There are lots of acronyms out there. Find yourself interacting with the same people in the same environment all the time and you're likely to create and/or learn acronyms to try and make your communication more "efficient". Find yourself in a university environment and watch out! My work reminds me regularly how such efforts to simplify communication and make things more "efficient" can have the exact opposite result for new members of the community. So, why then am I going to refer to another one? Because I can.
MMP.
Momma makes pie? No. Mail more peanuts? Nay. How about Mixed Member Proportional? Ding, ding, ding!
What am I going on about? Well, as Ontario's provincial politicians officially started their campaigns today with our provincial election just one month away (October 10) I think it important to remind people of the fact that this isn't just any provincial election. There will also be a referendum in this election. The referendum is on whether to keep our exisiting electoral system (known as first-past-the-post) or to adopt a new system (Mixed Member Proportional). Mostly, I'm writing about it because I want people to know, and maybe even care about it. For general information on the referendum see the Referendum Ontario site. Basically, the new system would see us vote twice in future elections. One would be the standard vote for your local representative. The second though would be for a political party in general. Seats in the provincial legislature would be set aside for this "party" vote. They would be distributed to pre-selected representatives of each party proportionally to the number of votes each party received.
As for my personal opinion. Any system that will allow for representation that is more in line with the proportion of votes actually received by a party sounds like a good thing. Some have complained that it might lead to more minority governments. I say "bring it on". Politics should be about working together, not working against one another. I for one would like to see our political representatives working together to fulfill our needs as citizens and not trying regularly to either undermine the other parties and their efforts.
P.S. Who'd have thought? This is my 300th post. How'd that happen?
1 comment:
Ahem. Three things...
1) Yay more postings!
2) Wishing you Ontarioanites luck with the referendum. As in, better results than allegedly progressive BC got, grrr. Also a gov't less biased against change.
3) Have a happy birthday. That is an order. :D
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