Category Archives: public policy

The Trouble with Citizens' Assemblies

12 Replies

My friend Peter MacLeod published this web-exclusive op-ed in today’s Globe and Mail where he complained about the critics’ harsh treatment of Citizens’ Assemblies. Peter (and I) may not like the language used by some of its critics but he still has to explain why citizens’ assemblies are an appropriate approach to decision making, something I’m not sure his op-ed accomplishes.

What is that famous Churchill quote? “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.” Let’s be clear, citizens’ assemblies, despite their non-binding nature, are a form of governance. Moreover, despite what their champions claim, they are not democratic. Randomly selecting citizens cannot ensure a province or country’s citizens’ diverse interests and concerns are effectively represented. We use democracy to make decisions because we believe it is the best process by which conflicting interests can be debated and citizens’ issues can be engaged. Is it perfect? Hardly. But citizens’ assemblies are less so.

To see their possible shortcomings one need only look at the BC citizens’ assembly. As Andrew Potter notes in This Magazine “The Assembly’s director of research (i.e. the fellow in charge of bringing in the experts) is Ken Carty, former chair of the UBC poli sci department. According to a colleague of mine who worked in the department under Carty, decisions at faculty meetings were always entertaining, because of the mechanism Carty used to take decisions. What mechanism was that? STV voting. Coincidence?” Moreover, a scan of Carty’s publications shows that his initial writing focused on politics in Ireland: the only other country in the world to use the system like BC STV. Does this mean Carty unduly influenced the assembly? I don’t know. But this, a problematic process, is exactly the type of issue an opposition party would bring to the publics’ attention in a public debate on a policy initiative – and yet where is the role of opposition in a citizens’ assembly?

If a community felt it couldn’t trust its politician on a given issue – such as electoral reform – why not call a commission? Although less sexy, Canada’s history is filled with notable and effective commissions that have laid the groundwork for some of the country’s most significant reforms and policy decisions. These include: public healthcare, bilingualism, and free trade. Because commissions bring together experts with diverse opinions and engage in public consultations they can accomplish many of the goals of citizen assemblies while simultaneously ensuring that numerous informed opinions are represented in the discussion. Can anyone name a process where we purposefully select non-experts to make a decision? When I get on a plane I don’t believe I will be best served if the pilot and crew are randomly selected from the passenger manifest! I’d definitely prefer an expert pilot and crew to manage the flight. The passengers may tell them where they’d like to go and offer some other suggestions, but I think we’d probably all feel safer knowing there was an expert behind the wheel. Moreover, as life and death flying a plane may be, I’m fairly certain decisions about our country are actually still more important.

My friends know I’m a fan of open-source public policy, mostly because I believe it will allow citizens, in a sophisticated and cumulative manner, to shape how our country should operate. However, there is nothing about open source public policy that is democratic – a constraint we must recognize and live by. The problem with citizen assemblies is its champions don’t believe they are bound by such constraints. A citizen assembly’s product is usually pre-sold as democratic and legitimate. Maybe one day the process will be refined in such a way that this will be true, but for now, such a description is misleading, and dangerously so, as it popularizes these assemblies’ recommendations on a false foundation.

[tags]Citizens’ Assemblies, electoral reform, Canadian politics, BC Citizens’ Assembly, Ken Carty[/tags]

Job Opportunity for Canada-US buffs

2 Replies

Just a quick note for friends interested in Canada-US relations. The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC is looking to hire a Program Associate for its Canada Institute. You can read more about the opportunity here. I’m a big fan of David Biette, the institute’s Director. He’s thoughtful, friendly and always willing to engage young thinkers with new ideas. The Deadline is January 31st. Thank you Alison L. for the heads up!

Speaking of the Woodrow Wilson Canada Institute, I’m laying over an extra night in Ottawa next week so I can attend their panel on Canada-US Intelligence Sharing in light of Judge O’Connor’s “Report of the Events Relating to Maher Arar.” The panel should very much be worth taking in, especially given US Senator Leahy’s growing interest in the case.

