Reclaiming Our Democracy Through Political Participation

Matt FosterAnita Nickerson

What is Democracy?

• “A state in which the common people are considered the primary source of political power“

• How real is democracy in Canada?

Making Democracy Real

• Democracy is real when common people claim and exercise their power through knowledgeable, active and sincere participation. Get Involved

– it’s your planet and your future

A Call to Participate

“The price good people pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men”.

Remember this one thing

A Call to Participate

"Those who do not do politics will be done in by politics." (French proverb)

“If you don't turn on to politics, politics is going to turn on you.” (Ralph Nader)

Why Don’t We Participate?

• Canadians, by a 3-1 margin, think that "joining a special interest group is a more effective way to work for political change than actually joining a political party"

(ref: Cross, 2004).

Participation by the Few

• Only 1-2% of Canadians belong to a political party.

• Governments fail to mirror a cross section of society.

Language of our Democracy

• How do we talk about our political system – the parties, institutions?

• Is it “us” and “them”?

• Is it our “Canadian Government” or “the Harper Government?”

Why Don’t We Participate

• Political parties are seen

as corrupt and elitist.

• “Political party” = Greed and Power

• Joining is socially unacceptable, intimidating, pointless.

Advocacy Groups

More respectable than political parties.

A socially acceptable, even admirableway to participate.

• .

Appeal of Advocacy Groups

• “Independent, non-partisan” (because partisan and politics are now seen as corrupt)

• Seen as composed of ordinary, caring, courageous people (whereas parties are supposedly full of the rich and out of touch)

Democratic Action Outside the System

• Protests• Petitions• Forums • Conferences• Letters to MPs• Letters to media• Donating money• Civil disobedience

Thousands and Thousands of Problems, Thousands of Advocacy Groups….

