This week, we’ll be delving in to the next set of Vote Compass questions. Some pretty strong opinions in this episode, and most of the questions here are reasonable without additional context.
Q7. Canada should decriminalize possession of illicit drugs for personal use.
This is a pretty clear question and evidence I’ve seen clearly shows rehabilitation is a better answer for possession of illicit drugs than criminal punishment.
Q8. Canada’s laws against hate speech place too many limits on freedom of expression.
Canada doesn’t have a particularly restrictive set of laws against hate speech, I see no reason why they should be removed or lessened.
Q9. No new oil pipelines should be built in Canada.
I strongly believe there is no reason why we should be extracting more oil from the ground in Canada than we currently are, and in fact I believe we should extract much less, and definitely stop subsidizing big oil.
Q10. The federal government should give priority to visible minorities when hiring.
This question as written seems to indicate that visible minorities would be prioritized over everything else (which I don’t agree with), but I think a system in the federal that chooses qualified members of employment equity groups before those who don’t is perfectly reasonable (and what is happening now in more general hiring pools).
Q11. The federal budget deficit should be reduced, even if it leads to fewer public services.
This one is simple and very close to my heart. I think there are many other things we should do to reduce the deficit other than cutting public services.
Q12. Canada should rename public spaces which are currently named after historical figures accused of racism.
Obviously there is no reason aside from propping up old, white supremacist systems to continue to let public spaces be named after anyone who was a part of such a system (and in every case it’s much more than “accused of racism”).