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With the expiry of my U-pass in May I have begun to use my Presto card for the first time since it’s launch. Thankfully, while there are a few minor issues I have found with Presto, I have only one major concern: payment options.
When I went to register and setup my Presto card I was presented with three different payment option: manual top-up, Monthly Pass, and Autoload, none of which seemed to my liking. With the 2014 Ontario General Election coming to a close we can now take a look at the results and what they mean for Ontario.
Having managed to gain 10 seats from the PCs, Kathleen Wynne and the Liberals managed to pick up a majority. What makes this win interesting though is that she was able to do so with only 38.7% of the popular vote. With voters quite evenly split between the three major parties (Liberal, PC, and NDP) one would think this election is a perfect example of why Ontario (and most places that rely on First Past the Post election systems) needs to introduce some electoral reform. Recently, while shopping around for a series of new pairs of shoes, I came to a few conclusions. Firstly, while the selection at traditional Canadian shoes retailers is often on par with that of the US, the prices tend to be significantly higher. Secondly, when it comes to Canadian online shoe retailers you are stuck choosing from a select few terrible options. Online outlets for traditional retailers tend to have the same high prices as their physical counterparts, smaller Canadian online shoe retailers (the ones who actually ship to Canada) have an extremely limited selections, and Amazon. People are afraid of change. And it’s this fear that’s keeping Canada from taking the necessary steps towards changing the way we elect Members of Parliament. The current First-past-the-post (FPP) system is a hugely flawed electoral system that has been used in Canada for far too long, and is in need to replacement. This replacement comes in the form of Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) voting, a system which eliminates essentially all the faults found in FPP. In an attempt to generate support for the upcoming election the Ontario Liberal Party is proposing changes to the liqour control legislation in Ontario so that alcoholic products could be purchased at convenient stores. While this might seem like a purely political maneuver considering the Liberals have so far failed to tackle the issue since taking office in 2003, the issue of changing how people purchase their Alcohol in Ontario is still something that needs to be addressed.