Canada’s electoral system at its core has not changed since Confederation. Who has access to this system has changed, however. If extending the franchise to those without it is considered electoral reform, then Canada’s electoral system has changed. Those who are able to make use of our electoral system are more representative, but the system itself may not be. The current first-past-the-post system allows a plurality to win without a majority. If three parties are running for a seat, one third of the vote plus one is enough to win the entire riding. Is this fair? Canada has not implemented proportional representation, which is a group of voting systems which attempt to ensure that the percentage of popular vote is better reflected in the percentage of seats in Parliament. In looking at why this has not been implemented, we need to look at the issue both from the top-down, and the bottom-up perspective.
The current electoral system works fairly simply on the federal level. Canada is divided into ridings, and each riding elects one Member of Parliment. These ridings are supposed to generally represent an equal number of people, although in reality this is not the case. This source (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_district_(Canada)#Formula) and its corresponding source indicate that the “grandfather clause” and “senatorial clause” dictate that a province can not have fewer seats than it had during the 33rd Parliament, and that it cannot have fewer MP’s than it has senators. Today, these clauses are responsible fort he Maritime provinces having a consistently smaller ratio of voters to MP than that in British Columbia, for example. However, ongoing incremental reform has improved this situation over the decades. Each riding elects MP’s based on a simple plurality. This means that whoever among the parties running in a district has the most votes wins the entire riding. This can lead to problems. For example, if more than two parties are running in a riding, it is possible for a party win a plurality but less than 50% of the vote. This means that in Canada, it is possible that a majority of people in your district did NOT vote for your representative.
This system makes it possible for a large percentage of people to simply not be represented in Parliament. It also allows for issues like vote-splitting. For example, if the votes for the Green Party were added to the votes for the NDP in BC during the last federal election in all ridings, many elections would have different outcomes. This is significant because the ideological and policy platforms of the NDP and the Green party were very similar when contrasted with the Conservative platform at the time. Essentailly, 65% of British Columbians could have agreed on 90% of policy issues and still lost the election.
Proportional representation attempts to address this issue. The aim of the various types of proportional representation is to make the percentage of actual MP’s elected for a party nationally more reflective of the percentage of votes cast for that party. There are many ways to do this, and most of them attempt to address “wasted votes”. A “wasted vote” is a vote which did not elect a candidate. There are a variety of methods used to reduce the number of “wasted votes”. A runoff election is a simple way of doing so which is used in some electoral primaries in the United States. If, during a primary, no candidate gets 50% of the vote, another vote is held between the top two candidates. This addresses the issue by simply reducing the number of candidates once a first and second place among multiple candidates is established. This gives a chance for those who voted for the third, forth, et cetra candidates to influence which of the first and second place candidates wins, making their votes no longer “wasted”.
In my opinion, the three reasons proportional representation has not been established federally are that it generally does not benefit a government in power to implement proportional representation as it would usually lose the party in power seats, that those who want proportional representation have not reached consensus on exactly what form of proportional representation would be preferable, and that many Canadians prefer the simplicity of the first-past-the-post electoral system and do not trust a more complicated way of electing MPs. The first reason cannot be addressed directly, as it is an inherent flaw in democracy. The second reason may be solved if one form of proportional representation becomes popular enough. The third reason is rooted in ignorance, and can be solved through education.

Slowly unpacking,

I save as many posters from concerts as I can, now im slowly putting them all on the wall. Its a very nice feeling, I look at each poster and remember the performance. I am so lucky to have played in front of people in bands!

work hard,
blank slate,
focused mind,
meditate.

hard work
earn the day
your sleep is earned
still, peaceful
contended state.

three dollars a hole
doesnt sound like much
three feet deep
is deeper than it sounds.
use the crowbar
if the shovel wont fit
the rocks fight back
Bang! Bang! Clinkt!

hard work
work hard
shovel down
kick, push,
push, lift,
heave, throw

kthud, kthud

Heavy Feet
pull tired arms
tired back,
back home.

happy arms, and happy back, you've earned your rest.
no guilt, you are supposed to relax.

