On the Coalition and the Suspension of Parliament

We have a representative democracy. We don't vote for the Prime Minister, we vote for our local representatives. "Strategic voting" where people vote for the local party representative simply for the sake of which MP that party supports as party leader is the real subversion of our democracy. The people that are screaming loudest are the don't-get-it people that didn't pay attention in high-school Social Studies and voted for whatever nitwit riding on the Conservative ticket in their riding, regardless of that individual's qualifications to represent their riding in parliament.

Who forms the government party in the House of Commons and which individuals the government party decide to make ministers, including the Prime Minister, is up to representatives we elected to entrust those decisions to.

The "undemocratic" simpering of Harper and those backing his white-knuckled, desparate clutching to a false "mandate" backed by a mere third of Canadian voters are indicative of an individuals so unaware of the basis of the system that they are working in that they are not worthy of the power they are so desperately cleaving to. It's often said that those in government are "not the best people" - this happens because strategic voters fail to vote for the best individual they can by following party lines.

Ours is not the American two-party system and their elected pseudo-king. In countries not so blinded to workings of their own government by a steady diet of American media, coalitions are commonplace, and they work. The Prime Minister is not a president - the equivalent of that position in our government is held by the Queen of Canada (a hereditary position) via her appointed (not voted for at all) representative, the Governor General - who, as it is, has made a huge error in judgement regarding this issue.

Oringinal post: http://mbarrick.livejournal.com/865870.html