Four Canadian university students elected to Parliament | Hacker News Reader

Four Canadian university students elected to Parliament

mcgilldaily.com

13 pointsgregpilling20 comments

It goes to show that having the government chosen by accumulated individual local elections in kind of silly. Quebecois thought Layton did great in the French-language debate, wanted him as PM, and voted for whatever NDP was on their ballot locally. This resulted in oddities like a monolingual Anglophone being elected in a riding that is 80 percent monolingual Francophone. A mixed-member proportional system like they have in Germany would fix this -- you have separate votes for who you want to be your local rep and who you want to control the government.

Hate to be the guy trying to kill the story, but this article absolutely doesn't belong here. It's political gossip. I really don't want to see this type of stuff when I come to HN, it's not even remotely "gratifying one's intellectual curiosity".

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> unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon

I'd say getting elected to a Federal government position while still a student is a "new phenomenon". It certainly makes me wonder how they got themselves into that position, and how they'll be continuing their studies.

Here is an article with more background about the people that were elected. http://www.vancouversun.com/news/decision-canada/Five+McGill...

I don't think inexperience in the NDP is really going to be much of an issue initially. Given that the Conservatives now have a majority, even a veteran opposition would have a hard time being effective.

Hopefully, we'll see these "kids" bring some enthusiasm and idealism to parliment.

What do four college kids, a cage fighter, a bartender, and a musician have in common?

(I don't know)

Jack Layton doesn't know either.

Oh come on, it's not a criticism of the NDP so much as having a chuckle at such a strange election outcome. It's also proof that people don't actually care about the MP they are voting for. People only vote based on party.

I'm an NDP supporter, but even I can find a reason to laugh at this whole thing. I still think it's positive, however.

I'd say people vote more for the party's leader. But yeah, they don't care about the MP.

Why should they? Parliamentary government is essentially a dictatorship of the prime minister. Government MPs are barely relevant, much less opposition MPs.

It's surprising the 'Bloc' no longer has such a political influence. Have Quebec's secessionist ambitions been quelled?

No, in fact there's a good chance that the Parti Quebecois will win the next provincial election. Separatism still has mass support in Quebec.

The separatism issue is far from over in Quebec. The NDP is the hero of the day or shall we say a "testing of the waters". If Quebec doesn't like this test, they'll banish the NDP is quick as they came in, and it will not surprise me in the least if the PQ win the provincial election as well.

Blame Canada! (Southpark)

It would be better to say that nationalism is still a force. Probably 20-25% of Quebec voters are hard-core separatists, who will vote for separatism regardless of other issues they might have with the PQ/Bloc. Another ~30% are nationalists and sympathetic to separatism to one degree or another, but not so wedded to separatism that they're unwilling to vote Quebec Liberal or federal NDP if the PQ/Bloc disappoint them as conventional political parties.

That said, the Bloc's spectacular failure to turn the election into a last-minute pseudo-referendum on separatism certainly doesn't bode well for separatism in the near term.

Awesome news! Isn't it pretty unprecedented for students to be elected to parliament?

Nope, there was a 20 year old elected in the 70s. But what is unprecedented is the sheer amount of people who got in this election who are, what some would say, unqualified.

Me, I'm happy about having fresh people in parliament who have yet to become politicians.

Although is wasn't my favourite politician (for my own provincial reasons shall we say) Brian Tobin started out very young. I believe he was in university or dropped out and was on a local radio station for a bit. One has to respect his accomplishments.

Although this sounds like great news, I'd suggest it's not. Reasons being, yes it brings energy to government, but also inexperience. Further, it shows the ridiculousness of "elected representatives" when no one has heard of them (they're elected because their party is wanted in government, not because of their particular talents in politics as individuals) and as one commentator says, the representative didn't even turn up at their own celebration. Democracy in it's current form in Canada is a joke.

I'd rather see the bright side of having some people who aren't politicians in politics, rather than yet more lawyers and businessmen who will likely vote primarily along their own interests rather than along actual idealism.

Not too mention the candidates who can't even speak proper french. I've heard a few of these students talking on the radio yesterday and they sound like they have a lot of work to do if they want to have real discussions with the citizens of their riding.

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