FAB... on politics

I live in Canada.

I am very anti-Conservative.

I am appalled by the election results.

The Harper government was found in contempt of Parliament and yet, they then managed to pull off a majority government in our May 2nd election.

How did this happen?  Well, beyond fear-mongering ad campaigns and always talking about why the other parties are no good without giving an accurate representation of their own plans (ahh deflection - what crap!) it's also one of the major issues with our election system.

Commonly referred to as the "first past the post" system - it gave Harper's government a majority government even though it had less than 50% of the actual votes from the Canadians who actually got off their asses and went out and voted.

Let me state, right now, that I respect people who came out and voted for ANYONE more than I do people who willfully stayed home and didn't bother to use their hard-earned right as a Canadian citizen aged 18 years or older to have a voice.

I read an interesting blog post about First Past the Post which nicely sums up my issue with the system.

In fact, I am still bitter about the half-assed attempt at electoral reform in 2007.  I felt at the time that the public was not properly educated on how the proposed changes would work and that the ballot itself was rather off-putting and would likely confuse many people.

As for what I would like to see in a political party, putting aside my awesome idea of a coalition party called Cerberus (3-headed dog consisting of Jack Layton - NDP, Elizabeth May - Green & I picked Justin Trudeau for the Liberals) and their party colour could be a nice plaid, but really I have been keen to see the following issues addressed for YEARS!

Here are some of the things my dream political party would address:

• electoral reform
• income tax changes - everyone pays in 6 % of their gross income for taxes unless they made 20,000 or less annually as a single person or 10,000 PER person additional person in their family (family of three pays taxes on gross FAMILY income over 40,000)
• significant changes to the Young Offender's Act (it's too lenient and I think harsher measures should start at the age of 14 or as of the year the person is turning 14)
• wages of ALL government employees would be frozen at the rate of calculated cost-of-living (or at the rate the employees were being paid at the date of freezing) for the term of the party being in charge
• complete accountability of how tax-payer funds are used to pay for government decisions and initiatives
• minimum wage (for all employed persons) would always increase to match the calculated cost-of-living
• major health care changes (mental health - therapies & medications and basic dental covered for ALL Canadian citizens and more reimbursement for verified medical expenses during the income tax process INCLUDING a fitness tax credit for adults re: gym memberships & personal training)
• political campaigning can only be about the individual party platform THEY are presenting so it's about the issues and promises

 That's all I've got for the moment, I'm going to set this to post tomorrow.