Two steps (or should I say decades?) back on homelessness

Leave a reply

(Small note: For those less interested in Vancouver and looking for a national story check out my man Taylor’s take on Simpson’s Globe and Mail piece and why Iggy’s policy development process lead to such a strong outcome.)

As for me, I’m feeling frustrated about Mayor Sam Suillivan’s poll on Vancouverites municipal priorities. For anyone who hasn’t visited Vancouver in the last year there is no doubt that homelessness is the number one issue – an observation confirmed by the city’s residents. No big surprise, given the rising cost of housing and a sharply declining number of available low-cost rooms in single-room occupancy (SRO) hotels (those most affordable to low-income residents).

The challenge for the mayor (beyond actually solving the problem) is that it is hard to take his concern seriously. We need only recall that, after taking office, his second act was to reduce the amount of social housing that would be part of the Olympic village development. Moreover, during the debate over Project Civil City he voted down a proposed amendment to include the Minister for Housing on the Mayor’s Civil City Leadership Council. If you were concerned about homelessness and were putting together a team to tackle it, it would seem sensible that you’d want to pull together the relevant stakeholders – especially those with access to resources beyond the meager ones available to the city.

Vancouver is now preparing for the 2010 Winter Olympics without an effective homelessness strategy. Sadly, precedent does not look good. In the lead up to the 1986 World Exposition Vancouver managed a similar problem by simply expelling the homeless from the relevant areas. While the city was ‘clean’ for Expo ’86 the long term consequence was the radicalization of civic politics and damaged relations between city hall and the city’s most at-risk citizens. Combine this municipal approach with a Federal Government intent on treating drug addiction and homelessness as a legal and not a social challenge and you have the recipe for disaster. Be prepared for a new effort to ‘sanitize’ Vancouver – an effort that will almost certainly fray or destroy the social and support networks that help at risk communities and push the problem out to the surrounding communities of the GVRD.

[tags]Vancouver, Vancouver politics, Sam Suillivan, homelessness, social housing, 2010 Olympics[/tags]

shhhh, Did the Fraser Institute Just Say Something Interesting?

2 Replies

The sad fact about most think tanks in Canada is that they are generally quite boring. The most egregious example of this phenomenon is the Fraser Institute. I’ll admit that I rarely read Fraser Institute reports simply because I’ve found I don’t have to… I already know that they are going to say before I pick them up. No matter what the problem, a downside-free, unregulated, free-market option will always be the perfect solution. However, the real problem isn’t that I know what their reports say before I read them, it’s that the Fraser Institute policy wonks knew what it was going to say before they researched it.

That said, it is important to keep one’s eye out for data that contradicts established conclusions (something the Fraser Institute is good at avoiding). So, I was initially curious when I read this piece in the Vancouver Sun on Wednesday the 10th discussing how a Fraser Institute report, Tax Efficiency: Not All Taxes are Created Equal, argues that while income taxes should be lowered, the forgone revenue should be captured by raising the GST to 8 or 9%.

This is indeed a suggestion worth exploring. Raising the GST would encourage saving and investment and dampen consumption (particularly of imported consumer goods that negatively impact our trade surplus). Indeed as long as a basket of core goods – food, rent, educational materials, healthcare and other essential goods and services – remain tax exempt the GST can serve as quite a progressive tax lever. It could become even more progressive if the new taxes were used to elevate the basic exemption – providing tax relief to everyone, but most of all to those who earn the least. These latter suggestions are, of course, not in the Fraser Institute report and humble additions of my own. Hey, I said they got something right – not everything!

Actually, this suggestion is so sensible, it is precisely the same argument the Liberals (quietly) used during the last election to highlight why the Conservative party was foolish to advocate cutting the GST. (BTW: Am I frightened that the Liberals and the Fraser Institute are on the same page, even on only half an issue? Absolutely.)

