A little from Column A, a little for Column B

Canadians go to the polls today to vote in the Federal Election. I stopped in at the polling station after dropping my oldest off at school. So far, it looks like we’re in for another minority government under the Conservatives. Harper is going to have to play nice with the other kids for another term.

Between all the various activities competing for my attention, I didn’t really feel I had a great grasp on the platforms of the 4 parties running in our area. I did have time to skim their platforms, so I did have a general idea. I found that for each party, I liked some elements of the party’s platform, disliked others. So as I was driving to work today, I found myself wishing I could vote on the issues as well as a representative.

Of course, I figure that the ideal platform would be some kind web based system where the issues and proposed solutions could be discussed and voted on individually. This system would distill the issues into some kind of rough consensus, and then they’d be drafted into legislation by sponsoring members of the House. On the plus side, citizens could play an active part in the process. On the negative side, we’d probably have the same kinds of flame-wars we get on every other board on the Internet.

I’m still not sure if I’d have the time to follow all of the issues, but at least I might be able to follow the issues that are important to me.