Citizens Assembly News Digest
January 17, 2008
Written by J.H. Snider
Saskatchewan Premier and Citizens Assembly Advocate Defeated; New
Zealand Parliament Debates and Defeats Citizens Assembly Legislation
This issue of the Citizens Assembly News Digest is divided into the following sections:
Launch of iSolon’s Citizens Assembly Forum
News Roundup
Since the last Citizens Assembly News Digest went out on October 19, citizens assembly stories have been centered in three hot zones: Ontario, Saskatchewan, and New Zealand. The defeat of the Citizens’ Assembly referendum in Ontario spurred several dozen follow-up editorials, op-eds, and letters-to-the-editor. Saskatchewan and New Zealand each saw about a dozen articles. Various odds and ends concerning citizens assemblies also appeared in British Columbia, Prince Edward Island, Alberta, Manitoba, California, Washington, Scotland, and the United Kingdom. In Australia, a related proposal called a “citizens parliament” got a fair bit of blurblike attention, but only on the inside news pages that relatively few people read.
Saskatchewan and New Zealand were the locations of the two major news developments. In Saskatchewan, Premier Calvert lost his re-election bid, thus making politically irrelevant his promise to institute a citizens assembly after his re-election.
In New Zealand, a citizens assembly amendment was proposed for a high profile electoral finance bill. The amendment was overwhelmingly defeated, but not before stimulating a vigorous debate in parliament and educating the country’s political movers and shakers that this was a new type of democratic reform option.
Saskatchewan
On October 19, 2007 Saskatchewan's Premier, Lornie Calvert, announced that if he was re-elected on November 7, 2007 he would convene a Citizens Assembly by May 7, 2008. A link to the press release is here.
The jurisdiction of Calvert’s proposed citizens assembly was different from and broader than the jurisdiction of the Ontario and British Columbia citizens assemblies. His electoral reforms included—in addition to representative models--fixed election dates, methods for increasing voter participation, and voting age.
On November 7, Calvert lost his re-election bid and with that defeat any hope that a citizens assembly would be instituted in Saskatchewan in the foreseeable future. Calvert’s proposal and his expected defeat were presumably linked. Already, by October 19, when he announced his proposal, Calvert was well behind in the polls. A reasonable inference, then, is that the proposed citizens assembly was a hail mary pass, the type of populist democratic reform proposal that underdogs are wont to introduce.
New Zealand
On December 5, New Zealand’s national Green Party introduced in parliament an amendment (“Supplemenatory Order Paper Number 170”) to the Electoral Finance Bill seeking to create a citizens assembly. The Electoral Finance Bill was a high profile, controversial, and long debated bill designed to fix some widely perceived campaign finance problems at the national level of government. The amendment went down to defeat with 10 members (the members of the Green and Maori parties) supporting it and 111 opposing it.
Two interesting aspects of the New Zealand legislation were the proposed citizens assembly’s jurisdiction and the debate that ensued about it. Unlike the British Columbia, Ontario, and Netherlands citizens assemblies, the proposed jurisdiction of this citizens assembly was campaign finance reform. In terms of proposed powers, it was more like the Netherlands than the British Columbia or Ontario Citizens Assemblies. In the Netherlands, the recommendations of the citizens assembly were purely advisory. In British Columbia and Ontario, they had the effective power to put their recommendations on the ballot in the form of a referendum. An additional proposed power for the New Zealand citizens assembly was to have its advisory report receive a formal, written, “ministerial response.” Here is the wording: “The Minister must respond to the report of the Citizen’s Assembly and present a copy of the response to the House of Representatives within 6 months of receiving the report.”
Attached below is the discussion in New Zealand’s
parliament on the citizens assembly amendment.
Parts of the discussion are humorous, including the
characterization of Canada as a “well known communist country” and the
author of the Canadian citizens assembly as a member of the “McGillicuddy
Serious Party.” Much of the
tone of the discussion is one of ridicule rather than serious reasoned
argument. At no point do the
opponents of a citizens assembly acknowledge that in
designing an electoral reform bill they might have a conflict of
interest. This is especially
noteworthy because each party repeatedly accuses the other of designing
a bill to favor its own electoral interests.
Even the advocates of using a citizens assembly as part of the
electoral reform process skirted the conflict of interest argument on
the floor of the legislature (less so in the press), perhaps because
they didn’t think it was a winning way to frame the issue.
In general, both advocates and opponents of the citizens assembly
amendment viewed a citizens assembly as a way to encourage public
participation. Framed this
way, the citizens assembly was pitted against other forms of public
participation such as hearings or expert advisory committees.
In my opinion, advocates of the citizens assembly amendment
failed to clearly state why, in this particular case, a citizens
assembly was the preferred method to foster public participation.
The text below is fairly wrong.
Those not interested in the details may want to skip this
indented section.
Advance Copy
(subject to
minor change before inclusion in Bound Volume)
Madam Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.
Prayers.
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House): Next week in the House priority will be
given to the completion of the Committee stage of the Electoral Finance
Bill, the third reading of the Education (Tertiary Reforms) Amendment
Bill, the remaining stages of the Taxation (Annual Rates, Business
Taxation, KiwiSaver, and Remedial Matters) Bill and the Dairy Industry
Restructuring Amendment Bill (No 2), and a range of first readings.
...
Debate resumed from 5 December.
...
METIRIA TUREI (Green): I want to talk to the Committee about the
Supplementary Order Paper the Greens have put forward on this part. It
is the only Supplementary Order Paper we have on this bill, and it is a
shame that Bill English is not able to address directly why he attacked
the idea so fiercely—the idea that the citizens of our country should
have a say in how our electoral campaign law should be determined.
Our Supplementary Order Paper establishes a
Citizens’ Assembly that would begin its work before the next general
election. It is a process similar to a jury whereby a number of citizens
are randomly selected from each electorate, so the idea is not
completely unusual in New Zealand. The assembly would include the Māori
electorates, and in our Supplementary Order Paper we have left it open
so that at least two people from every electorate—a man and a woman, we
would expect—would be on the assembly. It could be opened up for
possible Treaty implications that might be involved, as well.
Those people would be brought together by
the panel that we have also established in our Supplementary Order Paper
and that would do a great deal of work preparing information and support
systems for the Citizens’ Assembly. [Interruption] National is
not going to support it and I would really like to hear why it is so
opposed to this idea.
Our citizens would then work with the
secretariat. They would get the information about the different kinds of
electoral campaign from across the globe, as well as here in New
Zealand; look at all the issues; and determine what they believe would
be the best kind of election campaign financing system that our country
should have.
This is exactly what we need—a mechanism
for our citizens to be the decision makers. The assembly would report
back to the Minister on its findings, and the Minister and the
Government would then be expected to enact those findings. I do not
understand why the National Party could be so fiercely opposed, for no
good reason, to citizens having a say. Could it please, please let us
know. National Party members have said they would like greater public
involvement, and then, at the first opportunity they get to allow that,
they say no.
