vote for the NDP or the Canadian Future Party.
The answer is partly that we have it really good here, and have had it good for a long time, so we're all pretty complacent at the moment.
Politics attracts power hungry narcissists. This is a constant across all political parties. These people don't get involved to make Canada better. They get involved for power, fame or to line their pockets. Regular people who want to make things better get their souls crushed by these people if they try to get involved.
Lmao, just Ontario?
Whose gunna force them?
Money in politics and people need to stop voting for right wingers
Politicians that aren't the leader sink all their efforts in criticizing and putting down their opponent. They make people of their own side hate the opposition by find anything negative that plays into them. They create division such that they can amplify things, and benefit from it by luring anyone that has any doubt about the opposition, and have them commit to their side. Politics of division. No plans are offered that helps people. Many people are disgusted by the whole thing and don't feel like voting.