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Comment by reginaldjcooper | Hacker News Reader

It always blows my mind when countries get things right, and by that I mean providing adequate health, housing, and legal services to all residents.

Paying legal fees for employed persons sounds like a great way to provide them access to fair(er) representation. Otherwise if they have to pay out of pocket they can't afford it, and if it's loser pays the risk requires a large reward before it's rational to pursue.

Well done, again, Canada.

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Canada doesn't provide free legal services to employed people. In this particular case, you can get assistance with legal fees for an employment-related dispute, but that by no means extends to other legal matters.

I worded it poorly, I didn't really think Canadian employees get free legal services for all matters.

When you have a smaller population the ratio of constituents to elected member goes down, making lobbying more expensive. We have just as many MPs as the US has senators and a tenth of the population.

Maximum monetary contributions to a political party in Canada is only a fraction of what it is in the US (1200$ max). Also it is impossible for a corporation to donate directly. This reduce lobbying to diner parties and yacht rides.

My guess is that lobbying is less intensive in Canada than in the US because it is very difficult to do legally. I watch a commission in Quebec about the alleged local corruption and I am stunned to see that most of what is at stake there would be absolutely legal in the US.

"We have just as many MPs as the US has senators and a tenth of the population."

wikipedia says Canada has 308 MPs and 108 senators; and the US has 2 senators per state and 50 states so 100 senators. US House has 435 reps.

Still a good point re: population per representative

Meant to say congresspersons.

Canadian senators are political cronies with expense accounts. It is unclear what, if anything, they contribute to democracy. Note that they have essentially no power. Just assume that Canada has one house in the legislative assembly, and then also a hole that we pour money into. The Canadian system has several.... "quirks". It is therefore astounding to me that it appears to work better in practice than the US system, which to my eye looks better-in-theory.

I am reminded that the USA was designed to have a much greater congressperson to person ratio than it currently has.

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