34 research outputs found
Revisiting democracy : Canada's quest for a more participatory form of representative government
This treatise is a political exploration of Canadian legislative and representational institutions and why they are not performing in the way they should be. In an effort to promote a citizen based democracy and avoid the further deterioration in relations between government and the citizens they claim to represent, four institutional and legislative reforms are suggested in an effort to reconcile basic democratic principles with realities of Canadian political life. These reforms are: (1) recall, (2) loosening party discipline and introducing more votes, (3) referendums, and (4) electoral reform. Although it is hypothesized that all four reforms would provide Canadians with a more participatory form of representative government, empirical and qualitative evidence reveals that these hopes are certainly delusive and must be re-examined. Instead, it is concluded that loosening party discipline and introducing more votes coupled with reforming the electoral system have the greatest chance of creating a more vibrant democracy in which governments would still exert necessary leadership on policy issues while citizens would be given necessary opportunities to participate in the political process. Unfortunately, as positive as this form of inclusionary politics sounds, reality dictates that unless both sides adopt different attitudes as to the true meaning of representative democracy, Canada's quest for a more participatory form of representative government will fail
Estrogen-Receptor Expression and Function in Thymocytes in Relation to Gender and Age
The expression of estrogen receptor (ER) in thymocytes was studied in young, middle-aged, and
old (2, 12, and 24 months, respectively) female and male C57BL/6J mice. Western immunoblots
prepared from the thymocytes of females of all age groups showed the presence of a 67-kD
protein band, which has been associated with the apparent MW of denatured ER. Flow cytometry
analysis o,f cells stained with a monoclonal anti-ER antibody (clone 13H2) disclosed ER
expression in both females and males of all age groups. In vivo treatment with estradiol (E2) led
to an increase in the specific activity of thymic creatine kinase (CK) in the female mice, whereas
the male thymocytes responded with an increase in CK activity only on treatment with
dihydrotestosterone (DHT). The data show no differences in ER expression between male and
females, but the receptor appears not to be functional in males. Interestingly, when estradiol was
applied to co-cultures of lymphoid-depleted fetal thymus (FT) explants and bone-marrow cells,
or thymocytes, from young and old females, it resulted in increased cellularity of cultures
containing cells of the young, and not those of the old. The proportion of CD4/CD8 phenotypes
of the developing cells in these cultures was not affected by E2 treatment. These observations
provide a new insight into ER expression and function in T-cell development in relation to
gender and age