How should Independent Candidates represent all their constituents if elected?
Canwest News Service
Ousted Liberal candidate in Quebec City runs as independent
Canwest News Service
QUEBEC - A Quebec City candidate who was fired from the Liberal team after proposing the army should have used lethal force to end the 1990 Oka crisis will run as an independent.
Simon Bedard, a former radio host, said Tuesday he couldn’t stay silent and felt compelled to be a candidate in the federal election, despite his controversial remarks.
“Some people thought I would go and hide after what happened, well that clearly isn’t the case,” Bedard told reporters.
“I met a lot of people who told me: ‘You dare say out loud what we think.’ That was a revelation to me and that made me change my mind,” he added.
Bedard said being an independent candidate will allow him to speak his mind freely. In his speech, he took a swing at his former party’s weak campaign in Quebec and at the Conservatives for cutting in culture subsidies and promoting tougher measures for young offenders.
Bedard also changed his mind on his choice of riding, going from running for the Liberals in Quebec to being an independent in Beauport-Limoilou. He defended his choice by saying he was born and raised in that part of town.
09/23/2008
For some interesting discussion about Independent Candidates see:
http://www.independentcandidates.ca
09/23/2008
A second site discussing Independent Candidates:
http://www.coic.ca
09/24/2008
Yes they can very well represent all the consituents of their riding. They will and must once elected have a constituency office from where they can feel the pulse of the electorate very well…. and prepare to join the party that closest resemble the worries and priorities of their voters; if not “crossing the floor” to that party that most resembles their platform at least prepare for the next election..
10/07/2008
To see how one Independent candidate would answer this question see:
http://independentcandidates.ca/blog/?page_id=182
10/27/2008
Read comments below from Garth Turner at his web site http://www.garth.ca.
Garth Turner writes..
“In my coming book, I summarize it this way:
While parties are central to how we run countries, it is less so each day. The Internet has the power to turn unknowns into leaders and involve citizens whom partisan recruiters, organizers and militants will never meet. A blog can alter political outcomes, while web sites reach millions when media outlets are still editing. Politicians who open digital conversations make the future impossible for those who do not. One or two more federal elections, and the traditionalists will be gone.
Parties may follow. They’ll certainly be transformed. Online members will be harder to control, and more responsive to voters. Ridings will melt away in the digital ascent of issues over geography. And if dozens of independents are ever to take their seats in the House of Commons, it will be because of this. Funded, promoted and elected through web-based campaigns, they will skirt the rules of a political establishment which abhors them.
Experience has convinced me this is what many Canadians want. Parties and leaders who demand unquestioning acceptance of dogmatic positions are doomed. No one, not even a prime minister, can put this back in the bottle.”
Read the complete post at:
http://www.garth.ca/weblog/2008/10/21/adieu-boss/