Fireweed Democracy Project
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Fireweed Democracy Project is an initiative aimed at strengthening democratic governance in Canada.
Launched in 2005, Fireweed acts as a catalyst for democratic reform, bringing together people and ideas concerned with the democratic deficit, disseminating research and information about various aspects of the democratic deficit, and advocating the general goal of improved democratic governance and various means of achieving that goal.
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[edit] Fireweed Roundtable
On April 6-9, 2006, Fireweed convened a Roundtable of leading Canadians active in the area of democratic reform, at Mont Tremblant, Québec.
Participants included Rick Anderson, Jaimie Anderson, Heather Bastedo, Marc-André Blanchard, Patrick Boyer, John Chenier, David Chernushenko, Margaret Courchene, Tom Courchene, Andrew Coyne, Victor Drury, Gordon Elliott, Brad Farquhar, Lynette Farquhar, André Fortier, Cliff Fryers, Nicholas Gafuik, Gordon Gibson, Kilby Gibson, Larry Gordon, Allan Gregg, Sharon Gregg, Dick Hegan, Mary Hegan, Kyle Harrietha, Ashley Jones, Paul Kemp, Preston Manning, Jamie MacDonald, Shuvaloy Majumdar, Malcolm Mercer, Sheri Meyerhoffer, Harry Meyers, Larry O'Brien, Benjamin Perrin, Kia Pyrcz, John Reid, Marie Reid, Denise Rudnicki, Corvin Russell, Robin Sears, Leslie Seidle, André Turcotte, Kitson Vincent, Christopher Waddell, Judy Watling, Ellis Westwood, Blair Williams, Michelle Williams, and John Williamson.
The Roundtable was televised by CPAC, the Cable Public Affairs Channel. Conference materials, including the results of the Fireweed Democracy Barometer, a national public opinion survey regarding public opinion on democratic reform are available at the Fireweed Democracy Project website.
[edit] Democratic Reform Concepts
Among the concepts encouraged for discussion by Fireweed are the following:
Citizens Assembly: Use of a special citizens assembly or constituent assembly to consider and recommend democratic governance reforms, which in turn can be submitted to Canadian voters for subsequent adoption or rejection through a referendum. While common in other democracies, citizens assemblies have to date been rarely used in Canada. However, with the increasingly adversarial nature of partisan politics in Canada as elsewhere, ongoing threats to national unity, a yawning democratic deficit, and an impasse on constitutional renewal since the 1992 rejection of the Charlottetown Accord, citizens assemblies are becoming of greater interest and more common in Canada. In 2003, British Columbia created the BC Citizens Assembly on Electoral Reform to develop a new electoral sysatem for the province. In 2006, Ontario followed suit with the creation of its own Ontario Citizens Assembly on Electoral Reform. Similarly, Quebec's current process of electoral reform was preceded by the popularly-based Estates General on the Reform of Democratic Institutions, a creation of the Quebec government which gave private citizens the opportunity to express concerns about democratic representation in government.
Electoral Reform: Development and adoption of a comprehensive electoral reform package, including fixed election dates, reducing the authority of party leaders and managers to override decisions of party members and supporters, democratizing the easily-corruptible and frequently-corrupted systems of local candidate selection and leadership election, and modernizing Canada's old-fashioned first past the post electoral system with one form or another of proportional representation, such as single transferable vote or mixed member proportional, for either or both legislatures in the Parliament of Canada (the House of Commons and/or the Senate).
Senate Reform: Democratization of Canada's colonial-era appointive Senate to provide for election by one means or another, such as election by voters within provinces or Senate districts, or indirect election by provincial legislatures along the lines of earlier recommendations to create a federal "House of the Provinces". (Another democratizing alternative could involve simple aboliton of the appointive Senate, leaving Canada's national Parliament unicameral in nature rather than bicameral. All Canadian provinces have already become unicameral, as are New Zealand, Wales, Scotland, Norway, Portugal and others; however it is sometimes argued that federal states, as opposed to unitary states are better served with a bicameral legislatures.)
