User talk:Btrower
From Pirate Party of Canada
Contents |
Skunkworks
This is just a bulletin board for me to jot down my thoughts on various party related matters.
Note that I exist in a *lot* of places and can sometimes disappear for months and even years from a particular place. However, I am always somewhere in cyberspace and if you want my attention, hunt me down and ask!
Party Platform
Principles
I think that the Party should have a comprehensive answer on any important issue. What are important issues? Well, we *do* have to interface with voters we propose to represent, so they will guide this to some extent. We should proceed from principles and not bend every which way with the wind, but we should be prepared to explain how any issue of interest fits in.
It is (or was) the feeling of some here that the platform should only deal with core issues involving various matters in cyberspace such as copyrights and personal privacy. Beyond that, the individual member sets their own policies so that they can be responsive to their constituencies and work within their comfort zone with respect to issues that are not a part of a small core.
I do not think that we can realistically expect to form a government without offering a complete and coherent platform that addresses all important areas of governance. Since we are a federal party, we need to have some coherent policy, for instance, for dealing with the military. We should not expect people to vote for a federal party whose policies on the very most important aspects of federal government are unknowns.
I personally feel that all levels of government are bloated. I identify as a democratic socialist and I support the notion of things like socialized medicine. However, I think we could all do with seeking common cause with people who wish to trim the size of the federal government. Frankly, it has gotten kind of big and scary over the years.
There are fundamental things that a federal government is responsible for. For the most part, these at least involve our interface to other sovereign nations -- things like Diplomacy, Trade and the Military, Coast guard, etc. They also would properly involve maintaining and policing the fundamental human rights that everyone enjoys as a Canadian.
Beyond things that either *must* be under the federal government or have extraordinary economies of scale, I think that the federal government should cede both responsibility for and power over other things to the Provinces. In the fullness of time I would hope that this would further devolve down the levels, closer to the people.
Ideals
Ideally, a federal government would always be there when you wanted it, never be there when you did not want it, cost nothing and provide any service imaginable.
In practice, governance is 'messy'. Funds ebb and flow and are not entirely predictable. The desires of the population change. External forces such as the threat of attack matter. When the threat is high, more attention must be paid to make sure the Military is able to respond, for instance. When other nations are actively encroaching on our territory, we need to spend more monitoring our borders and waters.
Threats
Canada is a great place to live. We are much more likely, I believe, to continue to enjoy our freedoms and opportunities. However, there are certainly forces attempting to erode our rights. Privacy, for instance is under heavy attack.
Opportunities
I think the federal government could go a long way toward ensuring that all Canadians have access to a network that is fast and secure. The federal government could create, maintain and secure, a 'Trans-Canada digital highway' with a very large backbone.