have you considered that a moral philosophy that involves never taking responsiblity for how other people react to what you do could have negative consequences on how people treat each other?

w

w

I used to work on handling it better

when I should have been killing it

you can't reach into your pocket

if you ripped out the seam

don't give up on giving up
sometimes it's the best way to make it

please Jesse

I love you but you've got to let yourself be

don't be ashamed, just be

Sometimes I find it hard to write. The act of writing feels to me like taking a whole and breaking it into pieces, then describing as many of the pieces as I can before you lose track of which piece went where. I need to break the whole because the whole concept doesnt exist in words, and the act of finding words to describe the whole breaks it up and re-structures it in a way that never quite feels as complete as the impulse I had, the impulse before I put it into words.

I've been struggling lately. I dont really wish it was any different, and I am not despairing. I dont think I despair often. I think ive been through some things that make it hard to give up. What right do I have to stop trying, stop caring, stop living when all these things I've experienced made me feel all these things?

I'm struggling with school. Specifically, with being able to dedicate time and effort to assignments. I grasp the concepts well enough, but I need a better work ethic.

I'm struggling with interpersonal relationships. Without slinging any mud, my expectations for people I trust weren't met, and I felt like my trust was broken. I don't like looking at it as if that means i'm not responsible for the hurt I feel when my trust is broken. I am responsible. And as I go on i'm learning that things I took for granted morally I should not expect from others. I should appreciate it when it comes, but expecting it hasn't been working out. And I could just as easily not met the expectations of others. I need to remember that. All I really know how to do to fight this is to be honest. I try to make sure that what I expect from people is clearly stated. Is that enough? I don't know.

I'm struggling with music. I have not written a single musical thing im really proud of since I left the PCE. I'm afraid that the ideas just aren't in me. That if they were in me, im not providing a good, nurturing home for those ideas. That I cant express myself musically alone. I know I can, I just havent done it in a while, and I miss it.

I know what the solutions to these are

1) Be kind to myself, forgive myself for not succeeding while trying harder while acknowledging when im trying.

2) Be kind to others, forgive them when they do not succeed while trying to be more accepting while acknowledging that I have needs and thats not a weakness.

3) Play music every day, let myself feel whatever comes.

My thoughts
formless
are trapped in
trapped in
to these words now


there is no
going back
falling back
back wards
its a nice
such a nice feeling


in my mind
i never left you


can we stay
in my head


Fading fast
Im running past the past
But Ill stop
Long enough
To tell you a story

wanna know why I haven't given up?

Im still alive!

I figure if my body is this organic machine that keeps on trying to stay alive whether I like it or not,

and my body is constantly wanting and needing things and struggling to keep going;

then I guess my body found something to keep going, cause it doesnt seem to worry about whether or not it should be alive, it just keeps going.

So ive got this pure example of unbroken will to live that I call a body, and its going to keep going, even while I sleep,

so I guess in a way its like ive constantly got this cheerleader at my side saying "come on! keep going! if I dont quit, you cant either! life is awesome"

Heck yeah it is!

and you are here
and you are here to hear
and to hear me is all I want from you



from all you want to all I am, You slide.

slide under me, let me breathe. let it out, let it go.

and i WILL get caught up again,

WHY DIDNT ANYONE TELL ME HOW AWESOME RUN DMC IS?!

you're in my home, you're in my head

im what I meant, not what I said

studio laughter makes me mad

cause its not what I want to hear

I wonder how many people find an individualistic or iconoclastic person they admire, and try to be more like them?

Seems like a strange paradox, but what if being nonconformist and popular actually creates more conformists?

you know whats wierd
when you are convinced you really understand yourself and what your past means
and when that convinced feeling actually complells you to believe that its real
and then you forget it
and the next night you get the same feeling, but convinced of a different realization
people really dont know much about themselves in terms of how their past affects their present
and when they think they know, they are often wrong
the impressions they get about what their past means is ephemeral and transient
and its only real purpose is to find some reason to keep going
a reason not rooted in any kind of "real you"
just something passing by because people cant stay still
they need to re-invent themselves every day

oh shit im motivated again!

first off, im sorry if I ever led you to believe I knew anything you didnt. If I do, I couldn't tell you what it is, and by the time you point it out to me, it wouldnt be something you didnt know. Anyway, ive got this plan.