This assembly model was used in Canada. I
will briefly read from—
R Doug Woolerton: A well-known Communist country!
METIRIA TUREI: That is right; Canada is a well-known
Communist country! The chair of the Citizens’ Assembly, George Thomson,
who worked on that electoral system, said: “The Assembly members
constantly amazed me with their enthusiasm and deep commitment to the
task they were given. Throughout the eight-month process, not one member
withdrew from the Assembly. Members applied themselves to learning about
electoral systems. They talked to people in their communities about the
work of the Assembly and chaired public consultation meetings. Some
members read hundreds of written submissions. Others participated on
working groups to advise on the Assembly process or to do more research
in specific areas. Many used an online forum to share information and
discuss issues between meetings. By the time the Assembly began its
deliberations in February, it had become a community of people who cared
about one another and never lost sight of their common objective …
Assembly members approached their deliberations with open minds, respect
for different points of view, and in the spirit of the best kind of
collective problem-solving. They inspired the members of the public who
came to see them at work, and they inspired me.” That is from the chair
of the assembly from Canada.
It just goes to show that we can have faith
in the community to make these decisions. Canada is a great country—and
clearly the Citizens’ Assembly worked brilliantly for them—but New
Zealand is better. I believe that New Zealand is a much better country
than Canada. I reckon it is the best country in the world, and if
Canadians can do that kind of work and come up with the best kinds of
options, then our citizens can, as well.
Why does National not trust New Zealanders?
[Interruption] My colleague Nandor Tanczos is quite right; why do
National members not trust New Zealanders to make these decisions? Why
do they feel, despite everything they say about the public having a say,
that they cannot trust New Zealanders to have a say about their own
electoral system? Is it because the National Party has something to
hide? I suspect that is the case.
The National Party has a lot to hide. It
has a lot of fat back-pocket wallets to protect. National members do not
want the public to have a say about how the National Party can raise
money. They do not want the public to have a say about what the National
Party can spend its campaigning money on or when it can spend it,
because they are pretty frightened about what the public would say. The
public would say they want transparency. The public would say they want
a level playing field. The public would say they want controls on big
money.
Nandor Tanczos: They want the Business Roundtable to make
the rules.
METIRIA TUREI: That is exactly right; the National Party
wants the Business Roundtable to make these decisions and to be able to
provide it with all of that money. It does not want New Zealanders to
make that decision. What is the National Party’s problem?
...
JILL PETTIS (Labour): I want to start by giving a brief
response to the comments made by Metiria Turei from the Greens about a
review. The Government is not opposed to a review, but at this stage we
cannot support the detailed review as outlined by the Greens. In fact,
the Hon Mark Burton in his first reading speech announced that he
intended to establish a review of electoral administration and political
party funding. The Hon Mark Burton said that the panel would be
appointed and would report back by December 2008. We are most certainly
open to further discussion with the Greens and other support parties
about a review and what form this dialogue might include.
I ask National Party members whether,
instead of filibustering as they are, they will tell us what they
actually think about a Citizens’ Assembly. It has gone very quiet. They
have no answers; all they have are objections. They have no positive
comments to make at all about being forward-looking and future-thinking.
In fact all the filibustering by National members is because they were
caught out—they were caught with their fingers in the till. The National
Party, as Doug Woolerton said, used to play by the rules. It used to be
an honourable party, but it is so no longer. That is what all the
filibustering over there is about. National has been caught with its
fingers in the till. Its members are trying to talk clause by clause,
but their opposition has nothing to do with those clauses; it is about
getting their filthy little hands on anonymous money, on money from
covert, secret organisations that operate nefariously and illicitly in
our community. The National Party used to be a fair party until
“Desperate Don” and “Gerrymandering John” came along and tried to rort
the system. “Gerrymandering John” is desperate to get his hands on the
filthy moolah from those covert—
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): No, no. When speaking about members of
Parliament the member needs to speak of them by their proper name. I
just caution the member. [Interruption] We have not had a
warning, I guess, this afternoon, but when I am making a ruling on a
point of order it is helpful to have silence. I just say to the member
to watch the personal abuse. We have had a couple of cases of that this
afternoon; we do not want any more.
JILL PETTIS: Thank you for your guidance, Madam Chair,
because I would not want there to be any confusion. I am grateful for
the opportunity to have some clarification.
...
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore): I want to reflect on the speeches given
by New Zealand First and the Green Party, and the reason I want to do
that is this: they are in the Chamber propping up legislation being
proposed by the Government but that New Zealanders do not want. The
reason that New Zealanders do not want it is that they see it as an
assault on their democracy: their rights and freedom to participate. Yet
both the parties that have been speaking in support of the bill are
backing it on the basis that it is about fairness. I want to bring to
the attention of the Green Party the point of view of, for instance, the
Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society. It often becomes involved in
political debates like whether political parties should support Māui’s
dolphin and protect them. In fact, I had a visit from those people about
protecting Māui’s dolphin. I have to say to the Green Party that this
bill will effectively stop the organisation doing that, unless it goes
through a complicated and difficult procedure of registrations and then
running the risks of committing offences and being prosecuted.
Metiria Turei: Untrue.
Dr WAYNE MAPP: That is the point of clauses 120 and 125.
I need to explain, obviously, to the Green member why she does not
understand the law she is supporting. The only way the Royal Forest and
Bird Protection Society could run a campaign to protect Māui’s dolphin,
to engage the public interest, is to print pamphlets, hold public
meetings, maybe have radio ads, put ads in the newspaper, and the like.
If the organisation did that throughout New Zealand and held a dozen or
so meetings, then straight away, on that one issue alone, it would have
spent tens of thousands of dollars, which it would have had to gain from
its members. Do members know why?
Chris Auchinvole: Why?
Dr WAYNE MAPP: That is an issue that particular
political parties are identified with, and, indeed, they go so far as to
say: “Support those parties that will protect Māui’s dolphin.” That is
what the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society will do, and there are
many, many other concerned citizens’ organisations just like that. The
whole problem with this legislation is that it makes things much, much
harder for those organisations to do that. I will admit that it does not
make it impossible, but why put those organisations through the hoops?
Why force them to register? Why get them to record all of their
donations? Why put them at risk of being prosecuted?
Hon Annette King: They don’t have to.
Dr WAYNE MAPP: I hear the Minister saying no, but it
would be hugely helpful if she read the bill and understood that Subpart
5 does precisely that, as soon as one gets involved in any discussion,
which is about supporting a political party, or a group of parties, on a
particular issue, and that leads one directly into Part 3 and the
provisions around sanctions. The Green Party then said: “Well, we’re
going to support this legislation.”, but this legislation is designed to
restrict freedom, designed to limit debate, and actually designed to
help Labour get elected, as was quite clearly revealed by Jill Pettis.
