Democracy in Reverse?? - March 1st, 2010

Democracy in Reverse??

Recent events suggest a surging demand for democratic input into decision-making in our society. The kind of input that, in a true democracy, should always be sought prior to the implementation of policy. How else could Government serve the will of the people?

Our local blue bridge replacement process is now at full stop thanks to the democratic input demands of a group of our citizens. Whether one favours replacement or refurbishment, no one can deny the message sent to our Municipal Government that the people want a say in this decision.

We’re all screaming, after the fact, about the release of oceanfront forest lands to the exclusive benefit of an individual logging company. No consultation with the populace occurred, and no concessions of any kind have accrued to the people. Now we’ll need our Government to step forward, with public money in hand, to buy back this land for the people, again solely to the benefit of that individual logging company. We all should have had a say in the release or not of those forest lands.

People are beginning to question why the populace, who will pay the bills, don’t have a say in the Federal Government imposition of a land-based sewage treatment system, in the face of science that suggests such a system will really just cost us all a lot of money, without really making any appreciable difference to the safety of our environment. Shouldn’t the people have some input into this decision?

Also federally, our most humble Prime Minister has been busy appointing a gaggle of Conservative operatives to the Senate in order to prevent any non-partisan operation of that body. Much talk of moving to an elected Senate, but no progress in that regard from this Government. We’ll need to demand an elected senate, or we’ll never get one.

Most recently, we have another local bridge conundrum, with the Esquimalt Lagoon bridge now under cease operation considerations. A councilor for Colwood has recently opined that the public needs a say in the future of this bridge. A bold and progressive thing for him, from within our current democratic model, to actually favour input from citizens.

But the crowning proof of a new demand for real democracy is yet to come. A previous Premier of B.C., our own Bill Vander Zalm, has launched, under the ‘Recall and Initiative Act’, an initiative petition to end the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST – also known as the Hated Sales Tax). You’ll have the opportunity to sign this petition in April, and I hope you do so, as a participatory demonstration of Democracy in reverse.

I believe this recall petition will succeed, and the imposition of this new tax will be halted, giving our Provincial Government cause to self-reflect on its strategy of imposing policy contrary to the public will. I don’t know anyone who won’t sign this stop-the-tax-grab petition, other than the small herd of Liberal cronies perhaps, and it appears democracy will have its day, if again a bit backwards in the process.

Pretty soon now, I believe, Governments will have no choice but to consult the masses before implementing policy initiatives. We, the people, want a say in the Governance of our lives, and we no longer trust a gaggle of Temporary Kings to make decisions by proxy. We don’t care if they achieve re-election or not. We care only that policies be implemented, with clear public endorsement, for the public good.

Under a consult-the-populace form of democracy, we might even eventually maintain operational policies that wouldn’t be torn asunder and re-designed with each change of Government. Some continuity would save us the ferry loads of money currently expensed to finance polarity shifting from left leaning to right leaning Governance, and back and forth as we have historically seen. If the public were choosing policy, it might remain more constant and less knee-jerk reactive to the needs of a Governing political party.

Some say Government by referendum isn’t practical, that the populace is not able to make effective decisions collectively. I have to ask, how would anyone know? Direct democracy hasn’t really been in active practice since the times of the ancient Greeks. Our present model, born of necessity to simplify Governance while direct input was impractical, must now be superseded by real Democratic process. Our society once again has the ability to permit individual input and collective decision, and, as a democracy, we have an obligation to poll the people directly.

Our populace is as knowledgeable and capable as any collection of elected officials. It might take us some time, initially, to get our canoes pointed in the same direction, but any argument denying the ability of the masses to choose correctly, is misguided and demeans the collective intelligence of us all.

For now, we the people will keep demanding democracy, in reverse if we have to, until a natural evolution returns us to the practice of polling the people directly as the means of determining Governing policy. That will, then, be democracy.