Lisa MacLeod is a Progressive Conservative Member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. Ms MacLeod’s tweet begins with an #AdHominem attacks accusing the “Jews Say No To Genocide” protest of “hate speech,” then characterizes their protest as a “sick” “antisemitic” “intimidation fest.
In the following @cbcnews clip, the “Jews Say No To Genocide” explain that they’re protesting an Israeli sale of illegally occupied Palestinian land being held in a synagogue.
Continue readingThank-you so very much to everyone who has signed my restore UNWRA Funding Petition!
![PARLIAMENT OF CANADA
[logo] House of Commons
Chambre des Communes
Canada
Petition e-4802 (Foreign affairs) #UNRWA
History
Open for signature
February 12, 2024, at 2:03 p.m. (EDT)
Closed for signature
March 13, 2024, at 2:03 p.m. (EDT)
Member of Parliament
Mike Morrice
Kitchener Centre
Green Party Caucus
Ontario
Province/ Territory Signatures
Alberta 204
British Columbia 513
Manitoba 20
New Brunswick 17
Newfoundland and Labrador 26
Northwest Territories 4
Nova Scotia 90
Nunavut
Ontario 1,692
Prince Edward Island 14
Québec 406
Saskatchewan 39
Yukon Territory 2
footer: Saturday 17 Feb, 2:04 PM](https://whoacanada.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/petition-signaturesday5.jpg)
Whereas:
• In 1949 the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) was established to carry out direct relief and works programs for Palestinian refugees.
• UNRWA is the primary provider of humanitarian aid: food, social services, healthcare, schools, refugee camps, and microfinance, sustaining the lives of millions of civilians, more than half of them children, in the Palestinian territory of Gaza, blockaded by Israel since 2007.
Continue reading
Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) has provided Canadians with an easy way to support the South African invocation of the UN’s Genocide Convention at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). If the ICJ finds merit in the South African case against Israel, the Court could impose “provisional measures,” including an end to Israel’s military operations against Gaza. We can let our government know where we Canadians stand by telling them in a letter.
Continue readingUnder the Harper Government, on November 29, 2012 Canada was one of only nine countries to vote against ‘symbolic’ Palestinian statehood.
On November 8th, 2016, Canada’s new Trudeau Government was one of just 6 countries to vote against the 1949 Geneva Conventions applying to Occupied Palestine
UNWAtch: Today: UN condemned Israel 10 times
The Government of Canada’s own website says:
Canadian Policy on Key Issues in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Support for the Palestinians
Canada recognizes the Palestinian right to self-determination and supports the creation of a sovereign, independent, viable, democratic and territorially contiguous Palestinian state, as part of a comprehensive, just and lasting peace settlement.
Canada recognizes the Palestinian Authority (PA) as the governmental entity in the West Bank and Gaza. Canada also recognizes the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as the principal representative of the Palestinian people Canada continues to support Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and is working with the government led by Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah in terms of much needed reform.
Working with its partners and through the United Nations, its agencies and other organizations, Canada continues to support and respond to the humanitarian and development needs of the Palestinian people. At the Paris Donors Conference in December 2007, Canada announced a commitment of $300 million over 5 years towards improving Palestinian security, governance and prosperity.
On Nov. 8 @ the @UN, Canada was one of 8 countries to abstain from voting in favour of "Assistance to Palestine ref… twitter.com/i/web/status/8…—
Alison Creekside (@CreeksideAlison) November 25, 2016
Canada does not recognize permanent Israeli control over territories occupied in 1967 (the Golan Heights, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip). The Fourth Geneva Convention applies in the occupied territories and establishes Israel’s obligations as an occupying power, in particular with respect to the humane treatment of the inhabitants of the occupied territories. As referred to in UN Security Council Resolutions 446 and 465, Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The settlements also constitute a serious obstacle to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace.
Canada believes that both Israel and the Palestinian Authority must fully respect international human rights and humanitarian law which is key to ensuring the protection of civilians, and can contribute to the creation of a climate conducive to achieving a just, lasting and comprehensive peace settlement.
The Canadian Government speaks for Canada. As a part of the International Community, a member of the UN, as a high contracting signatory of the Geneva Conventions, Canada has the duty to stay within International Law, but to hold other nations to account when they fail to do so.