Hon Darren Hughes: Citizens’ Assembly.
Dr WAYNE MAPP: So their excuse is: “Well, we will pass
the legislation to chill freedom, to stop debate, but our fix-up, our
‘solution’ is to have a Citizens’ Assembly.” They seem to think that
that will somehow make whole their deficiency. They are totally wrong.
It will be seen as the facile trick and device that it is. I just want
to tell the member of the Green Party what a Citizens’ Assembly actually
is. Everyone in this Chamber is a citizen. Every person here has been
elected. It is an assembly. This is the place where we debate the
legislation, and I just wish that the Green Party, in particular, and
the New Zealand First Party understood their obligation to New
Zealanders, and that is about freedom. These parties come into the House
specifically to represent the citizens—they would say the minorities.
Yet they are supporting legislation that will do the very opposite of
that; it will prevent those citizens’ groups from participating easily
in the election. They have constructed a whole apparatus of
registration, donations regimes, and so forth, and then on top of that
they say that the financial agent, under clause 119, of the third party
then is going to be liable to be prosecuted. How does that defend
freedom?
HEATHER ROY (Deputy Leader—ACT): I rise to speak to Part 3, and I too will
focus on clause 119, “Liability of candidates, party secretaries, and
third parties”. But before I move on to that I will make a comment on
the Green member who throughout Dr Mapp’s very excellent speech, I have
to say, called out repeatedly: “Why don’t you trust the people?”. This
whole bill is about the fact that Labour, New Zealand First, and the
Greens do not trust the people. Heavy-handed law and regulations are
being put in place because they have no trust in the people. Those
members do not trust people to have freedom of speech or to spend their
own money in the way that they see fit. Trust seems to be a commodity
that is in very short order in this House, and that is a terrible,
terrible statement on the state of our democracy.
With regard to the liability of candidates,
party secretaries, and third parties, who in their right mind would put
a hand up to be a party secretary? Certainly I would not. Let us look at
these liabilities. They were bad enough before this bill, but they are
even worse now. [Interruption] I do not think they do.
Chris Auchinvole: They’ll be dragged off to prison.
....
METIRIA TUREI (Green): I want to deal with a couple of other
matters on Part 3 that the Greens were very pleased to see changes made
to in the Justice and Electoral Committee. In particular, I refer to the
removal of a statutory declaration for spending less than the threshold
amount for third parties. This is an issue that all the minor parties
were keen to see changed. It means that people or groups do not have to
sign a statutory declaration if they want to spend money under the
threshold for listing as a third party. It did seem like an unnecessary
bureaucratic measure, so it was great that it was removed.
We are also very pleased with our advocacy
for strengthening the enforcement provisions for a corrupt
practice—which has already been talked about, to some extent—from a fine
of $40,000 to a fine of $100,000. This is very important to us because,
of course, it means that the police will take prosecutions and treat
them seriously when the consequence of the criminal or corrupt activity
is very high. So increasing those fines was a very important thing to
do, and the Electoral Commission supported us doing it.
I also refer again to the very good
Supplementary Order Paper 170, which establishes a Citizens’ Assembly, a
form of citizens’ jury, for our country. I take note of Mr Mapp’s very
poor analysis of the importance of having the public engaged in such a
process. I understand that he has been many years away from the legal
profession, and perhaps has lost a bit of his edge on that matter, but
it is very important to the Greens that the public have a say. We have
campaigned on this issue for a very long time—since the early stages of
this year.
Anne Tolley: So why not send the bill back?
METIRIA TUREI: Anne Tolley is interjecting on me. I
emailed Anne Tolley a copy of my Supplementary Order Paper that had
provision for a citizens’ jury incorporated into it. It took Anne Tolley
only 56 minutes to email me back. Do members know what she said? Did she
say that National would like to look at the Supplementary Order Paper
and consider the issues, or that she had read it and it was very
interesting but National had principled reasons for not agreeing to it?
No. Did she send me anything of use about why she thought that perhaps
it was not a good idea? No. There was no analysis, no
description—nothing. All she did, after 56 minutes of very poor
consideration, was to send me back an email that said “No”. “No” is what
Anne Tolley said. It took her 56 minutes to come to the conclusion that,
no, citizens should not have a say in how their campaign reform should
look.
Anne Tolley says that citizens should not
have a say about campaign finance reform. It took her 56 minutes to
dismiss the public of New Zealand. It took her 56 minutes to decide that
New Zealanders could not be trusted to make decisions about campaign
finance reform. Why is that? Why did it take her only 56 minutes to
decide? Hmm, let me see. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact
that the National Party is opposing anybody who is trying to make sure
that we have a transparent system in this country where the use of money
is clearly defined, where it is clearly understood to be part of the
corrupting process, and where there are clear caps on the way that money
is spent and on the massive amounts of secret trust money that the
National Party gets.
I feel very sad that National could be so
dismissive of the rights of citizens to make decisions about the nature
of their campaign finance. People have a right to make a decision that
political parties should not get anonymous donations from wealthy
organisations and people like those in the Business Roundtable, people
like David Richwhite—all of those people who have long reputations for
certain kinds of behaviour in New Zealand. National wants to be able to
keep the money coming from all of those kinds of people and from
organisations like the Business Roundtable, and it does not want New
Zealanders to have a say about it. I just find that so tragic. [Interruption]
Well, Wayne Mapp has no analysis.
I would like to hear from Anne Tolley why
it is she would take only 56 minutes to decide that New Zealanders
should have no say in electoral campaign finance reform. Is it because
she knows that if New Zealanders did have a say, they would say they
want more transparency, they want more control, and they want to know
where the secret money comes from? They would want National to tell them
who funds the party, who gave National $1.2 million from the Waitemata
Trust, and who gave National hundreds of thousands of dollars in secret
funds. The public want to know, but Anne Tolley does not want the public
to know. Anne Tolley said no to citizens having a say and no to the
community having an input into campaign finance reform. What is Anne
Tolley’s problem?
....
TIM GROSER (National): I take the floor in the first instance to
talk about Supplementary Order Paper 170 and the proposal of the Green
Party, put forward in the name of Metiria Turei, on a Citizens’
Assembly. Let me make this clear. Our assumption is that the Government
is not going to go there. But so great is the political pressure on the
Labour-led Government and so great is the confusion around this bill,
that we are simply not going to take that risk. So let us start by
looking at the purposes of the Citizens’ Assembly. The functions of
this—and I will focus just on the key operational point—are to review
the levels of transparency and accountability of candidates and parties,
and other persons engaged in elections. Who will the members of the
Citizens’ Assembly be? There will be at least two registered voters,
randomly selected from each of the Māori and general electorates.
Imagine this. This is a bill of such complexity that the Minister
herself has admitted she does not understand it. It is a bill of such
complexity that Helena Catt, the chief executive of the Electoral
Commission, says she does not understand it. But at least these two
persons drawn from each of the electorate lists—at random, I repeat—will
be able to clarify it.
