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kareemm | on: Canadians are running out of time to oppose Bill C-22
I emailed 9 senators and heard back from one. Emailed the other 8 today. Even when you engage, there's little positive feedback. The older I get, the more I believe this is a feature of the system and not a bug.
zaptheimpaler | parent | next
I feel most of us have been conditioned to prefer only the mildest and most inoffensive ways of protesting as valid and consider the rest impossible. In my view, governments today ignore protests because they don't actually threaten anything. A protest with teeth might be mass absenteeism from work, refusing to pay taxes, something that actually hurts.. although in this case it's probably a bit much, when the threat of real protest is completely gone you end up with authoritarian governments.
ornornor | root | parent | next
France does protests more effectively. The government is paying attention there and trying very hard to hide the fact that the emperor has no clothes.
raverbashing | root | parent
They are protesting against the same things that would make their situation better (like increasing the retirement age)

But they're too stupid to realize that

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0c3ca83 | root | parent
Or even just peacefully blocking the entrance to parliament and forcing them to arrest you to do their jobs.
grafmax | parent | next
The fact is this political system of ours is heavily balanced in favor of those with the endless budgets and resources to spend engaging in "democratic" avenues of influence.
h3xK33 | root | parent
[flagged]
kashunstva | root | parent | next
> Boomers were not raised by principles of modern science

I’m a Boomer with twelve years of post-secondary modern science education. My spouse, also a Boomer has spent her entire life in the academy. Your claim is false.

> They’re religious nutters due to memory of their neurological makeup

I’m an atheist Boomer. I haven’t a religious bone in my body. Your claim is false.

I’m sure there are other venues that will accept your ageist, angry and patently false generalizations as truth; but by and large this is not one of them.

parineum | root | parent | next
Just Boomers are like that?
JumpCrisscross | parent | next
> emailed 9 senators and heard back from one

Good start. Calls are also excellent. Then get your neighbors to do the same.

For controversial stuff, you want tens to hundreds of outreach events recorded. It doesn’t take all that much for electeds to spell a festering primary threat.

8note | root | parent | next
electeds? primary threat? i think that might backfire in the canadian senate

i know i voted against the referendum question last week to consider moving to a US inspired elected senate system. i dont think we need that pageantry

JumpCrisscross | root | parent | next
> electeds? primary threat?

I'm familiar with American and Swiss elections. In both, the principal threat to an incumbent is from an own-party challenger to their seat.

For an incumbent, particularly one in a comfortable seat, an opposition candidate is usually not an issue. But someone from inside the camp is annoying and requires rhetorical contorting and lots of spending, spending that can then leave one vulnerable to an otherwise-benign opposition candidate. (Also, motivated activists are annoying in the best way.)

A smart elected–in these systems–will thus take a call to defuse anger before it develops into organized activism.

munk-a | root | parent
Ah, to clarify, Canada's upper house is basically a house of lords equivalent that we expect to be full of puffed up nobodies that get paid a too generous stipend to sit there and keep their mouths shut. Canada has one elected congress body (the one we all talk about) and then this vestigial senate which is generally expected to sit there and silently approve everything that passes through it.

It does technically have power, but it's like the King's power to veto UK legislation - he can do it precisely once and then he'll be stripped of the power.

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munk-a | root | parent
Yeah, I think it'd be excellent if we could just disband our upper house and while it's worth pushing them to act on this bill I loathe the senate's continued existence and would rather be in a position where this emergency call happened prior to it passing the house.
buckle8017 | root | parent
There are no primaries in Canada at all.

Parties select their representatives who run in the election.

The system basically guarantees that insiders cannot be removed.

seanw444 | root | parent | next
That actually sounds crazy to me. At least for the House of Commons. I'm amenable to upper chambers of bicameral legislatures being indirectly elected. That's how the US Senate used to be before the constitution was amended.
gpm | root | parent | next
I think you're misreading. MPs are directly elected. Anyone can run to be an MP (You have to collect 50 to 100 signatures from supporters and fill out some paperwork). Whoever wins the most votes in a riding becomes MP.

It's the property of a candidate being affiliated with a party - an indirect part of the election - that is run by the parties rules that are generally less than entirely democratic in nature.

| root | parent | next
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buckle8017 | root | parent
The British system which Canada basically copied is entirely designed to prevent real democracy.
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cowlevel | root | parent
Do you have several parties or just two?
buckle8017 | root | parent
Liberals NDP Greens Conservative

Liberals NDP and Greens would never form a government with the Conservatives so the liberals are effectively always in power.

Which means insiders in the liberal party are in charge and voting is partly irrelevant unless you're voting for the conservatives, but they would need an actual straight majority.

rfrey | root | parent | next
The Green party is not a force in Canadian politics,they have one seat and barring radical events will never have another.

Th Bloc has 21 seats, and has had as many as 54. They would certainly ally with the conservatives. (Not the modern maple maga variety, but old school PC).

BigGreenJorts | root | parent | next
Except with the minority, the NDP got a few of their platform issues through.
singpolyma3 | root | parent
Except for my entire 20s the conservatives were in power, so...
neom | parent | next
Colin Deacon seems to care: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7519403...

Paula Simons has also been actively listening to Canadians on this subject. https://sencanada.ca/en/senators/simons-paula/

Meleagris | root | parent | next
Members of the Senate committee reviewing C-22:

Marty Deacon (Ontario) Committee chair 613-943-3429 Tony Ince (Nova Scotia) Deputy chair 343-991-5540 Andrew Cardozo (Ontario) Committee member 613-996-9545 Katherine Hay (Ontario) Committee member 343-991-5536 Rebecca Patterson (Ontario) Committee member 613-995-2185 Hassan Yussuff (Ontario) Committee member 613-944-1108 Kim Pate (Ontario) Committee member 613-995-9220 John M. McNair (New Brunswick) Committee member 613-995-5060 Victor Boudreau (New Brunswick) Committee member 613-947-4110 Judy A. White (Newfoundland and Labrador) Committee member 613-996-2433

EmbarrassedHelp | root | parent
Paula Simons is almost certainly against Bill C-22, so it probably won't be of any use to contact her about rejecting it. I would focus efforts on other Senators.
NoahZuniga | parent | next
You won't be able to convince representatives with facts and logic. So many people want their attention that they can't pay enough attention to your arguments to be convinced. Contacting them is about showing that you care about it.

If they receive 100 calls of people saying they're strongly against a bill and no for they might reconsider their position.

Also calling is a better signal of showing you care then emailing.

raverbashing | parent | next
Honestly senators probably don't have the time to answer everybody directly even if their concerns have an impact on their decision
lstodd | parent
Haha. You don't email them, you cut off their funding and smear their public image. This is how you make them move, not with emails. It takes some work though.
pixl97 | root | parent | next
Careful there, too much of this kind of thinking and the MPs are going to find child porn on your phone, you sick criminal thief trying to overthrow the government.
lstodd | root | parent
This also. It's a race who's going to find CP where. Or whatever else.

That's politics 101. Read up Mark Twain's Running For Governor.

rightnutwingjob | root | parent
Where’s the cut-of-their-funding lever?

Dial #lever and say “cut off”.