Direct Democracy, an option, or a Fairy tale?

[Gordon J Torture]

What are my fellow Canadian's opinions of direct democracy?

Could it work?, and if so, under what circumstances?

I believe nationally, it would fail, due to the inability of every Canadian citizen to regularly attend political meetings and thus, the obvious necessity for delegation of large populations of people. Delegates are indeed superior to representatives, yet delegates of large populations will inevitablely become corrupt, and consequently may manage to keep their place by means of manipulation.

As in ancient Rome, when it was small enough that a direct democracy seemed successful, a direct democracy in Canada could only work if Canada were to be broken down into small communities of 5-10 thousand people, or perhaps even less, where each community operates and encourages their own independent "direct democracy".

And some people say Marx's ideas sound like a fairy tale?

 

[Machjo]

Depends on what you mean by direct democracy. One system which might interest you is the one used in the Baha'i community.

There are three levels of administration, local, national and international. But it all starts at the local level. Every year, a local election is held whereby any eligible voter is also an eligible candidate. Everyone writes nine names on their ballot from among the eligible candidates (i.e., voters), and the nine names which appear most frequently form the local assembly. the local assembly votes for the national assembly in a similar manner, likewise with at elast nine members, every year. And the national assemblies vote at the international level every five years, in a similar manner. My description here is somewhat simplified, however, but you can find more details on it at:

http://www.bahai.org/

So while it might not be direct democracy, I think it's a good system none-the-less.

 

[Gordon J Torture]

Depends on what you mean by direct democracy

What I mean by "Direct Democracy" is: that instead of a representative being elected to speak and make ideas on behalf of the people, the people ourselves have direct input, or, in larger populations, can elect a delegate who cannot make any decisions, but just simply conveys the message of the electors. The delegate can also be removed at any time by the people.

 

[DasFX]

Depends on what you mean by direct democracy

What I mean by "Direct Democracy" is: that instead of a representative being elected to speak and make ideas on behalf of the people, the people ourselves have direct input, or, in larger populations, can elect a delegate who cannot make any decisions, but just simply conveys the message of the electors. The delegate can also be removed at any time by the people.

North American society is too selfish and lazy to have this work. You can't even get folks to vote every 4 or 5 years to simply choose a representative, and now you want them to do the work themselves.

Also, in North America there are too many special interest groups and other factions that would simply push their own agendas. I don't think our society has the cohesion to think as a group rather than as individuals.

 

[Gordon J Torture]

I concur DasFX.

 

[DasFX]

I concur DasFX.

In addition to the societal issues, I think geography hamper this idea. In fact it hampers our current system of government. Our country is just too big and too spread out. Geography plays a big deal in the divisions of our country.

BC for example is not a very cohesive place; I would say there is some tension between those who live along the coast and those in the interior. Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba are probably more cohesive as a population, the people are not that spread out and there are no physical boundaries between them.

Ontario is very divided. First between North and South and I would say between southwest and east.

Quebec is pretty unified, most of their population is along a 300km stretch of the St. Lawrence and outlying populated areas are not that far away from the river.

NB, PEI are also pretty unified, same reason as for the prairies. NS is divided between Cape Breton and the rest of the peninsula. NFLD and Lab are divided between the Island and the mainland.

Where there is a fundamental difference in the way of life, divisions will occur.

 

[Jay]

Depends on what you mean by direct democracy

What I mean by "Direct Democracy" is: that instead of a representative being elected to speak and make ideas on behalf of the people, the people ourselves have direct input, or, in larger populations, can elect a delegate who cannot make any decisions, but just simply conveys the message of the electors. The delegate can also be removed at any time by the people.

It doesn't sound very stable, and we need leadership. We need someone to make tough decisions.

 

[Knightman]

Training the public in general to be more politically active and take intrest in things that affect them would take a great deal of effort and resources.

The edcuation would have to start at the school level. Possibly adopting a system of youth voting under the guidance of the teachers that have been trained to present the concepts. I am not talking here about left/right policies or issue specifics but rather presenting an overall idea of public responsibility towards civic duty and the need for involvment in things political.

We have become so passive here in Canada and our governments of the past and present have not done much to inspire us to get active. It has spawned the "what does it matter" attitude in many Canadians. The only time we see much activity is when the old "common enemy" theme comes around in some form or another and some folks manage to take notice.

If we wanted to bring about a change in political apathy one needs a place to start. Education from the get go is part of it. The other is putting in place a mechanism for continuous public awareness of political activities and a method to do somthing about it that is substantially more immidiate that voting every five years or whenever civic, provincial or federal elections come around.

One way to do this is to use electronic polling. Now many of you will throw up your hands and do the "oh sure that'll work" thing, but hear me out.

So far electronic polling/voting has been close to a failure in most places it has been used, Why? It is because the technology is flawed and it subject to manuplition by unscrupulous political factions. These shortcomings can be easly overcome. How? The old video arcade boys have taught this lesson already and if the systems followed that que it could be made to work. I can actually go into the hard technolgy behind it if required but let us say it is far superior to anything that has been developed so far. Reliable, robust, permanent installations in malls, corner stores, bars anywhere that you would see a V.L.T., Banking machine, or video entertainment terminal.

Voting and polling takes place 24/7/365 in this scheme, not as we have now with the paper ballot done whenever. Canada's big advantage over other countries in this regard is that we have a nationally standardized voting system in place already and people are used to it. Step A solved with that one.

