Town hall on electoral reform
Tuesday, 2016 October 4 at 6:30 pm
Ralph Thornton Centre, 765 Queen St East

It’s been nearly a year since the election, and since we last corresponded.

A lot has happened over that year. One of the most exciting things is the move towards electoral reform and specifically the establishment of the ER parliamentary committee.

In light of this, I wanted to invite you to a town hall we’re organizing.

Canada is considering reforming the way we vote and this town hall is an opportunity to find out more about what might happen, and to have your say.

We will have a guest speaker from Fair Vote Canada and an open mic – all opinions and thoughts will be recorded and submitted to the parliamentary committee.

Hosted by the Toronto-Danforth Federal Green Party.

Info: chris@RebootDemocracy.ca – www.RebootDemocracy.ca

Thursday, 2013 Nov 28, 7pm sharp
Ralph Thornton Community Centre, 765 Queen St E
2nd Floor Auditorium — doors open at 6:45 — free

City Councillor Adam Vaughan will moderate as:

• Stéphane Dion, Liberal Critic for Intergovernmental Affairs, former Minister of the Environment & former Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada,
• Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party of Canada, and
• Craig Scott, Democratic Reform Critic of the Official Opposition

speak about how electoral reform can help get action on climate change.

Invite your friends on Facebook.

TORONTO – The robocalls scandal shows the need for a wider clean-up of our electoral system, says the Green Party of Canada.  “First of all, we need to have a public commission of inquiry into the robocalls scandal and get to the bottom of it.  But we also need to look at wider issues including the investigative power of Elections Canada, the increasing use of negative election tactics, and whether more teeth need to be added to the Elections Act,” said Green Leader Elizabeth May, MP for Saanich-Gulf Islands.

Green candidate in the ongoing Toronto-Danforth by-election Adriana Mugnatto-Hamu agreed, “The robocalls scandal involves such a volume of complaints and is so widespread, it should now be turned over for a full public inquiry.  Then we need to make sure that Elections Canada can handle any future complaints.”     Read more »

Quoting Joanna Lavoie, writing in InsideToronto.com, quoting Adriana at the all-candidates meeting:

However, a number of hot-button issues did come up during the debate, notably the alleged robo-calls scandal, the questionable automated calls during the May 2011 election, and how to restore voter confidence in light of it.

Green Party candidate Adriana Mugnatto-Hamu said her party’s leader Elizabeth May is the only parliamentarian to open her budget to the public.

“I’d like to see more transparency across the board,” she said of the scandal, which she called “a serious, criminal act.”

Further, she pointed to the Greens’ support for proportional representation, adding if implemented, the robo-call scheme wouldn’t have been as effective as a much smaller percentage of the voting population would have been impacted.

Elizabeth’s question regarding the budget was smart.  Watch the Conservative member avoid the question.  He does not answer why the government perversely chose to trim the most democratic and fair form of public finance for political parties.  The Conservatives like the subsidies that give rich people the majority of their money back when they contribute to political parties, but would deny the funding that goes to parties people vote for even when they can’t afford to contribute.

You can get a good explanation of what is going on here.