Pipe Dreams @ MindSay

legend for yankees:
pm (prime minister) = president
mp (member of parliament) = representative (i'm pretty sure)

there should be no parties in politics...  every individual politician should be held accountable for their own actions and inactions and their purported principles...  the best MPs would be free and better able to distinguish themselves from the rest-- as great leaders in one department or another...  and once their passions have been proven, the people could vote for whoever they deem to be the best...  voters should never have to have ulterior motives...  no parties--  just people.  

hmmm...  should only MPs be eligible for the prime-ministry?  and should the person with the second highest number of votes be the deputy pm?  or should persons 2-6 form some elite sub-priministerial comittee that oversees the delegation of duties in federal government (eg: minister of agriculture) under the pm's guidance...  i wonder what the senate does?  maybe it's time to drop it...  or do i sound like some redneck saying "i wonder what vitamin C does... ah fuck it i don't need it.."?

there should be no campaign donations at all...  anyone running for pm should get equal and totally free airtime on all canadian tv and radio stations...  they would each have a website on which, amongst other information, they would have to display their answers to a fixed number of poignant, "every-day" style questions posed by random canadians and chosen by randomly chosen canadians, as well as some posed by professors, doctors, writers and the like (and every candidate would have to answer the same questions, in case i didn't make that clear)...  they would also have to state their guiding principles, and a synopsis of their views on the top 20 issues in the country (healthcare, immigration, nature, etc)...

sure, if this was the case the people could get duped by a smooth-talking suave diabolical madman, but a) there would have to be a system in place to hold him or her accountable for their actions, to the last detail, and b) the media would have to start spewing substance instead of this beastly, pretentious trash that passes for news...  a common argument would be that individuals are too easy to corrupt, but i contend that members of parties corrupt each other's common sense and common sense of decency.  plus they inhibit impassioned mps from standing alone and championing a certain cause that needs a champion and just not the validation of some discredited party...

anyone should be allowed to run for mp (let's say there should be a small administrative fee of some kind, somewhere in the neighbourhood of $300 - $600)...  rich people would have an obvious advantage, having more free time and resources, but this could be lessened by making it the law that each person who runs can only have a campaign "staff" of 4 people, and they have to wear badges when they go knocking on doors etc, and make a log of all their hours spent on the campaign briefly describing exactly what they were doing and how much $$ they spent...  there should be a cap on $$, and surprise audits for suspiciously outlandish campaigns...

but what about the guys who hold the pm and all government accountable?  there should be a legion of (this is where it gets tricky...) highly distinguished individuals (eg: stephen lewis, david suzuki, margaret atwood... (but make sure there is always some youthful vigour in there...)), who are willing to undertake such a responsibility, who are placed in charge, communally, of the ministry of accountability, and would have access to all the public and private information on canada's leaders, and would follow their day-to-day activities using lots of neat technology...  they'd have jurisdiction over any canadian law enforcement agency, and could even employ law enforcement officers of their choice and put them to any task...  the main job of this ministry would be to make sure the politicians are doing what they say they're doing.  and every pm should have to write a weekly blog to the people, letting them know what's going on, etc (and so should every member of the legion of accountability and every minister and mp and really, every government employee...)...  

I vote for number 15. Especially number 15.

1. A person should feel as good at 50 as he did at 17 and he would actually be as smart at 50 as he thought he was at 17.
   
   
2. You could give away a baby bed without getting pregnant.
   
   
3. Forget-me-nots would stimulate the memory.
   
   
4. Doing what was good for you would be what you enjoyed doing the most.
   
   
5. Pro baseball players would complain about teachers being paid contracts  worth millions of dollars.
   
   
6. People always have good reasons to be optimistic.
   
   
7. You would never fumble, but if you did, you would recover the ball yourself
   
   
8. The mail would always be early, the check would always be in the mail, and it would be written for more than you expected.
   
   
9. Potato chips might have calories, but if you ate them with a dip, the calories would be neutralized.
   
   
10. If the guy from the government said to you, "I'm here to help," not only  would he mean it, but also he'd do it.
    
    
11. First impressions wouldn't count for nearly as much as ultimate performance. Winning might be a nice thing, but that would be about all.
    
    
12. All people could expect to be accepted.
    
    
13. Every once in a while at least, a kid who always closed the door softly  would be told, "Go back and slam the door."
    
    
14. Highway patrolmen would never be around when you're running late, but  would always be at your side when a BMW blows past or a Mac truck won't get off your bumper.
    
    
15. The better food tasted, the less calories it would have.
    
    
16. Warranties would be for 13 months and products would fail at 12.
    
    
17. More would be accomplished by governments when they spent more.