Having said that, what comes next is developing the interest to show up to use a polling/voting machine in the first place. We would think that with television, radio, and the internet that the information flood would simply cause everyone to have political and policy savvy, but we know this is not the case. Our current generations are passive, we only need to look at the turn out rates for elections to know that and some form of inforced edcuation may be the way to improve that situation.

It would be a long term effort but for us to construct a better Canada an increase of political awarness is essential in my view.

 

[Gordon J Torture]

If we wanted to bring about a change in political apathy one needs a place to start. Edcuation from the get go is part of it.

I could not agree more. Education is the key, in more ways than one.

 

[Chake99]

I'd give it some more years before its viable.

Once internet and computers totally permeate society I do not see why everyone would not be able to vote. The problem of communication and thus the need for representatives is coming to an end.

Of course that does not mean that everyone would run society, just that everyone would vote on bills; people could still be elected to run the country, they would just need to hold a national referendum (online ) for anything to get passed.

 

[The Philosopher]

Direct Democracy (I presume my some sort of Internet voting system) would not work properly. I'm not sure anyone would actually vote against any bills and those that they vote against are those that directly affect them. If Newfoundland wants to allow Basque Fishers to fish off their coasts than Newfoundlanders will vote for this in folds... then you'd have very few against.

The problem is that most issues are in fact regional issues that can only be resolved as a "give and take" platform. I do think that referenda should be held for social (IE: gay marriage) or constitutional issues (IE: electing a senate) but not for regional issues.

 

[Knightman]

Re: RE: Direct Democracy, an option, or a Fairy tale?

Direct Democracy (I presume my some sort of Internet voting system) would not work properly. I'm not sure anyone would actually vote against any bills and those that they vote against are those that directly affect them. If Newfoundland wants to allow Basque Fishers to fish off their coasts than Newfoundlanders will vote for this in folds... then you'd have very few against.

One has to consider that regional concerns should be voted at only a regional or provincial level, not nationally.

The electronic voting system I mentioned earlier is NOT connected to the internet in any way, does not use the internet to transfer information it is a modem based direct dial multi-server/data storage system with redundant paper tape and digital media backups. The only connection to the interenet is in the form of a read only web page style copy of results and statatistics posted after a decision is closed.

The same machines can deal with local, civic, provincial, or federal issues at the same time so a vote on even a civic issue can be called for in a local area only.

This idea saves a great deal of tax dollars in the voting procedure.

The problem is that most issues are in fact regional issues that can only be resolved as a "give and take" platform. I do think that referenda should be held for social (IE: gay marriage) or constitutional issues (IE: electing a senate) but not for regional issues.

Any issue can be a "poll only" meaning collecting an opinion for further study that may be set to a vote at a later time. that gives us the best of both in terms of collecting public opinion for open debate in the provincial legislatures giving them hard numbers on which to base an decision. That also could give each member of the government a good idea of how thier paticular constituents feel about any issue.......

 

[The Philosopher]

IF people only regional people vote on regional issues then they have too much power. "I propose that St. John should get ten billion dollars for fixing a wrist watch."

St. John vote results:
99% in favor
1% undecided

In this regional election the entire country has been costed for a single bill in St. John. Any type of regional voting on spending is disasterous because as I have already stated the government "gives and takes." If you go to a regional decision on national spending it will all be taking.

BUT, if regional issues are not put into test then larger centres will vote all the stuff they want for themselves. The problem is maintaining a democracy while not submiting the will of the minority. I think our current system does that.

 

[Knightman]

Re: RE: Direct Democracy, an option, or a Fairy tale?

IF people only regional people vote on regional issues then they have too much power. "I propose that St. John should get ten billion dollars for fixing a wrist watch."

St. John vote results:
99% in favor
1% undecided

In this regional election the entire country has been costed for a single bill in St. John. Any type of regional voting on spending is disasterous because as I have already stated the government "gives and takes." If you go to a regional decision on national spending it will all be taking.

BUT, if regional issues are not put into test then larger centres will vote all the stuff they want for themselves. The problem is maintaining a democracy while not submiting the will of the minority. I think our current system does that.

You seem to be implying in your example here that there is no traditional form of governments in place to mediate, taper or discuss the issues? If so your correct it would be a big problem.

In the concepts I was speaking of, I was thinking there would be governments in place and functioning paticularly on the provincial level as I have mentioned in other threads here and the electronic voting would simply be a system for replacing our current voting methods.

As it is now issues are already decided, financed and implemented at the various govermental levels. provinces have little to do with a city's bylaw and infrastructure decisions. Province's make their decisions hopefully without any input from the federal level and so on.

I terms of a complete and totaly direct demorcracy with no formal governmental structures in place, no, it probably would not work well. As you pointed out here, greed could be a large factor why it would not............

 

[The Philosopher]

The provincial level definitely makes its decisions based on the Federal Level, its called equalization payments. Based on how much money the Federal give provincial proves how much they will spend. In our current system I do not think direct democracy could work. But with some sort of leadership and representitives involved it could work. Referenda have always worked as strong suggestions when people have no opinion. Acting on referenda could work.

 

[Huron]

Actually, this topic was discussed in some detail here:

http://www.canadiancontent.net/forums/about3058.html

Canadian citizens currently have no power to influence government decisions in any way. The one democratic power Canadians are allowed every few years is the opportunity to replace a government that failed to represent most citizen's views and interests with another government that will fail to represent most citizen's views and interests.

If this is what most Canadians are looking for from democracy, that's fine.

For those who might want more, there's absolutely no reason why DD couldn't work in Canada.