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Can you live without a car?
Posted by Ingrid Robeyns

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Proposal for Proportional Prepresentation?

Canada's Electoral System

The ole First-Past-the-Post system is becoming more and more annoying, and it's increasingly distorting of Canada's true electoral landscape. Take the NDP, a minority (but federal - supported fairly consistently across the country) party; it gets its @$$ kicked by the Bloc Quebecois every time in parliament, winning much fewer seats (like about 1/5 as many) despite having more popular support across the country.

That's the problem. The system rewards regional concentration. A system designed to govern an entire country equitably is biased towards regional concentrations. It doesn't seem to be designed very well.

So there are lots of other ideas, that never really get proposed, but at least are talked about (more and more frequently) around election time these days.

Proportional Representation

The simplest proposal/idea that critics have is Proporational Representation, and simply, if a party gets 19.2% of the popular vote, then that party would get 19.2% of the seats in the house. It would mostly abolish the idea of candidates and electoral districts, because a vote in any area of the country would mean the same thing -- one vote for the party. So if a party won 60 seats, it seems like the party would get to pick which 60 members could sit in the house (since it could never be assured that with 19.2% of the popular vote, that 60 candidates will have won in their ridings). So what would be the point of electoral districts? Possibly Parties could be forced to send their biggest winners in the election to the house first.

Big winners of proportional representation: the NDP, and the Green Party
Big losers with proportional representation: the BlocQ
Also losers with proportional representation: the Conservatives and the Liberals

First- and Second-Past-the-Post.

We could, on a point system, send both the first-place candidate in a riding and the second-place candidate. Give 2 points to the party with the 1st-place party, and give 1 point to the 2nd-place party. There would then be 924 points total (3 x 308 ridings). Divide the points by 3, round up, and allocate that number of seats to each party (an independent can sit if he/she was in 1st or 2nd).

Combination of the Two

Allocate 924 points for proportional representation. That means if you have 7/924 of the vote, then you get 7 points (we can round down for partial points). Add on the first and second place points, for a total out of 1848 points. Divide by six and round up, and that's how many seats a party can have in the house. Once again we'd have to have some rules telling the party which candidates they'd have to send to the house (like the ones they won in by the most votes).

Check it out.

JJE

Abolish the Penny!

This one is easy.

1. It costs too much to produce, relative to its cash value.
2. It's really easy to round to the nearest five cents.
3. We can use the world supply of copper for other things.
4. If the mint does this, then they can put off their plans for introducing the five dollar coin, known as the woodie (or perhaps the pocketbuster).
5. It brings us one step closer to not having to use cents at all. Like Yen. Wouldn't it be nicer if we didn't have to use decimals all the time when referring to money?

JJE

Raise the Federal Gas Tax!

I call myself a "rich" person for the following reasons:

-I can afford to eat what I need;
-I have no appreciable debt;
-I don't have to work long periods of time in crappy jobs in order to make money;
-I own a car and I can afford to run it.

So this special circumstance colours a bit my feeelings about high gas prices and the taxes that cause a large part of those high prices.

But here goes in short point form.

-Gas tax to support urban public transit is an awesome idea. The main problems with gas-guzzling SUVs are as follows: Climate change, mental health associated with traffic frustration, and wastefulness.

-Mass public transit helps reduce the rate of increase of global climate change. Riders of public transit are more at ease when they don't have to drive (and also when they save money, and possibly time as well). It's easy to see how public transit is less wasteful than large cars with only one passenger, often with no additional baggage.

-Sell some more of our major highways so that they can be tolled, and use the revenue to fund more mass public transit.

-Car purchase tax/rebate is also a good idea. Basically, if you buy a fuel-efficient vehicle, you get a certain amount of money from the government. If you buy a fuel-inefficient vehicle, you have to pay a certain amount to the government. The net sum of tax/rebates for car purchases in any given year would be zero. So this is simply a redistribution of wealth; a "tax on the stupid" if you will; that penalizes those who willfully harm the environment or general mental health or waste on average, and it rewards those who harm the aforementioned less than average.

-It then follows that gas taxes could be increased even further, under certain conditions (and add more conditions if you think of them, please).
a) Businesses that *need* to use light vehicles should be reimbursed for the losses they will incur due to increased gas tax or highway tolls, etc.
b) Increasing taxes at a high magnitude can only be justified if there is a reasonable alternative to driving a light vehicle to work/whatever. So the infrastructure of public transit has to be an urgent priority in order not to wreck the economy too much.

Thoughts? Questions? Criticism?

Bring it on!

This is the word of the Sophiarchs.

MARCTIC

This is Chris's original idea, so I will leave the meat of the idea to him.

The Royal Canadian Navy currently comprises two main large formations; MARLANT, short for Maritime Forces Atlantic, which is based in Halifax, and MARPAC, short for Maritime Forces Pacific, which is based in Esquimalt.

