Ensuring the future
Ottawa, Ontario - Saturday, April 21, 2007 - by: Brad Thomson
	Our electoral system in Canada is flawed. It is possible for a party to take majority power with considerably less than half of the total votes cast. Sometimes, as a result, important decisions are made by the minority. One recent historical example was Brian Mulroney's Free Trade election. The Liberals and New Democrats split the vote opposed to Free Trade, allowing Mulroney to come up the middle, win and bring NAFTA into effect. Whatever happened to the concept of majority rules?
	This problems exists because we have a multi-party system with a "first past the post" decision making process. It must be admitted that Canada has not been served too badly by it. Up until this point.
	But Canadians are now facing a greater problem, as are all humans. It is global warming. Stephen Harper and his Conservatives are against the implementation of Kyoto, while the Liberals, New Democrats, BQ and the Greens are all in favour of it. We have a situation then, where the pro-Kyoto vote could be split in so many ways that Harper may well get the majority he is looking for. But the consequences of failing to act on climate change will be catastrophic. There is no longer a need to debate the science.
	It seems to me, then, that Stéphane Dion, Jack Layton, Gilles Duceppe and Elizabeth May need to come to some form of an arrangement so as to ensure that majority rules on this most important of issues. The very future of the human race may be at stake.
	Brad Thomson
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