this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2023
94 points (98.0% liked)

Canada

7200 readers
309 users here now

What's going on Canada?



Communities


🍁 Meta


πŸ—ΊοΈ Provinces / Territories


πŸ™οΈ Cities / Local Communities


πŸ’ SportsHockey

Football (NFL)

  • List of All Teams: unknown

Football (CFL)

  • List of All Teams: unknown

Baseball

Basketball

Soccer


πŸ’» Universities


πŸ’΅ Finance / Shopping


πŸ—£οΈ Politics


🍁 Social and Culture


Rules

Reminder that the rules for lemmy.ca also apply here. See the sidebar on the homepage:

https://lemmy.ca


founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 

As our government becomes more and more polarized, what can we do to ensure that facts and data hold out?

I'm not suggesting that lying should be illegal (in fact, it's often unintentional), but when an MPs statement can later be proven to be false, shouldn't they be forced to publicly apologize?

The truth shouldn't be political.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Then they should not make (what would then be) a legally binding promise. There should be a way that a claim can be made into a commitment with consequences, regardless of why it was broken. Sure, not every claim can be handled that way, but the option should exist.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Then you just get parties who don't promise anything.

Look at Doug Ford's 2018 election platform. Buck a beer and... nothing else. Look at the platforms for everyone who ran in your municipal election. I don't know where you live, but if it's anywhere like the cities I've lived in, the candidates don't really have a platform, but occasionally make vague statements like "I'm would like to address issues with housing" or "we should do something about the homelessness problem".

If every politician is given the choice between "vague statements that don't mean anything" or "legal consequences if you promise to do this thing that you actually want to do but circumstances change and you can't do it", they're going to go with "vague statements" every time.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Then they should not make (what would then be) a legally binding promise.

Yes, if this is what the electorate wants, they should present the contract and get the candidate to sign it before election night.

I think you'll find the electorate doesn't actually want that, though. The incumbent maybe has sufficient information to present an election promise, assuming they can implement it in the first few days before the state of the world has moved on, but the other candidates most certainly do not. Why would you want a politician making decisions before they have information? That would be downright stupid.