This is excellent news. Canada's efforts to set itself up as a sacrificial lab rat to remind similar nations what a complete disaster of an idea this sort of thing is is to be congratulated. Good stuff!

It's a pleasure to be of service.

That's... uh... interesting and slightly disturbing. A novel approach!

I don't know. I have a particular view of this. I think that any youth 14-18 who commits a second serious crime should be moved to a education/labour camp (If we put it up near Moosenee somewhere along the Polar Bear express we wouldn't even need fences) where they are kept until they earn a high school diploma and learn a trade that will let them be productive members of society.

Therefore the sentences will be indeterminant and rely on them deciding to make a difference and actually study and learn rather then just time being idle in prison. [Actually I would like this for all prisoners, but we have to start somewhere]

Well, you'd need fences to keep the polar bears out, but I see your point. The equivalent of live fire exercises in the military :P

But in all seriousness, I agree. We shouldn't be trying to just punish young offenders. I recognize that punishment is necessary, but there's no reason to throw a teenager into prison for shoplifting.

Not about this issue, but just Canada's general turn to the right, two things:

First`: We have a majority right wing government that is enjoying its time as a law making machine that will set us back at least 20 to 30 years on the social democracy calendar that is dear to A MAJORITY OF CANADIANS! I still can't believe that the Conservative get to do whatever they please when 6 out of 10 Canadians voted for people on the other side of the political spectrum. Could we please get our act together and change that system for good next time we can?

Second: Don't mention any of this to Tettleton's Chew.

I think that the title of this thread will attract Tettleton like flies to a rotting carcass.

Yeah, I guess the title was deliberately a little more provocative. The Canadian penal system just isn't that exciting for most.

I'm not sure what the correct measure is for juvenile offenders but, seriously, people are so young at 14-18 and should be given every opportunity to change and correct their ways.

Also, Harper is one thing. I can almost understand how he (and his hairpiece) won a lot of votes. But Ford?! Gives me shivers thinking that people actually voted for that moron.

Also, the new crime bill won't be helping the aboriginal's one bit:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/the-national-shame-of-aboriginal-incarceration/article2102814/

Ugh so frustrating to see. The Harper government has consistently shown itself to be pig headed and willing to ignore actual social science in order to justify it's ideological goals. Like with the census. We're just seeing more of that.

Still no Tettleton... He must be sick, as he is likely to smell such topics from miles and miles away!

Yeah.... Ford.... Holy. Crap. No wonder the GTA was so Conservative during the last elections. If commentators would have remembered who had just been elected as mayor, it wouldn't have struck them as such a surprise.
Ford... Fuck.

Sounds like a majority of Canadians aren't willing to settle for crumbs from wasteful government redistribution any longer. They probably want better cancer survival rates and access to more advanced drugs as well. Who knew?

The term "majority" can only be used very loosely.
And it's not like Harper has any intention of doing away with universal healthcare. Like it or not but it's ingrained in our national identity (almost as a knee jerk reaction to American politics) and would be political suicide to abolish.

Although I may be misreading your rather cryptic message

Yay! TC is here! But he's left himself open to an easy rebuttal way too early in the game. Yonni is being nice in saying that "majority" is used very loosely in your comment. In fact, your sentence is simply wrong: a majority of Canadians ARE NOT behind the current government. You must not mistake a majority of MPs with a majority of voices. Sadly, the current political system works in such a way as to provide a government with a majority even where it has failed to get 50% of the vote. What's worst is that our system doesn't favour coalitions and thus leaves such government absolutely free to reign as a dictatorship.
I'll make you happy, TC, by telling you that the Liberals (a touch more left than the Democrats) were in a similar position for much of the 90s to hear recriminations not unlike the one I'm making here.

@Cachimbo
Well, you need some mechanism to form stable governments. You don't want to end up in a situation where small party politics get over represented because of the need to form a coalition. I agree that coalitions should be less vilified in Canada but I don't agree that we need a purely rep-by-pop system. Some hybrid system (better than the one they suggested for Ontario) would be the ideal situation.

I liked the one they tried to pass in England not too long ago, the preferential voting system. Here's the best link on the subject.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiHuiDD_oTk

Ideally, here's my simple solution.

You vote in the senate on a rep-by-pop system. Have the elections on a fixed 5 year cycle so that you still have your checks-and-balances with parliament. Kills two birds with one stone.