For those too bored, or too tired, of predictable reports from Canada’s ideological think tanks, the Fraser Institutes’s tax report will only confirm your worst fears. To be clear, their one interesting recommendation is essentially a happy accident of analysis. Moreover, the usual Fraser Institute shenanigans are in play. For example, in assessing Canada’s tax structure the authors use the OECD countries as a benchmark. For those who think that sounds like a reasonable peer group you would be correct, except that in 1990’s the OECD added Poland, the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic, and Hungary. Guess which group of countries doesn’t like to levy an income tax on its citizens, in large part because they don’t have an income to tax? Better yet, when calculating the OECD average the authors elected to not weight the countries income tax rates. So the income tax rates of Canada (35.1) or the United States (34.7) have the same impact on the OECD average as, oh, let’s say, the Czech (12.7) or Slovak (9.3) Republics. No big deal – IF we put aside the fact that the Czech Republic has a population 1/30th that of the US and 1/3rd that of Canada, that its real GDP is .9% that of the US and 10% of Canada’s and that its economy is, shall we say, structured somewhat differently than our own. But I’m sure that the Fraser Institute chose this methodology for some sound reason and not because it makes the OECD average income tax appear lower so they can argue Canada’s tax burden is comparatively high.

Ah, the Fraser Institute: where research conforms to conclusions.

[tags]Fraser Institute, canadian politics, think tanks, public policy[/tags]

Omidyar Network

2 Replies

I want to thank those of you who have trekked over to the Omidyar Network to check out the business plan that enables eBay to facilitate charitable giving. There has been a slow and steady rise in users checking out the idea and an increasing number of ideas and suggestions posted on the discussion thread around the idea, better still, people are starting to vote for it. For those that have, thank you! For those who haven’t you can check out the the link.
For those into non-profit projects you should check out the the Omidyar Network. The network was founded by Pierre Omidyar, who at 28, co-founded and wrote the original computer code for eBay. It is not clear to me, but it appears that he occasionally funds ideas – either non-profit and for-profit but that generate a public good – that are discussed on the network. For those with a non-profit (or even for-profit idea that has a public good element to its business plan) the network offers an online workspace where you and your team (along with others on the network) can collaborate. It’s still unclear to me how effective it is at distilling out good ideas but it is worth exploring.

Sidebar: I just finished watching (for the first time ever) Inside the Actor’s Studio and Matt Damon was the guest. Someone apparently described Damon as “the thinking person’s movie star” which is absolutely correct. Anyway, if you can check it this interview. I’ve always liked Matt Damon as an actor – but what a person. So much integrity and work ethic, but fun at the same time.

[tags]ebay, social entreprise, omidyar network[/tags]

Ringing in 2007

Leave a reply

2007 feels like it is starting off on the right foot.

I have a new piece on INAC and its capacity to negotiate with Aboriginal Bands up on the Dominion Institute. INAC is full of public servants dedicated to creating an effective partnership with Aboriginal peoples – I hope these thoughts resonate with them. God knows that this issue needs to be made more of a priority. Also a big shout out to Mark P., Ben R., and Chiara B. who all read drafts of this piece and provided some helpful feedback. Thank you guys.

I’ve also noticed that readers are beginning to write comments on Dominion Institute posts. I was initially surprised that we were receiving so few comments, especially given the tens of thousands of hits the site receives each month. I’ve resolved this New Year to respond to more of the comments on the site. My hope is that this will encourage even more people to speak up – that is after all why it was launched!

Symptoms of Alienation

Leave a reply

Hi Friends – sorry for the lack of posting over the holidays. I’m back and will be posting full time again.

Every Christmas westerners living out east return home to pass the holidays with friends and families. With the added personal dimension created by this event, the holiday homecoming becomes one of the few times Westerners are willing to get updated on the ‘going ons’ out east. I’m no fan of western alienation but I am curious: why is this pilgrimage virtually the only time Westerners talk about the rest of the country? Why does the west not feel in?

It could be, as my friend John pointed out, that “national” newspapers like the Globe and Mail treat the machinations of Ontario’s budget process as critical reading for all Canadians (sorry if those of us in Vancouver aren’t rushing to grab a copy) while news from out west is an afterthought for most publications – a clumsy attempt at having western content without offering any real meat or analysis.

