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time to lead

Lord Selkirk Elementary School student Sean Steinke casts his vote as scrutineer Jesse Rasmussen looks on.

Asked for One Big Idea on how to get people more involved in the democratic process, prominent Canadians show there's lots to talk about

Brian Lee Crowley is managing director of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute

Most ideas to promote citizen engagement, like compulsory voting, are a cure far worse than the illness. Here's an exception: Let's take away from political parties their near-monopoly over choosing the candidates who stand for election. We're supposed to be choosing who will represent us in Parliament. Why should our choice be limited to those people acceptable to party leaders? MPs already have little enough freedom of action and opinion, and party leaders get to veto candidates and even impose them on unwilling local constituency associations. Enough!

The Americans do this far better than we do. Let's have open party primaries, where all voters get to choose the various candidates who will stand at election time. No more unwanted parachuted candidates, faceless party apparatchiks or nomination meetings stolen by candidates able to bus in large numbers of tame supporters.

Primaries are a wonderful place to test the views, mettle and character of potential candidates and represent a real transfer of power from obscure closed processes to open public ones. And having had a hand in choosing those who seek their vote at election time, voters are more likely to take an interest in elections and to feel a bond with the eventual winner.

- Brian Lee Crowley



Jack Diamond is principal of Diamond and Schmitt Architects Inc.

It is often hard for the electorate to evaluate promises made by politicians, particularly during election campaigns. Indeed, much of the skepticism on the part of the electorate, I sense, comes from the suspicion that promises are merely election posturing, reinforced by the subsequent failure to implement the promises once those making the promises are elected.

The abhorrence politicians have for addressing the taxation required to fund health care or education or other necessary public services is another thing that prevents an honest appraisal of national policies in all areas, including the cost of the military or the penal system, for example. In addition, the effect of proposed tax cuts on public services is seldom made clear.

What would be helpful would be to have an above-reproach, arms-length, non-partisan panel, a sort of electoral auditor-general, produce a comparative summary analysis of each political party's policies, including an economic analysis in regard to proposed funding viability.

Such a summary analysis could be backed up by a more extensive account for those who might need more detail to be convinced of the reliability of such a comparison.

However, the report or matrix would serve several purposes: first, to provide reliable information on a comparative basis to help voters decide which party to support; second, I suspect the presence of such a report would have a salutary effect on the veracity of political platforms.

Thirdly, it would temper the growing predominance of personalities over policies, exacerbated by the focus of the media on personality rather than on policy.

In such a manner do I believe more citizens would vote, having had a rational means of evaluating the offerings of each contending party.

- Jack Diamond



Barbara McDougall is former secretary of state for external affairs

Citizens cannot be relied upon to rush to the polls whenever called upon, but they are more likely to become engaged when they believe their individual votes matter. The best way to raise the level of individual voter significance is the "cascade": a ballot on which the voter marks first choice and second choice - possibly third choice, although that probably wouldn't be necessary. Any ballot not marked with two choices would be deemed a spoiled ballot. If no candidate wins 50 per cent voter support on the first ballot, the name of the candidate with the least votes is eliminated and the second choices on those ballots are counted. The process is repeated until one candidate surpasses 50 per cent.

This system avoids the need for multiple trips to the polls, as in runoffs; the cumbersome changes that would be required for proportional representation, where anyone with 15 friends can form an official political party and expect to be represented in Parliament. It has the virtue of simplicity, and above all requires no constitutional change.

Of course, the best way to excite the public is to present a significant policy, such as free trade. That certainly gets voters scampering to the polls.

- Barbara McDougall



Don Tapscott is the co-author of Macrowikinomics: Rebooting Business and the World

Our democratic systems are woefully outdated. The first model of democracy established elected and accountable institutions of governance, but with a weak public mandate and an inert citizenry. We vote at election time, but are otherwise uninvolved in governance. We need a new model, characterized by strong representation and a new culture of public deliberation built on active citizenship. This is not direct democracy: It is about a new model of citizen engagement and politics appropriate for the 21st century.

Canada should, for example, be using digital brainstorms. The prime minister would say, "We're going to have a national discussion on revitalizing our cities. It starts on Monday at noon and ends the same week on Friday at noon. Anyone can participate through the Web 2.0 discussion community we've set up. We'll organize the discussion by region and also by interest groups. There'll be a business discussion, a discussion of public transit users, and so on. Rate the different ideas, and the best proposals will rise to the top. I'll participate daily and give my views. At the end of the process, we'll explore our options for further action."