Canada, of course, borders three oceans, the third being the Arctic Ocean. Its importance is waxing these days as global warming is increasing the possibility that more melting will occur each summer, making possible many of Canada's Arctic waters more traversible by surface ship.

Enter MARCTIC, Maritime Forces Arctic. It may be necessary in the future to help protect Canadian sovereignty with icebreakers, more submarines, and small surface ships in the summer. It would perhaps be appropriate for MARCTIC to be commanded by a Rear-Admiral who would report directly to Commander, Canada Command. Sub-units of MARCTIC may include SUBARCS, the Arctic Submarine Squadron, BRARCKERS, the Squadron of Icebreakers, and FARCTAFF, a task Force of Destroyers with a Frigate command ship.

All this can be ours, at the price of something in the tens of billions?

Standing on Guard.

Highway 401

If you live in Ontario, you have heard of Highway 401, and you know that it is a massive, wide, and long highway for motor vehicles that covers Ontario's portion of the route from Quebec City to Windsor.

It passes through the city of Toronto, and serves as the main east-west "artery" within the city and its surroundings.

And if we stay on the human-biology motif, this artery is clogged; clogged with impurities and under the strain of being too narrow for the volume of "blood" it transports; tired from overuse and constant reconstructive repair; full of waste like SUVs and fat, rich, lazy people who are scarfing down McGriddles and Tim Hortons' doubles-double while talking on their cellphone and shifting stick all at the same time.

But I digress.

Right now, along the "Greater Toronto Area" section of the 401, it is actually divided into two highways that run in parallel; the 'Express' lanes, and the 'Collector' lanes, 'Collectors' being an eminently insightful name for roads that seem to let cars on them in great volume but never seem to let them off. Sadly, the express lanes do just as much of that collecting.

So this article is a proposal to ease a bit of the traffic strain. The express lanes only give drivers access to the collector lanes, with a few exceptions like Hwy 400, and the DVP, I believe. You can get onto any of the exits of the highway from the collector lanes. The problem is, people don't use lanes for their intended purpose.

If the collectors are faster, drivers normally will take those, even if they never intend to get off the 401 at all while travelling through the city.

And those drivers who plan to get off in the city will often stay on the express until the last chance they have to transfer to the collectors and take their exit.

I'm not saying it's bad for drivers to take advantage of the best option available. What I'm saying is bad, though, is that the current system allows people to transfer frquently in one trip from lane to lane to collectors to express to collectors to express to passing pane to collectors to the exit, or some other permutation of many lane changes and transfer mounts. This is what causes congestion. People have too many different options to "beat the rush" and weave around others who are percieved as slower drivers or slower in mind and not agressive enough.

Here's what we should do.

First, reduce the express-collector hopping by disallowing access from the express lanes to the collector lanes. The only things I propose the express lanes should have access to are:
-Hwy 410
-Hwy 427
-Hwy 409
-Hwy 400
-Allen Road
-Yonge St
-DVP/404,
and access would be direct to those roads, so one wouldn't have to get on to the collectors first before exiting off the 401.

Next, rename the "Collector" lanes to the "Local" lanes, so some of us won't get this image in our heads of thickening blood along thinning walls of some fat guy's aorta. The local lanes will have access to all the exits, and will have access to the express lanes at frequent intervals. The only catch is, we'll have to put up signs that say "Notice: Express lanes access only highways 400, 404, 409, 410, 427, DVP, and Yonge St, and Allen Rd".

People will make mistakes and miss their exits, but at least they'll be driving faster doing it.

Then we'll be able to raise the speed limit on the express lanes to 110 kilometres per hour.

The local lanes will probably get a bit more congested, but we hope that it will coerce people to look for alternate cheaper, cleaner, and less wasteful modes of transport, and leave the highway driving in the city to only the people who really need it.

So be it!

Discussion: What should Alberta do with its new-found wealth?

Some questions:

Who says that it's Alberta's oil, and not Canada's oil? Did the dinosaurs say to themselves, just before dying, that they should lay themselves to rest in Alberta, thereby letting the Eastern Bastards freeze in the dark (because I suppose they're bad people?) - wait, humans haven't been invented yet for hundreds of millions of years.

Why turn the surplus into a small disposable cash gift? I'm sure that the $500 given to each Albertan from last year's surplus will be well spent, much of it on tobacco, cigarettes, and gambling. And probably not to health care nor education.

What are the merits for Alberta separating from Canada? I think they can afford it, and I think that it is in their best interest economically to do it. Unfortunately, it also means the destruction of Canada.

Is it time to consider an alternate arrangement for the GST in Alberta? Adding 7% to prices is a cognitive burden, and also it sort of redistributes wealth from Alberta, to Ottawa, back to Alberta, in a way, which I think is wasteful. It would be so much simpler there with no tax, especially when none is really needed.

Fair dinkum!