I was surprised to receive MP Mel Arnold's "survey" in the mail that challenges the Liberals for their plans to get to a more representative voting system where Parliament is represented in proportion to the voters’ wishes, not the current past the post system which causes many votes to be lost.
I put the word survey in quotes, because it is obviously not a proper survey. The questions are too leading and are far too biased to obtain a reflection of what your constituents really think about a change in the election procedures. But that is not the biggest problem.
The biggest problem is that you want us to give our opinion about an issue that is one of governance. Now, I seem to recall that about one year ago, you wanted us to vote for you so you could become our representative in Ottawa and govern. Your constituency voted to make it so.
Now you don’t want to govern, and ask us what you should do. Unfortunately, that’s not how parliamentary democracy works.
You are supposed to make the decisions and tell us what you did at the next election. We would then decide whether or not to hire you for a further term. We don’t want you to come back and ask us for our opinion at every turn. If that was your plan, we could have sent a painted post to Ottawa and have a little box on our TV with a parliamentary channel and push the yeah or nay button on any issue. No need for an MP. We would save a great deal of money.
So please, do your job Mr. Arnold and we’ll work really hard so we can pay our taxes. Do we have a deal?
Gerry M. Laarakker
Vernon