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* Please note that all policy ideas presented here are meant to be discussed and debated vigourously and only represent an attempt at a starting point for the development of a Canadian Republic.
1 - Establish the Republic of Canada with a new Constitution.
2 - Remove the Monarchy of the UK from every aspect of Canadian government.
3 - All land in Canada is no longer owned by the Queen, and ownership and control is returned to Canadian property owners under a new Constitution.
4 - The federal government of Canada can own land, however all land in Canada that is not owned privately does not automatically belong to the federal government of Canada, as the situation is today.
5 - All anti-terror laws passed in Canada shall be abolished, with equality, justice and liberty for all Canadians guaranteed by a new Constitution.
6 - The income tax shall be slowly decreased until it is abolished.
7 - Consumption taxes such as sales taxes and excise taxes shall be slowly increased to compensate for the lack of government revenue from income taxes, and protective tariffs shall be enacted against wares made unfairly, such as slave/sweatshop made goods, which shall be considered to be going against free market principles of fair competition and fair remuneration for services rendered.
8 - All paper from trees shall become illegal unless it is 100% post-consumer recycled.
9 - Hemp in all its forms, including what is commonly called Marijuana, shall be legalized completely and the hemp industry shall be strongly encouraged in Canada.
10 - The unicameral House of Commons shall be replaced by a bicameral system of two houses. The House of the Individual shall propose and consider laws in the interest of the individual. The House of the Community shall propose and consider laws in the interest of the community. And only when both houses can agree on a law shall a new law be made. Laws will need a simple majority to pass either house. Both houses shall have a number of representatives based on population like the House of Representatives in the United States. Each representative shall represent no more than 100,000 people.
11 - A third house shall be created, the house of experts, who will be elected by the people to represent them based on their expertise on given subjects like law, economics, medicine, education, military, science and engineering. The house will have no legislative authority, but will be able to provide counsel to the people in the field of their expertise . It will be able to examine a proposed law after the two houses have first approved it, before it reaches the executive branch. The experts whose fields are influenced by the proposed legislation can give their views in the form of reports to the people, and can recommend a bill be sent back to the two houses for re-consideration. The people can then take the counsel of the house of experts and re-examine their position on the legislation and if they find sufficient grounds to change their mind they can contact their representatives in congress and tell them they agree with the experts and they think they should change the legislation.
12 - All representatives in both houses will have 130 votes on any new bill before their house based on the votes of their constituents in an internet voting system. All votes before either house will be publicized for one week and constituents will vote on them using an internet voting system. The results for each representatives riding will be reduced to a 100% scale, and 100 votes will be determined from those results. As well the representative will also have 30 votes, for a total of 130 votes per representative. Should the representative's constituents not cast more than 100 votes in total, on a particular bill, for example only 42 vote yes and 17 vote no, the representative would only get 59 votes from his constituents, plus the representative's 30 votes, for a total of 89 votes in this case. The representatives must pick either yes or no on the vote and allot all 30 votes to that one side. This system is intended to allow for more direct control over policy by the electorate, while giving the elected representative, presumably more educated in law and philosophy than the general population, a check the democratic passions of the populace, and at the same time offering a gauge of how often the views of an elected official are opposed to the views of the majority of their constituents.
13 - The executive shall be a separate branch of government and the executive will not sit in either house of the Congress. The executive shall take care to see that the laws are faithfully executed, in the spirit in which the law was created, and that they are constitutional. The executive branch shall not have the ability to issue signing statements interpreting the law differently than intended, however it will have the ability to issue signing statements on its interpretation of a new law and the intention behind it as a record for future generations to reference.
14 - The executive branch shall not be composed of merely one President, but instead shall be a Council of six Presidents, which must have four out of six yes votes to proceed on anything. A President will have the ability to refuse to sign a new law into existence only if they can show the law to violate some other law of the land. If more than two of the six executives refuse to sign the new law into existence, it will be sent back to Congress for the appropriate changes. If Congress disagrees that the new law violates another law, and refuses to make changes, it will be sent to the Supreme Court of Canada, who will determine whether or not the law is in violation of another law. It will be prohibited to run as any kind of group of candidates for President, even informally. However all voting for Presidents will happen on the same day, May 25, every five years. The top six candidates who receive the most votes nationwide will be declared the winners. Presidential terms shall be ten years and are allowed a maximum of two terms. If any President should die or be removed from office, a line of succession shall be established by the Congress, with both houses approving and counsel from the house of experts. Impeachment hearings against one or several Presidents can be initiated by either the House of the Individual or the House of Commons, but both must reach a 2/3 majority vote in the affirmative to impeach and/or remove one or several Presidents from office.
15 - 30 seconds of advertising time per hour of broadcasting time will be given to citizens voices free of charge on any topic they choose, on a first-come first-serve basis, on all television stations in Canada.
16 - Media monopolies like Bell GlobeMedia will be broken up and strict new laws protecting the independence of the press and mandating its de-centralization shall be enacted.
