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From: acton@ubc-anchor.UUCP
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: N.B. Elections
Message-ID: <1665@ubc-cs.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 14-Oct-87 21:41:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: ubc-cs.1665
Posted: Wed Oct 14 21:41:23 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 16-Oct-87 05:40:31 EDT
References: <1168@water.waterloo.edu>
Sender: nobody@ubc-cs.UUCP
Reply-To: acton@ubc-csgrad.UUCP (Donald Acton)
Distribution: can
Organization: UBC Department of Computer Science, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Lines: 25

In article <1168@water.waterloo.edu> jmlang@water.waterloo.edu (Jerome M Lang) writes:
}Well New Brunswick has done it again. It looks like there is NO OPPOSITION
}at the provincial legislature 
}My question is, how does a democratically elected government does its
}work properly without an opposition?

To me this demonstrates one of the major problems of the party system in 
Canada and that is if you don't follow the party line your life, in the 
political sense, becomes miserable. It is my opinion that individual MPs, 
MLAs etc. should be able to speak out against the party line without fear 
of being banished to the political boondocks for the next millennium. (Witness
the recent fall from grace of the NDP's Ian Waddell and several Liberals 
for their stand on the Meech Lake accord.) When one joins a political party
they do so because they agree with the fundamental philosophy of the that
party. It is very hard to believe that an individual (not a sheep)
could agree with 100% of a party's policies. Likewise in an election sweep
like this it is hard to believe 100% of the Liberal policies are preferred 
over those of the Conservatives and NDP by the people. Instead I am inclined  
to believe that the electorate preferred more of the Liberal party's policies.
It therefore becomes the responsibility of the elected Liberal's who 
don't agree with specific policies to express their dissenting opinions 
and in effect act as the opposition. It is too bad that the present party 
system so strongly discourages such action.

  Donald Acton