• Women's rights, child poverty, world hunger/starvation, water access, social inequality, child soldiers, hormone mimicking chemicals, genital mutilation, threatened democracy, Gavage for girls before marriage, undemocratic electoral systems, health care as a right, freedom of speech, soil erosion, fish stocks, loss of genetic biodiversity, rain forests, habitat loss, species decline, land fills, excess packaging, vehicle emission standards, vehicle mileage standards, sea pollution, oil spills, lead pollution, pesticide use, estrogens in drinking water, dental amalgam pollution, Minimoto disease, fish farming, vegetarianism, irradiation of produce, GMOs, labelling of food, special interest lobby groups, battered women, lost representative democracy, Middle East conflict, global warming/climate change, disadvantaged children, arsenic leach mining, oil sands energy, salt usage on roads, water softener salt problems, recycle programs, 30,000 nuclear warheads/nuclear proliferation, depleted uranium contamination, birth defect rise, salvaging the people's commons, right of way, air pollution, coal power generation, renewable energy, bio-fuel, space exploration pollution, ozone depletion, boating pollution, whaling, illegal fishing, livestock pollution, fresh water standards, nuclear proliferation, special interest think tanks, public broadcasting, dragnet fishing, seabed destruction, dolphin decline, vaccine contamination, artificial sweeteners, food additives, plastic chemical leaching, plastic bag problem, Teflon concerns, criminal activity in business, plight of the Inuit and native peoples, northern waters concerns, oil exploration concerns, foreign interference in domestic government, private armies, torture, extraordinary rendition, artificial news, arms trade, traditional health product, rising seas, exposing "False Flag" operations, the Ogallala aquifer depletion, salination of aquifers, salination of rivers, water tables, water diversions, river dams, growth hormones, contaminated meat, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, UV tanning beds, indoor pollution, asbestos usage, animal extinctions, gasoline additive problems, bee and insect pollination concern, drug resistant diseases, air standards, pesticide residue in food, excess chemicals in food, food container chemical leaching, national obesity, community recycle programs, air travel pollution, tourism travel pollution, dioxins, CO2 levels, bottled water, fair trade produce, declining male fertility, wilderness sell off, nuclear power generation, human rights, factory farms, clear cutting, natural disaster planning and relief, rising sea water/displaced people, undermining UN effectiveness, UN Veto abuse, Cell phone radiation, flower trade, herbicides, unfair trade practices, IMF, World Bank, acid rain, rare raw resources, armament race, monetary disorder, world law, religious zealots, separation of religion and state, the business of war, academic freedom, masquerading greens, tritium  filled lighting, tritium levels in water, treatment of animals, voting machine fraud, private prison industry, unfair trade pacts, the effect of government subsidies, electronic waste, illegal drugs, cancer research, global monopolies,  babbles and beads, Bovine Somatatropn (BST), pressure treated wood, novel pathogens, extreme weather events, Geo-engineering of the planet, Increased fire risk, bio-fuel and biomass, continental shelf marine habitats, offshore power generation, freshwater flow rates, public attitude to wildlife, acid oceans, noise/light pollution, weakened genome, resistance to antibiotics, fluoride/chlorine in drinking water, ultraviolet radiation, expanding cities, ghettos, disappearing beaches, unemployment, drug abuse, refugees and illegal immigrants, higher cost of living, Carbon dioxide levels, Methane, Chlorofluorocarbons, low altitude ozone O3, smog and vapour, water cycle, reforestation, irrigation, illegal crops, aquaculture, aquarium trade, coral destruction, coral diseases, drought, desertification, habitat loss, introduced exotic species, zebra mussels in Great Lakes, PCB, CFC, PAH, DDT, thalidomide, incineration of hazardous wastes, algal blooms, amphibian die-off, warming seas, (ghost fishing) lost fishing nets, blast fishing, Great Barrier Reef, nutrient runoff, seabed/ trawling, propeller scouring, 10,000 of 65,000 synthetic chemicals, smoke, car/truck run-off (lead, oil, tire residue), sewage discharge, eutrophication of rivers and coastal waters, incurable strains of tuberculosis, pneumonia, dysentery, cholera, malaria, legionnaire's disease, public reduced compassion, compromised immune and hormonal systems, drug resistant STDs, indoor pollution, formaldehyde, public transportation, paving the best farm land, shrinking glaciers, changing ocean currents, changing weather patterns, foreign ownership of resources, and on and on –

Another Look at Democratic Participation

• Where does much of the power to make the policies that express our values really lie?

• We don’t elect Greenpeace. We don’t elect Amnesty. We don’t elect the Council of Canadians.

Cause and Effect

• Parties have become elite, unrepresentative out of touch

• Through non-participation, we perpetuate, rather than correct, the situation of which we are so critical.

An Analogy We are pounding on a closed door

Just Ignore them

The Key We must reclaim our place on the

inside of our democracy

The Test

• Democracy only works when the public participates in it to the point where legislation closely reflects a cross section of the society.

The Key

• Party processes can become more democratic, members more representative, and platforms more reflective of what we want when we participate in creating them

Examples of Participation

• Obama’s campaign 2008• PC Leadership 1998 • PC Leadership 2003• Liberal leadership 2006• Canada Health Care Act 1984• Universal Suffrage 1918• Green Party - Europe 1979/83

Increasing Participation

• If only a small number (1 or 2%) of concerned Canadians re-engaged with our political system, the shift would be substantial.

Key Ideas

• We are facing a myriad of common problems that require national and global solutions, implemented by our elected governments.

• Reclaiming our democracy is the key.

Our Asset

• We are in a new age of technology, unavailable to previous generations.

blogs email Twitter

cell phones instant messaging

digital photography

the internet

The Proposal

A world wide interactive web site dedicated to participation in democracy.

Contact

• If you would like to take part in this project of “PARTICIPATION IN DEMOCRACY” contact Matt Foster at 519 621 9908

• or

• Visit www.civismundi.net

• or

• Send your suggestions and comments via email to civismundi@civismundi.net