hmm So my presentation is tomorrow morning and I'm not quite sure what I'm going to say yet. In the area of democratic reform, there are several things to recommend, like parliamentary reform (changing the rules about party discipline - i.e. MPs can vote freely on bills rather than the party dictating how they must vote); initiative provisions (the public can dictate a vote in certain policy areas, rather than cabinet setting all agenda items); recall provisions (getting your MP kicked out before the next election); increase direct democracy through more referendums ("referenda"); and the obvious, monster of a policy change, electoral reform.

I'm probably going to advocate for some type of electoral reform, but there are different things to recommend, and I'm not sure if I'm supposed to detail all the options and outline the pros and cons of each (Bill isn't so good at giving clear direction on his assignments). The other thing is that everybody is recommending electoral reform these days - pretty much every province has a "citizens' assembly" at least discussing potential changes. So I'm basically just advocating what is probably obvious to a lot of people already...

The other issue is that I'm supposed to be presenting it as though convincing a certain government minister to accept my proposal. I don't really expect the government in power to be all that willing to changing the system that gives them such tremendous power. What are my reasons for recommending it? To increase voter turnout? To avoid an uprising by the people?  | ¶ 11:37 a.m.