We have to understand the political origins
of the author of this proposal. I did a bit of research on Wikipedia
because I was wondering about the place of the McGillicuddy Serious
Party in this whole process. I found out, to my surprise, that the
author of this proposal was a member, originally, of the McGillicuddy
Serious Party. We have to understand that the criterion of policies for
the McGillicuddy Serious Party was that it “selected its policies on the
basis of their absurdity and their impracticality.” Let me make this
clear. First of all, I regard this party as having made a unique and
important contribution to New Zealand’s politics. If we have lost our
sense of humour, we have lost everything. Secondly, in no way do I in
any way hold Metiria Turei responsible for moving her political views.
After all, Dr Mapp and I were momentarily members of the Labour Party.
But, in line with basic evolutionary theory, we expect evolution to move
up the food chain to higher levels of sophistication. I seriously have
to ask whether the author of this paper is a little confused and still
thinks that she should be applying that criterion for policy now that
she has moved into the New Zealand Parliament. This amendment would be
an absolute disaster, and we implore—my favourite word this
afternoon—the Labour Party not to go there.
I now wish to move to clause 119, and the
matter of the financial agent. My own feeling is that the person who is
selected as the financial agent has to be either a person of unsurpassed
naivety or one with a heroic sense of martyrdom.
John Carter: Or both.
....
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House): I move,
That the question be now put.
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): I think we have been adequately informed
in the debate on Part 3. The question is that the question be now put.
ANNE TOLLEY (Senior Whip—National): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson.
I would like to point out that I have not taken a call on this part, and
the Green member, in particular, has spoken at length about my actions
in regard to her Supplementary Order Paper 170, and I ask you for the
opportunity to reply to her questions of me in this part.
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): That is an interesting twist.
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House): I raise a
point of order, Mr Chairperson. The member raises a very fair point, and
I suggest perhaps that we might take leave for the member, since you had
started putting the motion, to have one speech and then for the closure
motion be put.
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): I do not need any more help on this. I
will take it upon myself to call Anne Tolley.
ANNE TOLLEY (National—East Coast): Thank you, Mr Chairman. I would like to
speak to Supplementary Order Paper 170 presented by the Green member,
Metiria Turei, who was a member of the Justice and Electoral Committee.
Yesterday she sent me an email in my capacity as the senior whip for the
National Party. I think she made much in her speech of the fact that it
had taken me 56 minutes to send her a one-word reply of “No”—that we
would not support that amendment. Well, I would actually like to let
that member know, and the Committee, that, in fact, it took much less
than that. I did not see the email for 55½ minutes, so it really took me
only 30 seconds to consult and decide that we would not support that
amendment. Members might ask why.
Well, I am prepared to tell the Committee
why the National Party will not support that Supplementary Order Paper.
I refer to a letter that the select committee received from the Chief
Human Rights Commissioner, Rosslyn Noonan. I would just like to read
what she said in point 30: “Many of the substantial concerns of
submitters are likely to be addressed in redrafting.” So this was during
the select committee process. We had heard submissions, we had had some
discussion about some changes, and a whole lot of issues had been raised
by various members of the select committee, and some changes had been
suggested. She said: “The committee now faces the challenge of how the
rationale for recommended changes, and the opportunity for further
improvement, is incorporated into its processes. The commission
considers that public concerns would be best addressed by a further
round of public consultation on a redrafted version of the bill.” That
is the position of the National Party. We argued that matter during the
select committee and I stand in the Committee to reply to the Green
member in relation to her Supplementary Order Paper that that is not the
way to address the public having an opportunity to have a say on this
bill.
The Human Rights Commissioner has said the
commission believes that having substantially redrafted that bill it
should go back for public debate. It should go back for another round of
submissions. During the select committee hearing the Green member was
loud and vociferous in denying that opportunity to the public of New
Zealand. For her then to come to the Committee with a Supplementary
Order Paper that sets up a quasi-public process of redebating this bill
2 months after it comes into effect is an absolutely calculated act to
manipulate the process—
Chris Auchinvole: Gerrymandering
ANNE TOLLEY: Absolutely, and the word has been used
here earlier tonight by someone trying to make fun of one of the members
on this side. But I would say that Supplementary Order Paper 170
represents gerrymandering of the public democratic system more than
anything else I have heard from that member.
I thank you, Mr Chairperson, for the
opportunity to reply to the Green member, and I would just like to
reiterate that it is the National Party’s position that we follow the
recommendation of the Human Rights Commission, which is to put this bill
out for another round of public submissions. It is not too late for the
Committee to decide to do that.
We can make sure that the public have the
opportunity to have another say on a bill that is almost entirely
different from what it was when over 600 members of the public made
submissions on it. It is an entirely different bill. The most reasonable
thing that this Committee could do at this time of the year would be to
send this bill back out for another round of public submissions and
stick with the Auditor-General’s rules. They are quite clear. We all
understand them this time round. We could quite easily go through the
2008 election under those rules that have been so very clearly spelt out
in this House and through the Speaker’s’ directions for all parties.
Thank you, Mr Chairperson, for the
opportunity to reply to the Greens member. The National Party’s position
is that we do not support the Supplementary Order Paper from the Greens.
We support the Human Rights Commission in relation to sending this out
for a further round of public submissions. We support democracy.
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Deputy Leader of the
House): I move,
That the question be now put.
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): The question is that the question be now
put.
...
The question was put that the amendment set
out on Supplementary Order Paper 170 in the name of Metiria Turei to
insert new Subpart 1A be agreed to.
A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be
agreed to.
Ayes 10
Green Party 6;
Māori Party 4.
Noes 111
New Zealand
Labour 49; New Zealand National 48; New Zealand First 7; United Future
2; ACT New Zealand 2; Progressive 1; Independents: Copeland, Field.
Amendment not agreed to.
The House adjourned at 5.56 p.m.
Advance Copy
(subject to
minor change before inclusion in Bound Volume)
KEITH
LOCKE (Green):....
The Electoral Finance Bill is not a perfect bill. Everyone knows
that, and that is why the Green Party is putting forward the idea of a
Citizens’ Assembly, assisted by experts, to have a look at this whole
question, and to a large extent to take out of the hands of politicians
the control of how election financing is determined. We do have
self-interests, and I think it would be good if the public could play a
greater role in determining the restrictions on election funding—how
they take place, and how they take place in the best way to enable free
speech. That is my view. We have a model in the United States of what
happens without that. Thank you.
