Imagining an #EngagedInER conversation between Russell McOrmond (1997 #PR ) and Russell McOrmond (2017 #STV )

I can imagine a conversation between Russell McOrmond (1997) and Russell McOrmond (2017), and how that would go.

Both of these individuals feel they have a good grasp of the problems with First Past the Post, and both feel they have properly analyzed the obvious solution to the obvious failure.

These two individuals would likely hate each other :-)

RM1997 would think RM2017 was arrogant for constantly bringing up the fact that he was 20 years senior, and in that last 20 years had:

• met many sitting MPs
• had long conversations with some sitting MPs - in constituency and parliamentary offices, as well as in the Government Lobby (that part of center block behind the curtains on the government side), the parliamentary restaurant, as well as private pubs and private homes. I've even been invited by sitting MPs to help represent Canada in front of policy delegations from other countries.
• attended many federal committee hearings (more than I care to count), and have been a witness in multiple committees
• had joined a different federal party and voted in that parties leadership race.

RM2017 would be suggesting that systems based on ranked ballots in multi-member districts are the only systems which solve both the plurality problem (what non-partisans focused on the individual people rather than only the parties care about) and the proportionality problem (what partisans, especially those who support small parties, care about). He would be mentioning that the last 20 years of experience is why he believes the people matter more than the parties.

RM1997 would be telling RM2017 that none of that nonsense mattered, and that all that mattered is that the only party that could ever represent RM1997 in parliament needed a change to the system in order to represent him. Who cares who the MPs are, normal people don't talk to MPs :-)

You can see where this is going :-)

While I have 20 years more experience , I recognize that it would be rather presumptuous of me to think that I didn't have anything more to learn. I have the fact I learned so much in the last 20 years as proof that there is always more to come.

I can't learn from RM1997 as I already know everything he knows. There are so many people in this debate wanting to educate me on those same things, believing the only way I could possibly disagree with them is because I don't know these things. And I've been blocked on Twitter by a few of these people, upset that they can't change my mind by repeating words used by RM1997.

(re-posted from  Disqus)