17 - The derivatives market in Canada shall be abolished, and speculative markets of the type shall be prohibited in Canada on the grounds of being destructive to the general welfare of the country.
18 - All bank ATM fees illegal in Canada.
19 - Much stricter regulation of the banking and financial industries shall be enacted.
20 - Strict anti-usury laws shall be passed in Canada.
21 - The laws separating the four pillars of the financial system shall be re-enacted.
22 - The statutory reserves through the Bank of Canada shall be re-enacted.
23 - Strict laws restricting capital flight shall be enacted to wrestle control over the economy away from the international money speculators.
24 - If it is impossible to wrestle control of the economy away from the international money speculators, a LETS system of local currency shall be actively encouraged by the federal government.
25 - The Canadian dollar shall be taken off the international currency trading markets.
26 - Lending to the various levels of government in Canada shall be done through the Bank of Canada and a new law mandating that a minimum amount of financing be done each year through the Bank of Canada shall be passed. Furthermore, it shall be enshrined in the new Constitution that all money created in Canada will be done in a credit system of debt-free sovereign money creation and that all forms of monetarist or debt-based currency are prohibited in Canada.
27 - Massive new investment in infrastructure across Canada will be financed cheaply through the Bank of Canada.
28 - International pressure will be applied by Canada urging the closing of the Bank of International Settlements.
29 - It shall be re-established as a principle in Canadian politics that the central bank is not independent of the government and is in fact subservient to it by law.
30 - Lobbying shall be abolished in Canada and strict rules shall govern all aspects of political life to ensure that elected officials are not corrupted by material offerings.
31 - Four weeks paid vacation shall be guaranteed to all Canadian workers working full-time.
32 - Nationwide soil, water, and air tests shall be done and a new law mandating them every five years shall be enacted. All sites found to be contaminated shall be cleaned up to the fullest extent possible.
33 - Canada shall become a world leader in the development of Generation IV nuclear reactors and Helium-3 fusion reactors.
34 - Canada shall develop its own independent space program, and work in alliance with the space programs of other nations, to setup permanent bases on the moon, with several research and mining purposes, not the least of which being mining Helium-3 for use in fusion power generation.
35 - Canada will work with the United States to build a land-bridge to Russia via Alaska.
36 - Canada will construct a nationwide MagLev train system.
37 - The new Constitution of the Republic of Canada shall guarantee that all powers not expressly given to the federal government by the Constitution are given to the municipal or provincial levels, or to the people directly.
38 - All formal political parties shall be abolished in Canada, including the Canadian Party for a Republic, in order to make politics in Canada more about who has the best ideas instead of what party they belong to.
39 - The new houses in the bicameral legislature shall meet in a circle formation instead of divided down the middle. If there are informal heads of any political bloc, they shall all sit together.
40 - Citizen ballot initiatives shall be encouraged and given more force of law in all levels of government in Canada.
41 - The palatial Parliament building in Ottawa shall be turned into a museum and a new, more modest building shall be constructed to house the legislature in order to remind Canadians that our elected officials are not royalty and they do not belong in a palace.
42 - Logging in Canada's boreal forest shall be made illegal except for rare, necessary cases.
43 - Stricter logging rules in general shall be enacted.
44 - Canada will conduct its own investigation into the events of 9/11 to determine whether our involvement in Afghanistan is justified.
45 - Canada will conduct a thorough investigation into PROMIS software.
46 - All plastic used in or imported into Canada must be 3-5 years biodegradable and not made with petrochemicals or other synthetic processes, only from hemp or other natural processes.
47 - The new Constitution of the Republic of Canada shall guarantee an option to vote "none of the above" in every municipal, provincial, and federal election in Canada.
48 - Recalls of elected officials if a sufficient number of their constituents are displeased with their performance shall be made easier.
49 - All hate speech laws in Canada shall be abolished and freedom of speech shall be guaranteed to all Canadians.
50 - Canada shall withdraw from NAFTA.
51 - Canada shall withdraw from the UN.
52 - Canada shall no longer do business with the IMF or the World Bank.
53 - Canada's debts resulting from the ideology of the Washington Consensus shall be declared null and void.
54 - Any elected official in Canada will be prohibited from engaging in private, secretive meetings such as the Bilderberg meetings, and said types of meetings shall be prohibited in Canada as anathema to our way of life.
55 - Canada's freshwater supply shall be permanently protected from privatization.
56 - The rights of corporations shall be re-defined in the new Constitution. Corporations will be given all rights necessary to build a successful business in a free market, but they will no longer enjoy full personhood and equal protection under the law as flesh and blood humans. There will also be laws establishing that money does not equal free speech and the right to persuade politicians with money as freely as with free speech is not protected.
57 - CSIS shall be abolished and all intelligence gathering shall be given to the authority of the military in Canada. Furthermore, the bulk of intelligence gathering will shift from domestic spying to international intelligence gathering with the purpose of defending Canada from attack. Canada will assemble a committee to determine whether it is in the country's best interest to withdraw from the UK–USA Security Agreement.
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