Advance Copy
(subject to
minor change before inclusion in Bound Volume)
METIRIA
TUREI (Green):... In New
Zealand we seem to have accepted that there is a situation of donations
to political parties, provided that the donation, the giver, and the
receiver are known—that is, disclosure is the key for us. The Greens, to
the best extent we could negotiate, have ensured that we have severely
restricted the capacity for anonymous donations to be made to political
parties, so that the public can know more about who is funding their
political representatives and their political campaigns, and can then
assess their policy positions in response. We have exposed the secret
trusts to the disinfectant of sunlight. We have exposed the rorts of the
2005 election and we do not want those rorts to happen again. We have
closed those loopholes. For parties that are in Government, such public
scrutiny of funders and policy preferences is critical, and the Greens
have made that scrutiny by the public easier through the provisions in
this legislation.
The Greens will continue to work for better campaign
funding law. This legislation does not do everything right, and we need
better work done. That is why we have advocated so strongly for a
citizens’ assembly. A citizens’ assembly would comprise two people
selected from each electorate, who would work together as a group with
advisers and a secretariat to consider New Zealand’s historical
situation and comparable jurisdictions. It would hold public hearings,
and would work towards developing a new campaign funding law that is
about the New Zealand situation. This is what we have been advocating
for nearly a year. Such an assembly would enable the citizens of our
country to devise election funding rules that meet the changing needs of
a society that is sophisticated and technologically savvy, but that at
heart upholds the founding principles of the parliamentary democracy our
forebears brought to this country—principles of transparency, equality,
and fairness. In short, we need Kiwi politicians with no strings
attached.
The press picked up on the idea that democratic reforms tend to be done
in a politically self serving way for the parties in power:
[T]he bill has been written and rewritten in the back rooms of the Beehive with Labour's prime motivation being the short-term political imperative of knobbling National's financial advantage in the run-up to next year's election. Labour's self-serving behaviour and departure from the norm of cross-party co-operation when writing electoral law made a gift of the moral high ground to National even though National's objections to the bill could likewise be regarded as self-serving. (“When a little humility could go a long way,” New Zealand Herald, December 1, 2007)
But that cynicism about a conflict of interest didn’t necessarily
translate into support for the citizens assembly proposal.
The same author in the same article above dismiisses the citizens
assembly proposal simply by observing: “It is unlikely any other party
in Parliament would support an untested mechanism on something so
important.”
Ontario
After Ontario voters rejected the citizens assembly’s referendum on
October 7, I expected that after a few days newspaper coverage of it
would disappear. As it
turned out, that was not the case.
The defeat spurred a spate of commentaries and
letters-to-the-editor trying to make sense of what happened.
As with the arguments used before the referendum, virtually all the
commentators wanted to focus on the strengths and weaknesses of the
Ontario Citizens’ Assembly’s MMP proposal rather than the strengths and
weaknesses of the citizens assembly process itself.
One new angle was how the seat distribution in parliament would
have been different if MMP had already been in place.
Another new angle was how the vote tally would have been
different if all the voters had been educated about the strengths and
weaknesses of the MMP proposal.
Specifically, political scientists Fred Cutler and Patrick
Fournier projected that, based on the voting patters of those informed
and uninformed about the MMP proposal, if all had been informed the
referendum, it would have passed with 63% of the vote:
There was latent potential support for MMP…. Just before voting day, two-thirds were aware that a referendum was taking place and the same proportion said they knew something about MMP. But useful knowledge about the proposal was rare. Less than one-third knew MMP makes multiparty governments more likely. Less than half were aware that MMP makes votes and seats proportional, that it would give seats to more parties, and that it involves two votes….
Could referendum support have reached the 60 per cent threshold if voters had been fully informed about both? We can simulate the outcome if all citizens had known: (1) that MMP would give voters two votes, elect some members whose names never appear on a ballot, produce proportional outcomes with more parties and infrequent majorities; and (2) that assembly members "were ordinary Ontarians," "had an equal chance of being chosen," "represented all parts of Ontario," "became experts on electoral systems," and that "most members wanted what's best for all Ontarians" (rather than themselves).
Under these conditions, our data indicate the result would have been 63 per cent for MMP and 37 per cent for the existing system - exactly the mirror image of the actual outcome. (“Why Ontarians Said No to MMP,” Globe and Mail, October 25, 2007)
George Thomson,
the Chair of the Ontario Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform, wrote
the following commentary, published in the
Toronto Star:
As chair of Ontario's first Citizens' Assembly that produced the proposal, I had the unique privilege of watching 103 Ontarians dedicate themselves over an eight-month period to the task of examining the current system and those that might replace it.
While their proposal fell far short of the 60 per cent approval threshold, the success of the Citizens' Assembly should not be judged by that outcome. The assembly members - randomly selected citizens from each of Ontario's electoral districts - performed a valuable public service by reviewing our electoral system in place since 1792 and putting forward an alternative model for the voters to consider. They also showed that "ordinary people" can learn, consult, and formulate options on complex issues….
What I hope most of all is that we recognize the enormous value of the Citizens' Assembly and other methods of involving Ontarians in the democratic process. In my long career, I have never observed an attempt to engage the broader public that approached the level of commitment, enthusiasm and self-sacrifice shown by the members of the Citizens' Assembly. These randomly selected Ontarians inspired all those who came to observe them in their work. One look at the low turnout in this election should make us all eager for more opportunities to inspire citizens to participate so directly in our democracy. (Bad Timing Undermined Exercise in Democracy,” Toronto Star, October 24, 2007).
Trying to squeeze lemonade from lemons, the Fraser Institute’s Gordon Gibson argued in an email to me that the defeat of the referendum may paradoxically build political support for citizens assemblies among elected officials. That is because elected officials will now know the public will not automatically endorse a citizens assembly’s recommendations, especially if the recommendation is a clunker. As a Senior Fellow at the Fraser Institute, Gibson has also written a policy brief, Citizens’ Assemblies: A New Kind of Direct Democracy (Fraser Institute, November 2007), making the case for using the citizens assembly process.
Australia
On 24 September 2007, Australia’s Minister for
Education Science and Training announced that the
Australian
Research Council, a branch of the Australian Government, would
provide $300,000 in Australian money to the partnership of newDemocracy
Foundation (http://www.newdemocracy.com.au/,
Australian National University, University of Sydney, and Murdoch
University, for support for a “Citizens Parliament.”
The citizens parliament backers cite the Canadian citizens
assemblies as a precedent (see Lyn Carson’s essay,
Creating
Democratic Surplus through Citizens’ Assemblies, in the current
issue of the Journal of Public
Deliberation).
The project has some citizens assembly elements: it is government
endorsed, addresses democratic reform issues, and is based on a broad
cross section of Australians with randomly selected representatives from
every electoral district.
However, there are also important differences: it will operate on a
shoestring budget, is purely advisory, asks for much less commitment on
the part of participants, and has less official standing than even the
Netherlands citizens assembly.
Recognizing these limitations, the backers decided not to call
the deliberative body a citizens assembly, even if their ultimate goal
is to spur the creation of such a body; they are just doing as much as
they practically can right now.
This strategy of accepting halfway measures in order to actually
accomplish something is not without risk.
