Well everyone knows I am Canadian and often talk about issues facing my country.

Well today's issue is the Liberal Party of Canada wants to change how political parties in Canada elect their leaders. He says that Canada's system is archaic and out dated and that we should be trying to be more like the American system.

The Liberal Party's big issue is that Canada should use US style Primaries to elect our party leaders. So how does he say that this differs from Canada's current system?

Well in Canada political parties vote for their leaders internally. So if your a Conservative Party member you vote for who is going to run the Conservative Party. This is a fail safe to ensure the democratic values in which Canada is based, essentially a Liberal could not vote for someone to lead the Conservative Party. In Canada's mind that is like Nintendo choosing who should be the next president of SCE. Right now the way our system works the man running for leadership in a left wing party only has to worry about appealing to his left wing followers, they are the ones who pay his bills they are the voters who will vote for him. He can form his policies entirely around his parties agenda and what his members want.

However the Liberal Party claims that this is undemocratic. They say that in the US Republicans can vote for who they want to head the Democratic Party and vice versa. The Liberal Party claims that this is democracy and that every citizen deserves the right to shape every political party. they say nobody should be leading a national party without the support of the entire nation. They said essentially Liberals should be able to vote for who will lead the Conservatives, that if you want to lead the Conservatives you should have to appeal to the Liberals and adjust your platform to suit Liberal voters.

Another factor of US primaries that the Liberal Party says is good. Is going state by state to figure out who will lead the parties. Unlike in Canada where the party from across the country votes, the Liberals think its more democratic for the decision to be made individually based on each region and not national unity.

Now I am not well versed in US Primaries so forgive me if I got anything off, but this is the proposal from the Liberal Party. I am wondering how people in your country vote for their political party leaders? Do you think that every single American/Canadian deserves the right to vote in the leader of every party, in other words a Liberal decide who should lead the Conservative Party or a Republican who should lead the Democrats? Or is maintaining the political integrity of the parties important and giving the actual members and voters of that party the decision who should lead it? Do you think the political party should hold a virtual election in each Province or State individually or should the whole country vote as one for the leader they think best suits their party?

Whats your stance on how you elect leaders of a political party?

Get together everyone who is qualified to be a leader, and pick the one who wants to be leader least.... because he's probably the one that cares the most, rather then just wanting to get off by being the boss of people.

A good leader is one who hates being a leader yet still gets chosen for it.

Augustus Caesar, Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln. All ambitious men, all great leaders.

Personally I think it should be up to the party. If the party wants them elected by their members (which the US system is a version of) then that's fine. If the party wants to elect them entirely internally that is also fine.

I actually think that is currently the system in both Canada and the US, but the political parties in the two countries have decided to choose them in their own ways. I could very well be wrong though.

Isn't that just a myth?

They should have to read Joelcool7's posts. Whoever is still conscious at the end is the leader by default.

the us primaries give me enough of a headache as it is. fuck you liberal party i hope you stay dead.

Ehhhh.... I'd look deeper into the history of Caesar and Lincoln if i were you.

Lincoln for example suspended habius corpus and arrested anyone he felt like arresting, and shut down any press that he deemed unfavorable... generally ignoring the surpeme court ruling that said he couldn't do any of this.

His plan after freeing the slaves was to send them all back to Africa... and he only freed them as a political stunt in the first place.

Of course it is, because you can't lead a country if you don't want to do so. Somebody with no ambition to be leader would make a terrible one. Also those who actually want to lead pay more attention to the issues they invest more time and effort into winning and as such they are more qualified to run a country then someone who doesn't actually have any want to be a leader.

How many times have people freaked out when their leaders call it quits. If you elect someone who does not want to lead , they will only remain in the position a short period of time resigning early. If they don't resign they will leave their policies and decisions to the people who actually have a vested interest in them.

You need someone who is ambitious somebody who wants to lead and has the character and ambition to do so. Can you name a single leader of any country who did not want to lead? Now is that leader as good as even 10% of those who actually wanted to lead? Its easy to point out leaders who had ambition but were pretty bad, but its not as easy to find leaders who had no ambition to lead yet not only led but were superior to those who actually wanted to lead?

I believe the Reform Party (of Canada) had the right idea ... I vote for every member of the party running multiple rounds until you have a leader with 50% of support.

Deleted: double post.