The goal is to have a conversation in which people become engaged in political life, think about issues, get active in improving their communities and mobilize society for positive change. Politicians and citizens would become more informed and learn from each other. We would progress from broadcast democracy toward participatory democracy.

- Don Tapscott



Michael Adams is president of Environics group

When the voting age was set at 21 in the 19th century, life expectancy was decades shorter than it is today. People married earlier, had children sooner, and left school earlier. Most 21-year-olds lived adult lives.

Today, growing life expectancies and increasing educational requirements in our knowledge economy mean that "youth" stretches into one's late 20s or beyond. However hard young people work at school, internships, and first jobs, few 18-year-olds or even 21-year-olds have traditional "adult responsibilities" (home ownership, breadwinning, marriage, children, elder care, etc.).

People tend to engage as citizens when they feel the presence of the state in their lives, through income and property taxes, health care, child care, savings and pensions, law enforcement, and so on. Is it surprising that voter turnout rates for the young are so low? Government feels irrelevant, except to idealists who care about the environment.

I am not serious about preventing young people from voting; the minority of youth who are motivated to vote should be able to - and do so online. But perhaps we should only measure voter turnout rates beginning at age 30. It might spare us (and our kids) some needless apocalyptic self-flagellation.

- Michael Adams



Jack Mintz is director and Palmer Chair of the School of Public Policy, University of Calgary

Noted political theorist Anthony Downs made the following observation: Citizens are unlikely to vote since the expected benefit of their candidate winning would be less than the cost of voting. It certainly explains why Albertans, for example, have one of the lowest participation rates in the federal election. It is therefore a challenge for democracies to get people to take the time to vote. Australia has made voting compulsory for this reason.

Why do we even worry how many people vote in an election? If people are so moved to vote, they will do so. And if they choose not to, that is their democratic decision. What is more important is to make sure that voting gives rise to the best outcome for parliamentary representation to encourage maximum voting.

Some advocate proportional representation from lists of candidates, but in a country with a sprawling geography, representatives would lose attachment to their constituencies. I favour the Australian approach that combines first-past-the-post with an element of proportional representation. No constituent candidates win an election until they receive 50 per cent of all votes, including second choices of those whose candidates receive the least votes. A very sensible idea for Canada. - Jack Mintz







Michael Byers teaches political science at the University of British Columbia

If Jack Layton and the NDP form government, Canada's next federal election could be decided by proportional representation.

The NDP platform includes a commitment to "a new, more democratic voting system that preserves the connection between MPs and their constituents, while ensuring parties are represented in Parliament in better proportion to how Canadians voted."

The fact that Canadians are voting on that platform eliminates any need for a follow-up referendum. An NDP government could introduce legislation immediately, send it to committee for review, then bring the bill to a vote.

A decision would have to be made as to which form of proportional representation achieves the best balance between voting fairness and constituency representation, but the case for reform is strong.

Our current first-past-the-post system renders millions of voters irrelevant. It survives only because it has tended to reward the two historically dominant parties with majorities, almost always based on a minority of the popular vote.

Now, the interests of a governing party could coincide with the public interest when it comes to electoral reform.

Proportional representation has already been adopted by most European and South American countries, as well as Israel, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand and South Korea.

Let's revitalize our own democracy. The time for change is now.

- Michael Byers



Rudyard Griffiths is co-host of BNN's Squeeze Play and author of Who We Are: A Citizen's Manifesto

Lacklustre civic participation in Canada is hardwired to our abysmal knowledge of our country, especially its history and the workings of its democratic institutions. While the forces that have turned us into a nation of amnesiacs are complex - from watching too many episodes of The West Wing to the pull of our regional identities to the erroneous, but deeply ingrained, belief that our past is boring - the neglect of Canadian history and civics in our schools cries out for remedial action. Only three provinces require students to take a course in 20th century Canadian history to graduate from high school. Civics courses are mostly offered as electives or shoehorned into smorgasbord social studies curricula that cover everything from recycling to religion.

My big idea for kick-starting civic engagement in Canada is for an inspired premier or two (Dalton McGuinty, are you listening?) to ask students to pass a civic literacy test to receive their high-school diploma - specifically the recently enhanced and expanded exam that newcomers to Canada must take to become citizens.

Requiring every young person to pass such an exam before they graduate from high school would make a powerful statement about the common responsibilities of citizenship whether your family has been in this country for two years or 200. Believe it or not, it is also a popular idea among recent high-school graduates. Four out of five 18-to-25-year-olds surveyed by the Dominion Institute supported taking the citizenship test as a requirement of graduation. Civic literacy equals civic participation - full stop.

