We live in a corpocracy and not a democracy. People need to understand this, because how can we move forward and become a democracy if we can’t even see that what we have is not a democracy.

It is not a democracy when your vote is not private. When your government services depend on a quick check to see who you voted for, you are in the realm of gangsters and shake downs.

This change in the law is about empowering the political party hidden hands so they can control the electorate for their own agenda’s. Privacy should include your right not to vote as well as your right to privacy of who you voted for.

Voter turn out should be driving by a reflection by those running of the will of the voter, and not by data mining for a blackmail angle to compel a voter to show up and vote as directed.

We are losing our democracy in Canada because we have governments that are made by self interested political parties who garner their support and patrons from international capital through unaccountable corporations infringing on our democratic institutions.

I think a transferable ballot would solve a lot of these problems. It requires a 50% majority to get elected, rather than just a first past the post, therefor more consensus towards the center and less party affiliated manipulation of the ballot results. We could more easily elect independents without party affiliation and thus without the corrupting influence of back room party hacks that work for lobby groups.

With a transferable ballot we take the power away from the parties and give it back to the people… and maybe even make a data mining voting act like this worthless to the parties without their access to the preferences chosen on an individuals ballot.

There is a way to avoid this latest intrusion into one’s privacy: Don’t vote!

Gotta admit you hit a homer on this one Peter if it is true. Don’t have time to look it up and fact check but nice work

I am afraid that PrinceGeorge might be serious.

There is a problem with not voting PrinceGeorge. If we continue to have less than half the population marching to the poles, we will have that privilege removed. Just think of the money the government would save if we abolished voting? And looking at the laws that have been passed both provincially and federally, I know that could happen.

If these sections pass, powers would be granted to the Minister to single handedly enter into secret agreements with oil and gas companies, without any clear oversight.

These agreements, parts of which can be withheld from the public, would dictate how much—or how little—British Columbians would benefit for our natural gas resources. And given what we’ve seen from this government so far on the natural gas file, it would not be unreasonable for us to be concerned about backroom deals that amount to hand outs of public resources at rock bottom prices.
This is the first part of bill-23 that is going to second reading .

Nobody dictates who and what to vote for like organized labour. Nobody bullies the voter more than unions.
This column is really quite spineless, as it quotes a single case of a dubious source, when it is common knowledge that organized labour were salivating at the prospect of finding out which of their members was voting the opposite of what they were told.

I am absolutely horrified by this bill, and would hope it doesn’t pass. However, how can they possibly tell how you voted? I don’t understand? They would still be guessing. Their data, based on demographics, would probably show me voting Conservative, however, I never have.
I would definitely be all for a bill that provided repercussions towards people who fail to vote. Would you be more willing to show up to the poll if not voting cost you your job? Good.

Don’t be afraid, I am indeed serious! Who cares? But, they might decide to FINE people who do not vote! Then I am going to get hit in the wallet!

“:Just think of the money the government would save if we abolished voting?”

Yeah, we could save a hell of a lot more by abolishing government, don’t you agree?

Enjoy the sunshine!

They can’t tell HOW you voted, just IF you voted

Dermod Travis of Integrity BC (www.integritybc.ca) cites an example from Vancouver’s last municipal election where employees of a local financial corporation received a memo from the owner calling on them to vote for one of the municipal parties. As Travis points out, in future elections under this new legislation, the owner, armed with other database information, would find it easier to determine whether individual employees obeyed such a request.

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Ewart conveniently forgot to include the public sector unions in this paragraph. Substitute “local financial corporation” with “CUPE” and “Vancouver” with “Prince George”.

Is there anything about this bill that actually benefits the voter? If not, the government should refrain from proceeding with it.
I strongly disagree with the suggestion that voting should be compulsory. We need less government coercion, not more. The right to free speech includes the right not to speak. If such a law was ever introduced we would see a mass of spoiled ballots or selection of “None of the above”. When the number of no-shows or spoiled ballots reaches some large fraction, the legitimacy of the process and the ‘winner’ is too low to be able to claim a mandate. When people find they have unsatisfactory official options, they will make themselves heard in alternate ways.
People place far too much faith in the effectiveness and trustworthiness of the vote in any case. Do we not know about the “hanging chads”, the staggering mismatch between the exit polls and the ‘official’ results from US elections of the past 15-odd years? The ‘man in the middle’ software systems that enabled the results from individual polling stations to be changed enroute to the central tabulating computers? Even the recent plebiscite in Scotland was hijacked, with tabulators blatantly miscounting ballots, as recorded by video.
“You know, comrades” Stalin is reputed to have said, “that I think in regard to this: I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this – who will count the votes and how.”

Slinky, don’t count on it.Mr Walton knows who and where his running shoes or tee shirts are residing. If you watch TV do you ever wonder who is watching you back thru the same media connection.

“You know, comrades” Stalin is reputed to have said, “that I think in regard to this: I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this – who will count the votes and how.”
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Then why have a ‘secret’ ballot? Have a recorded vote instead, so we can all see who is responsible for electing the governments we elect, and we know our vote has been counted in the way it was cast. We’re supposed to have ‘responsible’ government in this country, so let those who elect it take the ultimate ‘responsibility’ that is rightfully theirs. What are we afraid of? That there just might be more than a shred of truth in the assertion that we can’t really ever have ‘political’ democracy unless it’s accompanied by ‘economic’ democracy ? In other words, so long as someone else is in a position to deny you an ‘income’ unless you do as they want you to do ~ and you have no recourse to an alternate income as a matter of right, one sufficient enough for you to at least access the basic necessities of life, you’re the slave, and someone else is your master. True democracy is the ability of each of us as individuals to make our own policy effective unto ourselves. We’re a long ways from that, and arguably going further from it still.