When Canada fails to live up to its obligations, it falls to Canada’s opposition parties to hold the government of the day to account. And yet, in spite of Canada’s published policy on Isreal and Palestine, we have Mr. Trudeau’s Liberal government policy to be indistinguishable from Mr. Harper’s Conservative Government. Compounding matters, the NDP under Tom Mulcair seems to have the very same policy objectives.
Unlike these three parties, the Green Party of Canada has taken a different view. A view in tune with Canada’s published policy and with International Law.
The Green Party of Canada adopted the Palestinian Self-Determination and the Movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions resolution at its August 2016 Policy Convention. In December a more comprehensive consensus resolution was put forward by the GPC Shadow Cabinet and adopted by a strong majority (85%) at a Special General meeting in Calgary. Assuming this resolution is ratified, it will replace the August resolution; if not, the original will stand as GPC policy.
Although there it took some negotiation to bring it to a vote, on Friday December 23rd, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2334
President elect Donald Trump was less than pleased; perhaps he expects to be able to overturn the resolution after his inauguration. (It doesn’t work that way.) And it seems former Prime Minister Stephen Harper continues to oppose the established Canadian policy of conforming to International Law, and actually tweeted in support of the American President Elect.
My hope for the new year is a proper peace between Israel and Palestine.
The resolution adopted this afternoon is pro-Israel in the deepest sense of the term, supporting Israel’s existence and security, and standing against those who would sacrifice both at the altar of settlements, for an ideological, expansionist agenda.
This resolution reiterates international consensus, grounded in previous Security Council resolutions and international law, dating back nearly five decades, regarding the illegitimacy of settlements and rejecting settlement-related policies of successive Israeli governments.
APN commends the Obama Administration’s decision to stand with all past U.S. president since 1967 in maintaining U.S. opposition to settlements, and to reaffirm longstanding U.S. positioning and language in the Security Council on this issue.
— Americans for Peace Now (APN) Welcomes UNSC Vote on Israeli-Palestinian Peace
Peace on earth, good will toward men.
This is the seventh in the Whoa!Canada: Proportional Representation Series
Although democracy seems like the best form of political system for citizens, there are different ways to go about it, and as with most things, some are more effective than others. England bestowed our single member plurality winner-take-all electoral system on our young nation in our very first Canadian federal election in 1867, and we’ve been using this First Past The Post (FPTP) voting system ever since. Canada has seen a lot of innovation since then — from automobiles through air travel to space exploration. Our lives have changed and improved in a wide variety of ways: indoor plumbing, universal health care, the internet — most things have improved and modernized… but not our electoral system.
Like many Canadians I have come to understand the serious democratic deficit inherent in our 18th century voting system, but I’ve had an opportunity to learn about the alternatives over the past few years. As I’ve mentioned before, I hear many of the same arguments against Proportional Representation used over and over again. One of the most pervasive arguments is the one that insists if we switch to a Proportional system it will necessarily be unstable and have to suffer many more elections than we do now.
So let’s compare the Canadian record of elections with countries that use some form of Proportional Representation.
Spain adopted List PR in 1977. Between then and now, Spain has had 12 elections, in 1977, 1979, 1982, 1986, 1989, 1993, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2011, 2015. During the same time period, Canada also had 12 elections: in 1979, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1993, 1997, 2000, 2004, 2006,2008, 2011, 2015.
That doesn’t sound any more unstable than FPTP. How can that be? Maybe we need a larger sample… so let’s look at countries that have been using Proportional Representation longer.
Italy started using List PR in 1945, and since that time they have had 18 general elections, in 1946, 1948, 1953, 1958, 1963, 1968, 1972, 1976, 1979, 1983, 1987, 1992, 1994, 1996, 2001, 2006, 2008, and 2013
Israel also adopted Proportional Representation in 1945, and since then they’ve had 20 elections in 1949, 1951, 1955, 1959, 1961, 1965, 1969, 1973, 1977, 1981, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 1999, 2003, 2006, 2009, 2013, and 2015
That’s a lot of elections! We wouldn’t want to be running to the polls that often here in Canada, right?
Except… in that same period of time, with our “stable” First Past The Post system, Canada has had even more elections — a whopping 23 since 1945, in 1945, 1949, 1953, 1957, 1958, 1962, 1963, 1965, 1968, 1972, 1974, 1979, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1993, 1997, 2000, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2011, and 2015
The reason I decided to look at Israel, Italy and Spain are because these countries are the ones most often trotted out to “prove” just how bad Proportional Representation is.