Welcome back! A month! that sure was a while. I was just thinking about someone I admire who makes music and art. I was thinking about these two books he published that have his art and commentary. I was thinking about the commentary and how it relates. When does the commentary become not useful? Would too much distract from the art itself? Would not enough render it useless?

Excerpt from Bluebeard, by Kurt Vonnegut

"The team must consist of three sorts of specialists, he says. Otherwise, the revolution, whether in politics or the arts or the sciences or whatever, is sure to fail.
The rarest of these specialists, he says, is an authentic genius-- a person capable of having seemingly good ideas not in general circulation. "A genius working alone," he says, "is invariably ignored as a lunatic."
The second sort of specialist is a lot easier to find: a highly intelligent citizen in good standing in his or her community, who understands and admires the fresh ideas of the genius, and who testifies that the genius is far from mad. "A person like that working alone", says Slazinger, "can only yearn out loud for changes, but fail to say what their shapes should be."
The third sort of specialist is a person who can explain anything, no matter how stupid or pigheaded they may be. "He will say almost anything in order to be interesting and exciting," says Slazinger. "Working alone, depending solely on his own shallow ideas, he would be regarded as being as full of shit as a Christmas turkey."

You might not agree with Christians, but they sure do feed a lot more hungry people than you do.

Ever wonder why all these different buisnesses can get away with selling the same stuff at dramatically different prices?
In BC, one reason is that convenience and atmosphere are as important as the product itself.
Product A available a 10 min drive away is cheaper than product A available at your door,
and in BC, both products sell enough to profit
because BC is economically driven by rich, old, lazy people

beauty, like most lies, can help people if managed properly.

beauty, like most lies, usually hides things.

Dont fear change, I hear.

Ok, fair enough.

but its tricky sometimes, you know? Tricky how I fear it when I like whats happening too much.

as in "ok I accept change except this part and this part should stay the same cause I like those ones"

except that wont work, you know,

cause things that matter that have to change can hide behind them.

never be afraid to question your own beliefs.

it comes and goes, you know

A friend asked me

"Which is the greater tragedy; the writer who no longer wants to seek, or the seeker who no longer dares to write?"

To which I replied

"ok, in order to answer that, here are some concepts.

Imagine that probably everyone experiences things that are insightful and interesting and beautiful and (to an extent) unique, things that are worth writing down, and would make great raw material for different forms of art (writing, painting, photography, music, etc etc etc).

Then, imagine that probably some fraction of everyone actually believe that what they experience would make art worth making ("worth making" meaning that the person believes they should make it).

Then, imagine that probably some fraction of that fraction actually attempt to make art.

Then imagine some fraction of that fraction of that fraction make art that at least generally represents the experience he had in a way that makes sense to that person

Then imagine some fraction of that fraction of that fraction of that fraction make some kind of art that at least generally represents the experience he had in a way that makes sense (or "resonates") with that person AND other people.

And, finally, imagine some fraction of that fraction of that fraction of that fraction of that fraction also find that a LOT of people appreciate ("resonate" with) what he did, and he can therefore make a living off of it.

Ok, now to actually answer your question. I dont think that experiences people have that COULD make great art that end up not becoming great art is a tragedy. If I believed that, I would be expecting people who experience beautiful stuff to go out and turn it into art, and that would probably mean that I also believed that people who are capable of turning an experience they have in to art actually experience more (or are more "in tune" with what they experience), which is (as far as I can tell) not only NOT TRUE but also pretty unhealthy to think about other people.

TL;DR: Writers who dont seek and seekers who dont write arent tragic. Not everyone needs to share their experiences, and those who dont could be experiencing stuff just as intensely/artistically/whatever. And those who DO share it arent actually experiencing more intensely if they happen to be more effective at writing it down in a way that resonates with people. "