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NDP seeks to ban floor-crossing without constituents' consent (www.cbc.ca)
submitted 5 months ago by to c/ndp@lemmy.ca
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[–] 4 points 5 months ago (7 children)

If parties is the wrong kind of electoral reform in your mind, what do you think would be?

Really good question.

I mean the strengthening of parties within our current system is bad.

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  • [–] 0 points 5 months ago (6 children)

    Would then the possibility of someone crossing the floor without s mandate from their constituents aid in strengthening a party?

    Or do you just mean parties in general are, for lack of a better term, "bad"?

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    A two party system is bad because it leads to very binary us vs them mentalities. The stronger parties get the faster a healthy multi-party system devolves to a two party system.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago

    Ah, OK I understand, yeah I do agree there, I think would be better balanced if the right parties didn't all merge, however. The problem we get is vote splitting with a multi party system. That being said fptp encourages a two party system. So that needs to go

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)

    Floor crossing is bad because MPs are whipped. If it was not for that detail, what parties you belong to would be as politically significant as which libraries you belonged to.

    "Mandate" is not a real concept in our system of government. It is merely a convention of our political culture. A person who is elected has the power. They can use that power however their conscience tells them. That is the whole basis of elected political office. Parties apply coercive pressure to people in office and influence them, but that isn't something to be encouraged. A person should ALWAYS be able to leave their party for ANY reason, without having any effect on their elected office, because otherwise it's the party that we're electing, and parties are not human beings that can hold offices with a conscience.

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