- Rudyard Griffiths



Matthew Mendelsohn is director of the Mowat Centre at the University of Toronto and served as deputy minister for democratic renewal in the Ontario government

Strengthening our democracy begins with an accurate diagnosis of its ailments. What is the first-order problem? It's the mismatch between the cultural, social and technological habits of citizens and the traditional values and practices of our political institutions. The institutions are relics.

Every day, people work, play and consume in ways that are easier, more impactful and personalized, and imbued with greater agency than they can hope for from their institutional political system. I can move money between bank accounts in seconds. I can see all of my online purchases - plus staggeringly accurate suggestions for things I'd like. I can review and manage my tweets - and those of others - in complex and subtle ways.

Tuning out of the empty theatre of Question Period or the trivia that passes for news coverage is a sensible decision for many informed citizens.

Interacting with government - as a citizen and as a consumer of services - should be as seamless as managing my Facebook account.

The technology exists for me to have my own personalized government page that would house all my service-related information (when does my driver's licence expire?), share information on issues I care about (a new public consultation on Senate reform? Yes, please!), and easily access all government databases.

Other countries are rolling out personalized and transparent experiences for citizens, with less intermediation from bureaucracies. Canada has to catch up.

- Matthew Mendelsohn



C.E.S. Franks is professor emeritus of political studies at Queen's University and author of The Parliament of Canada

The main problem with the Canadian House of Commons at present is a shortage of long-serving members who can exercise their independent judgment in committees and on the floor of the House. Party organizations and personnel (especially the "exempt" staff in ministers' and party leaders' offices) dominate far too much of the parliamentary life of MPs, and of the House of Commons itself.

At present, each election brings about one-third new members to the House. Nearly 15 per cent choose not to run again. Nearly 50 per cent of MPs have served less than five years. This is close to the shortest tenure and highest turnover of any democratic legislature in the world.

The shortage of long-serving members and the dominance of party organizations and party leaders are closely related. The role of the parties both inside and outside Parliament should be reduced. Members and chairs of committees should be appointed for the length of a Parliament. They should not be at the whim of party leaders. Question Period should become more a backbench than a party affair. MPs should represent constituencies first, parties second. Party leaders should not be able either to veto candidates or parachute them into ridings.

- C.E.S. Franks



Gordon Gibson is a former leader of the B.C. Liberal Party and a political commentator

If one really wants to increase citizen engagement, deeply decentralize government. Devolve power to small jurisdictions where individuals can see how they can make a difference.

A case in point: In Vancouver, an aroused citizenry has just forced city council to refuse a very large gambling casino proposal in downtown Vancouver. We have some control over council, but little over the provincial government, hooked as an addict on gambling revenues, that was driving the deal. Provincial apparatchiks were telling the city that one way or another, this is going ahead, so play ball or you will get no share of the profits.

Then premier Gordon Campbell resigned and the provincial resolve weakened. The new government doesn't want this kind of fight - yet. So for a magic moment, an overwhelming view of the public was able to prevail.

And Ottawa? It is just too big for ordinary people to understand, let alone influence. So strip it of most of its operational (not financial) duties. It is easy to ask the feds to get involved in housing or transit or infrastructure - but they shouldn't do it, because they do it politically and badly. Let them cut taxes instead and leave the money to the provincial capitals, more to cities and some to the private sector. Small is not just beautiful, it is accessible.

- Gordon Gibson



Jim Stanford is an economist with the Canadian Auto Workers union

Statistically, age is the most important factor in voter turnout: The younger you are, the less likely you are to vote. Income is the next most important: Participation rises steadily with income, peaking for those taking in more than $100,000 per year. Little wonder, then, that government doesn't work very well for youth and the poor.

Economics shows that many problems can be solved by understanding and applying material incentives. Why not apply that same logic to democracy? Pay a nice crisp $10 bill to every Canadian who shows up to exercise their civic duty.

The cost of this extra incentive would be modest: $140-million for the 2008 election, more as turnout rebounds. That's small compared to the total cost of an election, and we'd get a much more robust (and representative) outcome for our money.

The amount of $10 means nothing to high-income Canadians, who will vote anyway on the basis of their strong cultural and political capital. They can always donate their 10 bucks to charity.

But it means a lot to young people and poor people: $10 is a small price to pay to help those Canadians who have the most to gain from democracy to start wielding its power.

- Jim Stanford

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