You can be a Member of Parliament

[Mike Renzulli]

Hello Everyone,

I hope everyone is doing well. Despite my political and philosophical activities in real life, I happened upon a web-based game that might satisfy the addiction those on this discussion board have for politics and the legislative process.

I am a member of a game called Politics Canada which is a simulation game based on the Canadian Parliament. While I prefer the Congress of the U.S. as the government body I prefer to live under, as far as web-based games, I have played quite a few and find this to be the best out of many of the government simulation games I have played. Also, I think a game based on the U.S. Congress is not feasable since it ends up being like a parliamentary game rather than one based on the Congress. I also have not been able to find a simulation game based on the U.S. Congress anyway.

In the game you can sign up for one of the game's parties, introduce legislation, debate and discuss issues.

I am a Liberal MP in the game and participating in it is quite an experience since, as opposed to the U.S. Congress where members can introduce their own individual bills with or without party leadership approval, in the Canadian parliament system, the emphasis is on the party and if your proposal is not acceptable to leadership it will go nowhere fast.

The purpose of the game is to achieve and maintain power and it can be done entirely with the party (if it has enough MPs elected) or the party can go into coalition with one of the smaller parties who have seats in the House of Commons to satisfy the seat requirement to form a government.

You can also work to obtain and maintain power in the party you participate in as well.

The Liberals are presently in power. However, since they do not have a majority in parliament, the Liberals are in coalition with the New Democratic Party. Unfortunately, due to the recession the country is in and the arrangement we have with the NDP, the ideas I am trying to float in the Liberal caucus (which are along libertarian lines) are not being embraced.

The Liberal leadership is being very cordial with me and (IMHO) is sympathetic with what I want to accomplish but at this time feels that it would not be politically feasable to enact the ideas I espouse.

If a simulation game like this is of interest to you, please do join me. A link to the game is below and if you do decide to participate, please join the Liberals. I had thought about joining the Progressive Conservatives at first but they are of the Red Tory flavor where the favor some welfare statism, imperialism and stronger relations with England as opposed to the Blue Tories who tend to be more libertarian.

The Liberals (while not consistently libertarian) tend to want to distance themselves from The Crown, want more home-rule for the country and provinces (like Quebec where the party got started) and tend to support free trade policies.

I am what would be considered a "business Liberal" in that I embrace much of the classical liberal ideas of individual liberty and free markets that the party was based on.

Small, minor parties, like the religious-oriented Social Credit Party has MPs but they and the socialist New Democrats have had their party numbers capped.

The game is fun, fascinating and very educational at the same time. I hope you will consider joining.

http://www.politics-canada.net/

Edited March 24, 2008 by Mike Renzulli