NationStates Jolt Archive

I was thinking to myself, if we have a representative government, and each person is supposed to represent the people in their riding, then why do we have parties? Yes, they make the prime minisiter, but, does it not make more sense to have a prime minister and no parties? I don't understand how parties came to be, which is what I'm asking you. Do you know, because Im fed up with the whole thing being un-democratic.

They represent a group of related ideas and are designed to uniformly promote that agenda. Take the Liberals for example - they banded together for the sake of liberal ideas and policies and to give people with similar ideas a voice. The party is essential just a microcosm of the group of voters who feel that this group best represents them.

I was thinking to myself, if we have a representative government, and each person is supposed to represent the people in their riding, then why do we have parties? Yes, they make the prime minisiter, but, does it not make more sense to have a prime minister and no parties? I don't understand how parties came to be, which is what I'm asking you. Do you know, because Im fed up with the whole thing being un-democratic.
With parties you can just look up the parties website to find out their policies and vote for the party member in your riding. Everyone in the party tends to vote the same way as a Party Leader. If there wasn't parties you would have look up each candidate in your riding individually, which would be confusing in ridings like Toronto or Vancouver (each city is broken down into many ridings) and hard to find for ridings further north (poor internet conections). Also the Prime Minister's Office is never accually mentioned in our constitution, so without parties it is likely that Canada wouldn't have one leader but 305 leaders.

Because they can.

Canadian parties exist quite frankly because Canadians like to:


PARTAAY!!:D

Also the Prime Minister's Office is never accually mentioned in our constitution, so without parties it is likely that Canada wouldn't have one leader but 305 leaders.

You make it sound like a bad thing. I just tend to take a stand that says parties are corrupt and make good representatives vote in the way the leader wants to vote, not in the way the people from their riding wants to vote. Also, the senate should be voted in, and a number of other things, but that's only common sense! No one expects any politician to understand that!

Also the Prime Minister's Office is never accually mentioned in our constitution, so without parties it is likely that Canada wouldn't have one leader but 305 leaders.
There would still be a Prime Minister, but it would be much more difficult to determine who it was to be, and for him to stay in office with a stable government.

Without parties, a person who wanted to be PM would have to negotiate with many MPs in order to secure their support, and then keep negotiating for every vote. With parties, their support can be assumed (unless they choose to rebel).

Damnit CanuckHeaven beat me to it

We have Canadian Political Parties because our system is based on the British Parliamentary system. They started political parties to represent a certain ideology. This just makes it easier to identify with. It also makes the Government a little bit more ordered because if all the MP's were trying to force their own points it would be chaos. I think that in the absence of political parties MP's from regions and similar ideology would group together anyway.

Yes, I definetely agree with you there Bryce, however, is it not also true that our system right now lacks the fair representation that we, as a representative democracy, deserve? I am not a scholar on parliament, and it's not like it's that easy to learn about it with the news being covered with all the juicy scandals and the annoying catch phrases that politicians like to throw out, stating: HE DID IT!

No, I'm not just generally against politicians. I've just watched them for the few years of my life that I have been concious to the world around me, and I see that there is a game being played, more about winning than it is about doing what's right. I see that there are people who are politicians not because they have similar views as the people they represent, but because they have opinions there fathers passed down to them, when they themselves were politicians. Anarchy seems present. I also see an appointed senate, and wonder.

I mean, I'm not just speculating on empty air. Prime Minister Paul Martin had his whole party vote yes on legalizing gay marriages in Canada. Not that I disagree, but that was one mans decision. One man representing all those mp's who are representing all those people.

I have no intentions to tackle every issue here and say why it is unfair for Canadians, and why politicians have more power, but I just say, look at what's there, and you will see, that some things aren't fair, and not crafted to be.

I say we just dissolve all forms iof government and take responsibility as individuals to get what we each think needs to get done done

I say we just dissolve all forms iof government and take responsibility as individuals to get what we each think needs to get done done
If 'ifs' and 'buts' were candy and nuts we'd all have a merry Christmas. :rolleyes:

Intellectual laziness. People don't want to take the trouble to get their own opinions, so they go with a party that gives a rough approximation of what they think they want (based on little to no actual information about issues). This goes for the politicians, too, especially Canadian ones (US national politicians are much more independent from their parties than those in Canada).