If by pursuing grand ambitions with minimal resources, their odds
of failure increase, then the project could backfire.
Citizens assemblies are VERY, VERY, VERY expensive undertakings.
I’m crossing my fingers that the citizens parliament will be a
valuable education project for the public and lead to an even more
ambitious citizens assembly like projects in the future.
Lyn Carson sent me the following brief description of the Citizens’
Parliament as funded by the government (see also newDemocracy’s
Information Sheet):
The organizers hesitate to describe this minipublic as a Citizens’
Assembly because it is not convened by government. They consider that
the term “Citizens’ Assembly” is best restricted to those that conform
to the BC model. This is an ambitious project nevertheless and has many
attributes that invite a comparison with the Citizens’ Assembly method.
The project emerged from the activities of the newDemocracy Foundation, a
not-for-profit organisation in Australia
http://www.newdemocracy.com.au/ The project has been strengthened
recently by a research grant of AUD300K that was awarded by the
Australian Government (via an Australian Research Council-Linkage
grant). The collaborative project involves researchers from three
Australian universities:
Participants for the Citizens’ Parliament with be
drawn randomly from each of 150 electoral districts. They will
participate online, by telephone and face-to-face in regional meetings
(commencing August 2008), then come together for a four-day event in
February 2009. The charge that participants will address will be broader
than any of the Citizens’ Assemblies that have been convened to date.
For example, the Canadian Citizens’ Assemblies have examined voting
systems only, the Australian Citizens’ Pariament will address the
question: How could
The announcement that the government would fund a
citizens parliament got a fair bit of mostly blurblike press coverage—on
the inside newspaper pages—when it was announced in late October.
Since then, the mainstream press has ignored it.
In the blogosphere it has generated more notice but little
passion or sustained argument either for or against.
Elsewhere
Elsewhere, citizens assembly advocates continue trying to put citizens assembly based democratic reform on the public agenda. In general, citizens assemblies are only being proposed in English speaking countries, although it’s possible that I’m missing citizens assembly proposals in other countries due to my language limitations. I may very well be like the drunk who drops his keys while walking to his car, then only looks for them under the lamppost because that is where the light is.
Among English speaking countries, Canada remains the hotbed of citizens assembly proposals, with stories of new proposals cropping up in Alberta (“Advocacy group targets government's massive public affairs wing,” Edmonton Sun, December 28, 2007) and Prince Edward Island (“Group Wants Reform Body,” Guardian, October 29, 2007 ) in addition to ongoing stories in Ontario, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia. In the U.S., California, Utah, and Washington State had op-eds supporting citizens assembly based reform. In the UK, I saw my first op-ed supporting citizens assembly based reform in Scotland (“Truly handing political power to the people,” The Herald, December 27, 2007), which today arguably has more interest in innovative democratic reforms than any other region in the world except perhaps the Basque region of Spain and the small country of Estonia.
In the U.S., a noteworthy new/revised citizens
assembly proposal comes from
Citizens for U.S. Direct Initiatives.
Although a number of academics have proposed citizens assembly
based vetting of initiatives, this is the first time I’ve seen a
practitioner attempt to implement the idea.
My guess is that the main reason other practitioners haven’t come
forward with this proposal is that it requires a constitutional
amendment, which is too much of a longshot for most grantmakers and
short-term oriented public policy advocates.
I’d encourage the author of this proposal to shift his focus to
the state level, where the obstacles to implementing a citizens assembly
based referendum are less daunting.
He also needs to shorten and polish his argument.
Some Noteworthy Trends
A trend among the current batch of citizens assembly democratic reform proposals is more flexibility on the jurisdiction of the citizens assembly. Citizens assembly advocates are trying to tailor their proposals to whatever democratic reform issue is already on the table in a particular region. The result is that the citizens assembly proposal in New Zealand addresses campaign finance reform whereas in California it addresses redistricting reform and in Scotland general constitutional reform.
Another trend is that advocates of small parties, such as the Green, Maoiri, and Libertarian parties, have been the biggest advocates of citizens assembly based democratic reform. The clear motive of all these parties is enhanced power, as they see citizens assemblies as a vehicle to create electoral rules benefiting smaller parties.
To date, all the majority parties that have supported a citizens assembly were in the minority when they promised to institute a citizens assembly if elected. The major apparent exception would be Saskatchewan, where the premier was already in power. But he only promised a citizens assembly when his leading opposition party had a double digit lead in the polls less than a month before the election. What this pattern does suggest is that politicians intuitively recognize that citizens assemblies are a politically popular idea but not one necessarily good for incumbents.
Launch of iSolon’s Citizens Assembly Forum
iSolon.org has launched a citizens assembly discussion forum. This is a forum for practitioners and academics to tout their work and learn from each others’ work. I’m assuming that enough of you are or will be doing work related to citizens assemblies—work that you will want others to know about—that this forum will have a chance of one day meeting it goals. The easiest way to get to the forum is to go to iSolon.org’s home page and click the Citizens Assembly Forum (beta) link in the table of contents.
The forum is intended to complement iSolon’s two other citizens assembly projects: its News Digest (which you are reading) and its website clearinghouse. The difference between the News Digest and the Forum is that the former is under my strict editorial control and only comes out occasionally. The Forum is decentralized and allows registered users to create their own custom news by subscribing to posts in a specific forum or topic.
The difference between the website clearinghouse and the Forum is that the former is codified information under my editorial control. The geographic structure of the Forum gives it a measure of codification but not enough for impatient people who need to get key facts quickly. I will occasionally shift around subforums and topics to improve the overall organization of the Forum, but the Forum will probably be an inefficient place for people to go who are looking for quick facts.
I hope to use the postings on the Forum as relatively raw information to bolster both the News Digest and clearinghouse. Before writing the News Digest, I will look at all the postings since the last newsletter for information that I believe will be of interest to the News Digest’s audience. Similarly, I hope the information in the Forum will help me strengthen the website clearinghouse.
I welcome your feedback on ways to improve the Forum. The Forum will not be my last attempt to use new technology to foster a community of those interested in citizens assembly based democratic reform. Expect me to fine tune the Forum and perhaps add some major new features over the coming year.
Note that the Forum interface is available in about 15 different languages—all the major languages of the developed world (registered users pick their preferred language during registration and can change it any time by going to the User Control Panel). I’m hoping that the international flavor will encourage citizens assembly academics and practitioners from outside the English speaking countries to contribute to the Forum. Even posts in foreign languages aren’t necessarily as daunting for English speaking readers as they would have been a short while ago. With Google’s free translation service, it’s now possible to get an idea of what an article is about even if it’s written in a foreign language.
Please don’t just be a lurker or wall flower. Please use this Forum to let this community know what you are doing. For example, I hope that Fred Cutler (University of British Columbia) and Patrick Fournier (Universite de Montreal) will post their article analyzing the results of the Ontario citizens assembly election; that Lyn Carson will describe the ambitions of Australia’s newDemocracy organization; that Gordon Gibson will post a link to his new policy brief on citizens assemblies; and that Ted Becker will describe his interest in publishing articles on citizens assemblies in the Journal of Public Deliberation.