Also, they need to redistribute the ridings. People in big cities are pretty shitily represented.

@Cachimbo: wait... The Grits are further to the *left* than the NDP? I was under the impression that they were closer to the center of the political spectrum.

@Tettleton: the Conservatives got 53% of the seats in the House of Commons with just less than 40% of the popular vote. Pretty much all of the other 60% went to two parties on the left side. Obviously, a majority of voters wanted more government spending.

@TB, I think he was talking about the American Democrats, not the NDP

Ah, missed that.

uhhhhh, so whats the problem here?

TBroadley, the Conservatives received a majority of the seats in commons. The popular vote totals simply reflect that heavily liberal districts voted overwhelming liberal.
So if conservatives win two districts by 150,000 to 100,000 and liberals win one district by 200,000 to 50,000 thousand the popular vote is 400,000 for liberals and 350.000 for conservatives, and you are advancing the argument that this means the country is liberal?
When in fact the reality is that two districts were solidly conservative while on district was wildly liberal.
The true analysis is in your first sentence, the house of commons is 53% conservative and two liberal parties couldn't even get 50% of the seats.

The core reality is this, that an elite group of politicians can begin to match the wisdom of tens of millions of individuals.
You can apply this to health care, retirement, free trade, etc.
Statists always believe that empowering a select group of elites with enormous power will benefit the mass of individuals more than protecting the freedoms of individuals to act in their own self-interest.
Empowering a select group of elites with enormous power is exactly what Europe did in the Medieval period. It was called Feudalism.
It's quite entertaining to read arguments calling for a modern Feudal state with government elites replacing hereditary aristocracy.
Europe really has never shed the idea of a "ruling class" like the United States did.

@Tettleton: in your scenario, the country *is* liberal. More people believe that the Liberal Party would do a better job than the Conservative Party. That is exactly my point.

The vote-splitting in the left really caused the Conservative majority. Now, if the Liberals and NDP could get together and form a party with a platform palatable to supporters of both parties, that's be a different situation. Of course, many moderate Liberals would shift to the Conservatives because of a perceived radicalization of the left, but a unified left party could defeat the Conservatives.

My "scenario" is representative democracy. It doesn't matter if there are three or four tremendously unbalanced districts in a representative democracy. A representative democracy is judged by the final tally of the districts, and as you pointed out the tally is 53% conservative despite the fact there were two liberal parties who couldn't get 50% between them in the House of Commons.

Why have a House of Commons if you want to rely on raw vote? Why not put everything to a national referendum?

Tettleton, you are of course correct that Canadians elected a majority government. I don't think TBroadley and Yonni are taking issue with the statement "The Conservatives won a majority government." They understand how representative democracy works. They're responding to your comment about what a "majority of Canadians" are and are not willing to settle for. In parliamentary terms a majority may refer to more than 50% of the seats in the house of commons, but that is not what you said. You commented that this election seems to indicate the wishes of a "Majority of Canadians", which, representative democracy notwithstanding, still means, unless I am very much mistaken, more than half of the Canadian population. You can say what you like about the value of representative democracy. There is an argument to be made there, but please, don't refer to the results of a general election as representing the wishes of a "Majority of Canadians" unless more than half of the Canadian population voted for the party in power.

+1 Mafi,

My comment was in reply to:
"Sounds like a majority of Canadians aren't willing to settle for crumbs from wasteful government redistribution any longer. They probably want better cancer survival rates and access to more advanced drugs as well. Who knew?"

Not sure what exactly what you were getting at but I think you were implying that the majority of Canadians are against universal healthcare. Polls show that 85-90% of Canadians are in favour of it. The Canadian 'right' is a far ways away from your capitalist tax haven.

I also don't really understand where you feudal system rant came from. It's like you have a reserve of party-line arguments that you throw out but they don't always fit the situation.

"The vote-splitting in the left really caused the Conservative majority"

I think this is the root of a lot of Canadian's contempt with the current system. I believe that a liberal/NDP coalition would have better represented the majority of Canadians - but I'm not positive of the fact. That being said, I never suggested that we outright get rid of the current system. I think we need to incorporate a rep-by-pop system as well (and do away with the current version of the senate).

One major victim of the current system is the Green Party. It gets a significant share of the vote and, if it weren't for strategic voting, would get an even higher share.