There is a news from Paris, where the newly elected French President Emmanuel Macron has proposed that the French Parliament be trimmed by a third because it is too top heavy and has too much bureaucracy and has gotten slow and inefficient.
This is an interesting idea – to cut the French Parliament of excess fat and trim it by a third.
I believe time is ripe for not just trimming the fat, but to radically overhaul our parliament and question the very need to have Members of Parliament at all.
IN the time gone by, there was a need for representative of the people to go to the Capital, and vote on bills, representing the wish of the constituents that elected the member.
Today, two things have happened that makes the job of the Member of Parliament redundant:
1) The elected public servant no more votes according to the wish of the people. Rather, he or she votes according either to the diktat of the party boss, or whoever funds her campaign, such as lobby groups and corporations. In short, the elected official has become a traitor to the constituents.
2) In todays world of internet and instant communication, it is not too difficult to set up system where each voter can either log in from home, or in a nearby Government kiosk, and vote once a week or once a month on a number of pending issues – or decide to abstain, thus exerting “direct democracy” instead of proxy democracy through middlemen that betray the people.
There is a case for direct democracy, and cut the fat much deeper.
Think about it, Mr. Macron of France and think about it, Canadians.
Many of these observations first came from me through social media such as Facebook. But I am storing them here as I believe some day they might deserve to be part of a book of essays.