Who Does What?: A Royal Commission or citizens assembly to clarify and possibly re-assign the jurisdictional powers dispersed among three levels of government - national, provincial and municipal - within Canada's federal system. Canada was founded in 1867 through the British North America Act of the British Parliament, based on an agreement among Canada's four original provinces known as the Great Coalition. Canada was originally conceived of as a more-decentralized form of federalism known as Confederation. In the view of some Canadians, increasing centralization in recent decades has increased friction within the country and undermined national unity, fueling tensions such as Quebec's sovereignty movement and the rise of separatist sentiment in Alberta and British Columbia. It is argued that the locally-oriented subsidiarity principle followed by the European Union might describe a federalism approach better suited to Canada's regional and cultural diversity than does an overly "Ottawa-centric" approach. As well, democratic accountability could be strengthened by reducing the Canadian practice known as "fiscal federalism", the practice whereby mulitiple levels of government transfer taxpayers' funds amongst themselves in a fashion which hopes to establish or raise "national standards", but which in the process also increases friction and reduces transparency, efficiency and accountability. It is argued that there must be a shift toward the notion that a government which spends taxes should raise them, and that a government which raises taxes should spend them, resulting in greater clarity as to which level of government is responsible for what, reduced friction, increased efficiency, and sounder governance.
Re-assert Parliamentary Independence and Authority: Re-establish a more balanced division of powers, more robust array of checks and balances, and oversight between the Prime Minister and Cabinet (sometimes collectively known as the executive branch of government on the one hand, and Parliament (known as the legislative branch of government) on the other. In parliamentary or Westminister systems such as Canada's, this involves rethinking, modifying or abolishing certain "conventions", such as, for instance limiting the executive's (Cabinet's) ability to arbitrarily declare simple votes as confidence votes (see also non confidence) and/or restoring the authority of Parliament through abolition or limitation of the supply convention so that parliamentary modification of the government's proposed taxes and expenditures no longer result in the effective firing of all parliamentarians through the dissolution of Parliament. To offset the overconcentration of the Prime Minister's power (part of a trend toward leader-centric politics which has been advancing since the 1960s), parliamentarians can be given greater control over the setting of the parliamentary agends, the membership of committees, along with other steps to assert parliamentary authority and independence and counter the negative effects of the extreme party discipline which has evolved in Canada. Similarly, measures such as the Elections Act can be modified to shift authority and oversight from party leaders towards members and candidates and parliamentarians, such as by restoring the right and responsibility of local members or supporters to select candidates without interference by party leaders.
Transparency: Much more can be done to strengthen access to information legislation, provide stronger government ethics oversight and greater protection for government whistleblowers
[edit] Recent Democratic Reform Activity in Canada
In recent years, growing numbers of Canadian and their political leaders and organizations have addressed the democratic deficit. The Reform Party of Canada was founded in 1987 partly on the populist platform of democratic reforms such as freer parliamentary voting and Senate reform, as well as direct democracy measures such as citizen's initiatives, referenda and recall.
Led by Preston Manning, by 1997 Reform succeeded in becoming the Official Opposition in Canada's Parliament. It evolved into the Canadian Alliance and then merged into the new Conservative Party, which was subsequently elected as Canada's national government in the 2006 general election.
The Conservative Party's policy convention in Montréal in the spring of 2005 demonstrated both its evolution and its continuing interest in democratic reform, providing "the public with an opportunity to see the Conservative Party in a new light, after having shed its controversial social conservative agenda, although retaining its populist appeal by espousing tax cuts, smaller government, a grassroots-oriented democratic reform, more decentralization by giving the provinces more taxing powers and leeway in decision making, and limiting Ottawa's intervention in everyday lives, venturing less into individual freedom of choice." The Conservatives promised elected Senators and a new Federal Accountability Act in their 2006 election campaign, and are expected to follow-through on these in the current Parliament.
Similarly, Paul Martin, leader of Canada's Liberal Party made curing the country's democratic deficit a signature campaign promise, although he did little to act on the subject during his tenure.
Canada's New Democratic Party, generally populist in nature has long advocated democratic reforms such as electoral reform, improved access to information legislation and stronger government ethics oversight.
The Green Party of Canada first ran candidates in Canadian federal elections in 1984, and has seen its vote climb slowly but steadily. The party constitutionally subscribes to the "Six Principles" of the Global Greens Charter, which includes the principle of participatory democracy, defined as "a process emphasizing the broad involvement of constituents in the direction and operation of political systems. While etymological roots imply that all governments deserving the name "democracy" would rely on the participation of their citizens (the Greek demos and cracy combine to suggest that "the people rule"), traditional representative democracies tend to limit citizen participation to voting, leaving the main work of governance to a professional political elite. Participatory democracy strives to create opportunities for all members of a political group to make meaningful contributions to decisionmaking, and seeks to broaden the range of people who have access to such opportunities". The Green Party 2006 Election Platform includes calls for a citizens assembly and electoral reform.
There is a federal cabinet member and agency officially responsible for democratic renewal, known as the Minister Responsible for Democratic Reform.
