Anti-prorogue facebook group continues to grow...

The Canadian's Against Proroguing Parliament (CAPP) facebook group now has 137,000 members. That's 10,000 more than the 127,000 who signed up a year ago to protest the (failed) "coalition" proposal put forward by the opposition parties. For those not on facebook, you can connect to this new movement through two websites - No Prorogue and Citizens for Democracy.

If you recall, that 127,000 figure was used by pundits and politicians to bolster their (false) claim that Canadians were opposed to coalitions and that the opposition was attempting to seize power through illegal means. Even the liberals bought it and the coalition idea died a quick death with many of the underlying assumptions about its legality being left unchallenged.

As I pointed out a year ago in Who is Defending Democracy, the opposition was unwilling to talk about electoral reform and the deficiencies of our current first past the post voting system which allows parties with 40% of the popular vote to receive 60% of the MP seats and 100% of the power. With democracy to fall back on, the opposition had their legs cut out from under them and have been taking turns propping up Harper's minority because of their fear of another election.

Well, now that CAPP has exceeded 127,000 (and is still growing), that puts an end to the big lie that Canadians don't care about proroguing, torture in Afghanistan, climate change and a bunch of other issues. It's not JUST the economy STUPID. Canadians are well able to focus on more than one issue at a time.

However, as we learned during the failed referenda on electoral reform, democrats have a higher democratic threshold to meet than first past the post politicians who, when not in power, pray for the day they can achieve their own phony majority government. Just like first past the post, it only required 40% of voters to reject reform in order for the status quo to remain in place. In other words, 40% of voters can veto 59% of voters in order to maintain an unfair and profoundly undemocratic voting system that rewards negative ads, wedge issues that appeal to small numbers of people in select ridings and three way splits where a party can win a seat without winning a majority of voters in their riding.

So, in the coming days, expect the status quo to continue to defend itself by suggesting that facebook doesn't matter, no matter how many people join. Expect them to suggest that no matter how many people show up to cross-Canada rallies, it's not enough to mean anything significant.

We know that Harper is not one who is prone to compromise, let alone ever backing down. However, this doesn't mean that we should not expect his to undo the prorogue and get the MPs "back to work". That is the demand that has united 137,000 people across the country.