Ottawa's dearly beloved Lowell Green, (I say that wholeheartedly) has had many targets over the years, many of which can be summed up in the following categories: the tree-hugging, thug-hugging 'Left', mobile phone callers, and youth.
Seriously though, Lowell has been talking a lot lately on the referendum. Most of his phone-in callers know more about the subject than he does. A few things I've noticed over the past few days from listening to the show, 9am to 12pm EST:
1. Elected vs. selected
In the Elections Ontario pamphlet included with your election registration card it referes to list MPPs as being "elected" if a party needs a top-up of members to ensure proportionality. Lowell says it's equivalent to a snow job and insurrection of the highest order by Elections Ontario to say that these people will be "elected" since they are not exactly chosen by the people directly.
I personally don't see this being such a big deal. Lowell is latching onto this very miniscule point of symantics and blowing it out of proportion to try and show some sort of non-existent conspiracy theory.
2. Proportional representation vs. MMP
Lowell also loves to confuse the issue by saying that many of the countries with PR are unstable (yesterday it was Belgium) and that proponents of MMP list all of the countries that have a form of a PR system but not necessarily MMP. This for Lowell is also grounds for a conspiracy theory. The example of Belgium is good though, if you're comparing it to another jurisdiction that is split 50/50 along cultural lines... Ontario is not this.
3. Small parties of the Left will spring up everywhere and hold us all captive! More commies!
Lowell has also claimed that small parties or one-interest parties will arise and elected all kinds of members to Queen's Park to turn Ontario into a big lefty love-in. That is why the Ontario Citizens' Assmebly (OCA) implemented a 3% vote minimum for a party to enter Queen's Park. If we look at 2003's election results we see that under MMP there would still only be the same three traditional parties: Liberal, PC, and NDP. The GPO only got 2.8% of the vote.
4. How the OCA was formed.
One of Lowell's listener's said he was suspicious when he was selected to be on the OCA but after filling out a questionnaire was later told he was no longer needed. Instead of saying he would find out the answer he decided it would be much more fruitful to get carried away in speculation and lost in blissfully pure ignorance. The OCA chose electors from the list by random, one woman and one man from each riding in Ontario. Check out the answer here. If you still have questions then phone 1.888.ONT.VOTE.
1 comment:
Lowell Green strikes me as someone who thrives on conflict. If he attacked a racial group the way he attacks people who are politically left, he'd be in jail for hate-mongering. We had a similar radio big mouth in Thunder Bay by the name of Rick Smith (interestingly, on 580 AM in that region, as well). They're everywhere. They all sound the same on the morning shows, too. Same voice, same timbre, same style of speaking. They could be clones of each other. We know that when people understand this system, and are not misled by the lies (there is nothing else to call them at this point) being propogated by "No MMP", they immediately see its value and the sense it makes in a situation where more than two political parties exist. All we need to do is educate people, and they will vote yes. We don't need to rely on propoganda, just the truth. That makes our job easier, really. So, we just keep putting the truth out there, and I would suggest editing your post to point out why Lowell is wrong to that end. Cheers,
Cindy
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