[firefax]

Do you have any thoughts on the bill?

One thing we can do is try to upvote the citizens of the country being discussed.

Or calls to action -- who does someone who's Canadian call to complain about this? (Their MP I presume?)

I'd also be curious, given you have a multiparty system and not our peculiar two party one, why you struggle so hard to get candidates from NDP elected who would probably not push such terrible legislation?

[1over137]

>given you have a multiparty system [... why you struggle so hard to...

Multiparty yes, but also first-past-the-post, which favours 2 dominant parties.

[firefax]

Aha, thanks for this.

[Teever]

It’s a multiparty system that was recently in a minority configuration but through a fairly interesting series of floor crossings and by elections to fill open seats the Liberal party under PM Mark Carney has obtained a majority which more or less allows them complete dominance over the legislative process.

An explanation as to why the NDP fail to gain any substantial power could fill an entire book but imho the overarching reason comes down to the demographic distribution of Canada and dominance of the Bloq Quebecois has over Quebec preventing the establishment of any lasting NDP influence in such a densely populated part of the country.

As for the subject at hand, I wish it would be so easy as to just call an elected official, but as I said above, with the Liberal control of parliament for the remainder of their term and their high support in the polls there’s nothing that will Make them backtrack.

And this speaks to what Waterluvian mentioned in another thread. Too often with these kinds of surveillance laws the drive for them doesn’t seem to be originating by from the electorate, and it feels like this kind of stuff has an exogenous source and is meant for a whole different audience or player in the game.

[firefax]

>dominance of the Bloq Quebecois has over Quebec preventing the establishment of any lasting NDP influence

So the social democrats won't play nice with the social democrats who want to secede, to grossly oversimplify? :-)

Here in the states (and sorry to do the thing parent was complaining about), I've seen the same people who used to vilify Ralph Nader for splitting the vote melt down they're getting primaried by "extremists" -- the generation that brought us South Park and the Iraq War has grown up to be fragile as fuck.

> Too often with these kinds of surveillance laws the drive for them doesn’t seem to be originating by from the electorate, and it feels like this kind of stuff has an exogenous source and is meant for a whole different audience or player in the game.

Too often we refuse to listen to victims and pretend there is a technical issue preventing the prosecution of serious violations of the non aggression principle.

[1over137]

>dominance of the Bloq Quebecois has over Quebec

It's "Bloc". The NDP did well in Québec not long ago, when they had a candidate that the electorate liked.

[bluefirebrand]

I'm assuming you're talking about when Jack Layton led the NDP?

That was 15 years ago

[1over137]

Correct. And yes I consider it 'not long ago', it was only 4 parliaments ago.

[goalieca]

For the Americans and others:

Our prime minister pretty much has full and complete control of the legislative and executive branches and even the appointment of judges. If you vote against your party then you can be kicked out. The whip is pretty absolute.