But I was still interested in finding a Proportional Representation system that had actually had more elections than Canada. So next I looked Denmark, a country many Canadians admire because of its excellent social safety net. Denmark has used List PR since 1953 (but I’m not sure what they used before that). Since 1945, they have had 25 elections in 1945, 1947, 1950, 1953, 1957, 1960, 1964, 1966, 1968, 1971, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1979, 1981, 1984, 1987, 1988, 1990, 1994, 1998, 2001, 2005, 2011, 2015
Something else to keep in mind is that all three of these countries use List PR, which is the the most commonly used form of Proportional Representation. The thing that is important to understand is List PR (aka pure PR) is one form of Proportional system nobody is recommending for Canada.
So maybe we ought to take a peek at the proportional systems that are being recommended for Canada, in countries that have a little more in common with us.
After List PR, Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) is the most common form of Proportional Representation used at the national level around the world, so it’s not surprising to learn that MMP is the system most often recommended for Canada.
New Zealand replaced their First Past The Post electoral system with Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) in 1996, and since then they have had just 7 elections, in 1996, 1999, 2002, 2005, 2008, 2011, 2014 — the same as Canada.
Using the Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) electoral system since 1945, Germany has had only 18 elections, in 1949, 1951, 1953, 1957, 1965, 1969, 1972, 1976, 1980, 1983, 1987, 1990 (reunited), 1994, 1998, 2002, 2005, 2009, and 2013.
The other form of Proportional Representation that has been considered for Canada is the Single Transferable Vote (STV). This system is not as widely used as the others, but it found a lot of favour here in the BC referendum, where 57.7% of BC voters voted to adopt BC-STV. As often happens, the government holding the provincial referendum didn’t actually want to change the electoral system that had given it a disproportional amount of power. Their referendum was designed to fail by requiring a double super-majority
“… two super-majority 4343 on government:
—Wikipedia: 2005 British Columbia electoral reform referendum
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_British_Columbia_electoral_reform_referendum#cite_note-8
of 60% overall, before BC-STV would be adopted. Last night Dennis Pilon remarked on the irony of BC referendum requiring a higher threshold of support to change its provincial electoral system than had been required by the Quebec secession referendum.
Another country considered more politically fractious than Canada is the Republic of Ireland, where they have been using Single Transferable Vote (STV) since 1945. And yet they have had only 20 elections (to Canada’s 22) in 1948, 1951, 1954, 1957, 1961, 1965, 1969, 1973, 1977, 1981, 1982, 1982, 1987, 1989, 1992, 1997, 2002, 2007, 2011 and 2016
Admittedly, I have not made a comprehensive study, but it seems clear Canada’s First Past The Post system is less stable than many Proportional Representation systems.
While Canada’s Liberal government has promised to replace our existing electoral system, it has not ruled out adoption of the winner-take-all Alternative Vote (AV), a voting system also known as “Preferential Voting” (PV), “Instant Runoff Voting” (IRV) and lately “ranked ballot.”
Since 1945 Australia has had 27 elections, in 1945, 1946, 1949, 1951, 1954, 1955, 1958, 1961, 1963, 1966, 1969, 1972, 1974, 1975, 1977, 1980, 1983, 1984, 1987, 1990, 1993, 1996, 1998, 2001, 2004, 2007, 2010, and 2013.
As we can see, Canada’s winner-take-all First Past The Post system has resulted in more elections than many of the least appealing Proportional Representation systems.
The evidence from Australia — the only country in the world to have used Alternative Vote for any length of time — shows the Alternative Vote system is much more unstable than Canada’s FPTP and indeed every Proportional Representation voting system I’ve looked at here.
This evidence demonstrates the “instability” argument against Proportional Representation is simply not true, and suggests
any electoral system that provides Proportional Representation is likely to result in *fewer* elections than we are used to with First Past The Post.
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and don’t forget to check out the PR4Canada Resources page!
“Let’s be clear, the Conservatives are proposing to limit what topics Canadians are allowed to debate. That’s not the role of government. This goes against our fundamental freedoms and the NDP will be voting against it.”
— Tom Mulcair
Sounds like CBC is waking up ~ read the article Liberals denounce and agree with Tory motion condemning Israel boycotters
Whoa!Canada 