While it may sound like an old song, living out here one cannot help sense that, at their core, publications like the G&M still believe Central Canada is ‘the country’ whose dynamics must be understood by everybody. Everything and everyone else is as periphery – whose relevance can be correlated to their impact the central Canada’s agenda. Don’t believe me? Take a look at the recent Globe and Mail article “Western Canada Comes of Age.” Let’s put aside the fact that most westerners likely believe ‘the West’ came of age a long time ago. Let’s also put aside the unbelievable condescension of the title (I can’t wait to see when the G&M decides that Aboriginal Bands have “come of age” in national politics). Instead it is the framing of the piece that reveals why Westerns often feel outside any ‘national’ dialogue.

So how does the Globe and Mail define ‘coming of age’? Is the West’s political maturity and relevance defined by its perspective? its unique challenges? or possibly by the ideas, ambitions, or opportunities it brings to the country’s agenda? No. What matters is that Alberta and BC’s combined population now exceeds Quebec. In short, the G&M, believes the West’s maturity and relevance is defined by its capacity to force other actors (read, central Canada) to pay attention to it. And we wonder why we struggle to have national dialogues.

The second element revolved around the West’s raw economic power. However, let us be clear. This is not economic power defined in absolute terms, but economic power measured in relation to the challenges it posses to Central Canada! What does the article cite as the foremost important impact of the West’s boom? Is it the challenges it posses to Western communities? The international opportunities and clout this creates for the country? No. The ‘broad’ and significant impact of this economic surge was to “have helped drive the Canadian dollar higher, causing challenges in Ontario’s manufacturing sector.” Thus, in both instances, the importance of the West is not defined in its own terms but largely by its relationship to central Canada.
Western alienation isn’t about political clout, economic weight or even effective representation. It is about the capacity to participate, and be understood, within national debates. Until we, and more specifically, our newspapers get that right I’m not sure the West will ever feel ‘in’.

[tags]western alienation, canadian politics, public policy[/tags]

Making eBay better

Leave a reply

So I’ve decided to get serious about refining my idea around how eBay can leverage its core competencies and business model to enhance charitable giving. What makes me proud of this idea is that it has numerous positive spin off effects for both charities and eBay but requires virtually no capital investment – it leverages existing infrastructure and networks so it is highly efficient and low risk.

I’ve sent up a discussion thread on the idea here and a workspace where you can edit the proposal here. Would love it if you dropped on by and voted for the idea and/or registered comments or suggestions!

[tags]Social enterprise, ebay, opensouce, open source[/tags]

Find the oxymoron: NDP strategy, admiting fault, newsmaker of the year

Leave a reply
  1. This article provides a glimpse into the complex and sweeping grand strategy Jack Layton has both masterminded and only begun to reveal. Yes, folks, Jack killed a minority Liberal Government so that he could form a strategic partnership with… the conservatives? We will monitor this, and the NDP’s seat count, closely.
  2. A few weeks ago I wrote about the centralizing of the internet using the disappearance of this Rooster tooth clip as an example. Always pleased to be proved wrong, my man Mike B. has found a copy of the clip on Myspace. Apparently, someone cached and reposted it. Mike also shared some poweruser tips on how to capture videos off webpages, thus helping us all better earn our status as Time Magazine’s Person of the Year (groan).
  3. Speaking of Time’s Person of the Year… I won’t hop on the band wagon and lambaste their choice (no need, enough has been said). However, I will point out that Time has only itself to blame. Specifically, Time mis-set expectations by allowing “Person of the Year” to cease being a title and allowing it to become an award. As my friend Salimah noted, gone are the days when Bin Laden or Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could grace the front page as person of the year. In contrast, Time Canada (and I also can’t believe I’m about to say this) gets it right. Its title, earned this year by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, is the much more neutral “Newsmaker of the Year.” Alas the subtle difference was lost on the ears of the Prime Minister’s Office which was apparently thrilled on discovering their man’s new status. Someone should remind them that being the year’s top newsmaker simply means you made a lot of the news, for better or for worse…

Update: Dr. Kissinger overseeing a rock contest? Friends, just finished watching possible the best Colbert Report to date – clearly they saved the best for the end of the year. Those unable to watch or bitorrent it can read a description here. What a cast!

[tags]canadian politics, public policy[/tags]