Right now I’ve set up the Forum so that anyone can peruse it but only registered users can post to it. It’s easy to register, but if people think that extra step is likely to suppress the contribution of useful information, please let me know.
Personal
For the spring semester (January through May 2008),
I will be a Fellow at the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics &
Public Policy, located at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of
Government in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
In addition to this being a great learning and professional
experience for me, it will give me an opportunity to spend some time
with my daughter, Pallas, who is a sophomore at Harvard College majoring
in Social Studies (which focuses on the interdisciplinary study of the
great social theorists).
I’m also pleased to report that my politically sophisticated 17 year old daughter, Sage, has been accepted into Yale University as part of its early action program. Earlier this year she was one of two students from Maryland selected to participate in the U.S. Senate Youth Program. She has also been serving as a school board member with full voting rights in a school district with a $1 billion budget and 10,000 employees.
Next Issue
Barring some major unexpected development, the next issue of the Citizens Assembly News Digest won’t be published before late March. By then, I hope to have fine tuned the Citizens Assembly Forum. I also hope there will be some posts on the Forum that will serve as news for the News Digest. In the next issue, I also hope to launch an occasional book review section. I will only review books that have at least one chapter devoted to the citizens assembly phenomenon. The first book will be Designing Deliberative Democracy: The British Columbia Citizens' Assembly (Cambridge University Press), which has an expected publication date of February 29, 2008.
Newspaper and Blog Articles
Articles on Citizens Assemblies--Cites
No. |
Results |
1 |
Democracy can be new and improved |
2 |
Democracy can be new and improved |
3 |
Democracy can be new and improved |
4 |
Democracy can be new and improved |
5 |
Democracy can be new and improved |
6 |
Democracy can be new and improved |
7 |
Democracy can be new and improved |
8 |
Democracy can be new and improved |
9 |
Seniors want benefits restored |
10 |
Non-Republicans cheated out of
fair representation |
11 |
Advocacy group targets
government's massive public affairs wing |
12 |
Truly handing political power to
the people |
13 |
ACTING ON CLIMATE FROM GROUND UP |
14 |
Electoral Finance Bill: In their
own words |
15 |
DEBATE ON CONTROVERSIAL BILL SET
TO DRAG ON TO NEXT WEEK |
16 |
DRAWN OUT DEBATE MEANS PARLT
MIGHT SIT UNTIL WEEK BEFORE XMAS |
17 |
readers views |
18 |
Electoral reform is unfinished
business |
19 |
John Armstrong: When a little
humility could go a long way |
20 |
People, not parties |
21 |
People, not parties |
22 |
The fight is far from over |
23 |
Electoral reform redux |
24 |
POLITICAL DISPATCHES |
25 |
An interesting concept lost in a
sea of apathy |
26 |
Jim Hopkins: Give me a starring
role in a remake of Kill Bill |
27 |
In the provincial election, the
voters spoke - very quietly |
28 |
Labour fumbles its chances for
reform |
29 |
People spoke . . . quietly |
30 |
Tory would have been sitting
prettier under MMP |
31 |
Tories would have benefited most
if MMP system had been in place |
32 |
Tory would have been setting
prettier under Mixed Member |
33 |
Legislation could have gone
further - Greens |
34 |
Election reform debate continues |
35 |
Tories would have made big gains
under MMP |
36 |
Tough to call this democracy |
37 |
Tory would've been sitting
prettier under MMP |
38 |
Greens say decision belongs to
the people |
39 |
DISPEL VOTER DISTRUST: LET
CITIZENS TACKLE REDISTRICTING REFORM |
40 |
Lessons to be learned from
referendum |
41 |
Senate has hidden virtues |
42 |
Lessons to be learned from
referendum |
43 |
There was no demand for electoral
reform |
44 |
Stop party tricks |
45 |
Fair Vote Ontario wants MMP back
on the table |
46 |
Enshrine workable format of
debates in elections law |
47 |
The case for PR in SK |
48 |
'This issue is not dying' |
49 |
Is electoral reform dead in
Canada?; If Canadians are so dissatisfied with our current
system of electing governments, why do recent elections show us
unwilling to embrace change? |
50 |
Fair Vote Ontario wants MMP back
on the table |
51 |
Citizens' Assemblies: A New Kind
of Direct Democracy |
52 |
Citizens' assembly can achieve
reform |
53 |
Candidates try to raise interest
of students |
54 |
Green party stresses empowerment |
55 |
Mixed reviews on MMP defeat |
56 |
No time available to explain MMP |
57 |
Smart move in Kanata; Firm is
bullish on making a profit building display screens in Canada |
58 |
Why Ontarians said no to MMP |
59 |
Advisory body on vote reform
needs clear agenda |
60 |
Ontario voters missed a great
opportunity |
61 |
MMP was designed to fail, let's
bury it |
62 |
Bad timing undermined exercise in
democracy |
63 |
Thanksgiving leftovers still on
the menu |
64 |
Unfair electoral system was done
on purpose |
65 |
Green Party appeal broad, leader
says |
66 |
Elections Ontario boss wouldn't
change how referendum was run |
67 |
Elections Ontario boss says he
wouldn't change how referendum was run |
68 |
Referendum campaign perfect:
Elections Ontario boss |
69 |
Elections boss unfazed by critics |
70 |
Elections Ontario boss defends
referendum plan |
71 |
Ontario vote defended |
72 |
Finish sulking |
73 |
Toward a new democracy |
74 |
How MMP electoral system would
have worked on Oct. 10 |
75 |
Post-mortem on failed referendum
begins |
76 |
Elections Ontario boss says he
wouldn't change how referendum was contested |
77 |
Elections head unfazed by critics |
78 |
'Non-confidence vote in our
democracy' |
79 |
Elections Ontario boss says he
wouldn't change how referendum was run |
80 |
Electoral reform process flawed
from beginning |
81 |
Is that ripened wheat, or just a
little bird's white butt? |
82 |
Fighting to be in front |
83 |
Assembly would look into fixed
election dates |
84 |
Fair vote effort lives on |
85 |
Still some leftovers to chew on |
86 |
Calvert proposes citizens tackle
reform; Democratic process would get makeover |
87 |
Sask. Party has advantage -- on
paper |
88 |
Sask Party platform puts cap on
civil service, more cops on the street |
89 |
A strong base |
Articles on Australia's Proposed Citizens Parliament--Cites
No. |
Results |
1 |
The Stump; Decision '07 |
2 |
Project exploring new democratic
ideas a good step |
3 |
STUDY PROJECT; Citizens'
parliament |
4 |
YOU DECIDE 2007 Who to elect? |
5 |
Fed: Citizens' parliament
launched to overhaul political system |
Newspaper Articles
Democracy
can be new and improved
London Free Press - Canada
On a provincial level, moves such as the 160-member citizen assembly
panel debate on BC's provincial electoral system demonstrate the
intransigence of ...
