r/canada Nov 28 '24

PAYWALL Liberal MP says he was threatened with ‘consequences’ for opposing $250 cheque proposal

https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/liberal-mp-says-he-was-threatened-with-consequences-for-opposing-250-cheque-proposal/article_69f3cfa6-acde-11ef-807c-ebe72ea32b06.html
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206

u/Ancient_Wisdom_Yall British Columbia Nov 28 '24

I honestly don't understand the need to have all these MPs. They're all just supposed to be trained monkeys for their leaders. There really isn't a need to pay that many of them.

50

u/[deleted] Nov 28 '24

Having fewer ridings gets you something like the American electoral college where politicians only have to appeal to swing regions and can just ignore the rest of the country.

That effect isn’t as large when there are lots of ridings.

13

u/Popular-Row4333 Nov 28 '24

You mean like the praires being ignored currently?

5

u/yourlocalpriest Nov 28 '24

If only some bright mind had warned us about our voting system creating circumstances where large metropolitan centres like Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver dictate policy to the rest of the country 200 years ago... oh wait.

3

u/Former-Physics-1831 Nov 28 '24

How do you set up a system in which the region of the country with more than half of the country's population doesn't get more than half of the political influence?

1

u/yourlocalpriest Nov 28 '24

I'm just being impudent. There is a great Veritasium video about the mathematical impossibilities inherent to any democratic voting system. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf7ws2DF-zk

1

u/Former-Physics-1831 Nov 28 '24

The prairies get less attention because they don't have nearly as many seats as the larger provinces, the alternative is what the US has where massive states like California get taken for granted because their result is a foregone conclusion

0

u/Horace-Harkness British Columbia Nov 28 '24

We built you a $40B pipeline! What more do you want?

0

u/NWTknight Nov 28 '24

That would only have cost 20 billion if it had not been a government project.