Non-Republicans
cheated out of fair representation
Salt Lake Tribune - United States
... I encourage them to support the creation of a citizens'
assembly on electoral reform here in Utah similar to one convened
in British Columbia in 2004. ...
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY - Calling for a U.S.
Citizens' Initiatives ...
An independent Citizens' Assembly, responsible only to the
People, deliberates and chooses worthy Initiatives for the federal
election ballots
Blogs—Ontario
National Coalition for Dialogue
& Deliberation
Snider (www.isolon.org) has
an excellent and thorough analysis of the news coverage of the
referendum. He looks at three competing accounts of why the ...
New voting system goes down to defeat
...
a former research director for the New America Foundation who recently
left the respected Washington think-tank to start his own foundation,
iSolon.org. ...
National Coalition for Dialogue &
Deliberation
Jim Snider (www.isolon.org)
has an excellent and thorough analysis of the news coverage of the
referendum. He looks at three competing accounts of why the ...
Citizens Assembly - Forum
Further analysis: http://www.isolon.org/.
Posted by Raymond Lorenz - Aurora, Ont. on 29 Nov 07 at 12:47 PM (Last
edited on 02 Dec 07 at 9:48 PM) ...
http://www.tvo.org/cfmx/tvoorg/citizensassembly/index.cfm?page_id=321&action=viewThread&forum_thread_id=3429&forum_id=1
|
Topic: Legitimate electoral review process? |
1. The Ontario government clearly chose BC's 'citizens-directed'
process over New Zealand's 'multiple-choice' referendum process
for its 'electoral review'. The legitimacy of this style of
process is lost when the citizens' voices are artificially
removed from the final public deliberation. It is possible, and
likely, that had the assembly known about the ban on "advocacy
material" in advance, a simpler, more "intuitive" electoral
model would have been chosen. Up until the end of the
deliberation phase, the assembly received reassurances from the
government that there would be an extensive 'public education'
campaign.
2. The 60/60 referendum thresholds were chosen by the governing
party, not independently. These thresholds were not necessarily
chosen with the interests of Ontarians in mind and therefore,
are problematic. (I would suggest that a judge, a citizens'
jury, or another independent body would be better able to
determine 'the interests of Ontarians'.) I would also point out
that the multi-party Select Committee on Electoral Reform
recommended a more reasonable referendum threshold of 50%+1 with
a majority in two-thirds of ridings. (The 60/60
thresholds are problematic, because they disenfranchise certain
social sectors...or devalue their votes. For example, polling
has suggested that the younger voters voted overwhelmingly in
favour of MMP:
http://www.fairvotecanada.org/files/news%20release%20-%20oct%2011%202007%20-%20results.pdf Why
should the votes of older Ontarians count more than those of
the younger voters aged 18-34?)
3. A principles-based 'electoral review' process can
be legitimate. Unfortunately, in this electoral review, the MMP
model was NOT presented as the fruit of sincere,
principles-based deliberations. There was no effort made to
inform the public about the balance of principles and values
that shaped the citizens' proposal.
4. The 'perception of bias' became an issue for the government
executive only a few months before the referendum. Elections
Ontario, of course, was chosen by the government to agree with
this 'perception of bias'. As a result, printed citizens'
assembly brochures & reports were banned as "advocacy
materials". What was missing was due consideration being
given to the more important public decisions which were already
in place. Was the ban on assembly-based literature really
done in the public interest? Or, was the ban a subtle way to
change the original 'terms of reference' for
this 'citizen-driven process'? (I would suggest that Elections
Ontario, because of its narrow, election-centred focus, was the
wrong choice to oversee issues related to governance. The issue
of printing assembly reports/brochures should have been taken up
with a non-governmental body such as this:
http://www.iog.ca/about_us.asp or through some kind
of 'outside' mediation process.) The perception left by the
cabinet is that it is legitimate for one independent body
(Elections Ontario) to arbitrarily 'manage' the voice of another
independent body (the Citizens' Assembly), without the informed
(or implied) consent of the original body.
5. Up until April 2007, the expectation was that the citizens'
assembly process used in BC would be followed in Ontario.
Ontario government discussions centred around 'improving' on the
precedent set in BC by providing for an even better public
education campaign. Suddenly, in June 2007, Elections Ontario
stripped the assembly of its public powers, which had
included the capacity to protect its proposal from neglect and
misunderstanding, as well as the ability to provide principled
public justification for the decisions. In BC, on the other
hand, the citizens' assembly voice was given direct access to
the public:
http://www.citizensassembly.bc.ca/public/news/2004/12/dmaclachlan-3_0412101016-741
6. The objective placed before assembly members in this
particular electoral review was NOT to select the 'most popular'
alternative electoral system, and then to put the
'winning' design on the referendum ballot. Rather, it was
to educate & empower these average citizens to design and/or
recommend what they believed to be the BEST electoral system for
Ontario. Very little public communication is required to
determine the 'most popular' electoral system for Ontario. Much
more communication is required when the BEST electoral system
for Ontario is based on a higher, more complex, and
holistic type of reasoning. (The guidance from the
government directed that deliberations be based on principles
first, and design content afterwards). This is where the
referendum awareness campaign totally missed the point.
7. The 'independence' of the assembly process from the
government was supposed to be a special feature of this
particular electoral review. A good test of how well this
particular commitment was realized is to ask assembly members if
they felt their proposal had reached the public accurately &
without government interference.
8. The 'independence' of the process can also be measured by
asking procedural experts (or even average Ontario voters),
if they felt that the citizens' assembly proposal should have
been accompanied by a printed CA-approved report addressed to
the people of Ontario. Common sense & protocol dictates
that this was missing in the relationship of the assembly
members to their fellow citizens.
9. The vast majority of Ontarians did not even know the report
existed (even online):
http://www.citizensassembly.gov.on.ca/assets/One%20Ballot,%20Two%20Votes.pdf "This
report to the government AND TO THE PEOPLE OF ONTARIO explains
how the system works and why the assembly recommends it."
...exerpt from page 1 of the report
10. In hindsight, parts of the CA process were somewhat
confusing. For example, the government had given the CA a
mandate to consider principles such as rep-by-pop and
legitimacy. At the same time, these issues were taken off the
table during deliberations, and were assumed to be part of any
proposal. The issue of 'legitimacy' was particularly critical to
the referendum campaign. In my opinion, the assembly was dealing
with two types of legitimacy: educated and uneducated. (The
electoral system that reflected the best 'enlightened' values of
the assembly also proved to be the least popular among the
uninformed voters. Little effort was made to clarify which type
of 'legitimacy' was intended. The divergence of
purpose between the assembly's 'thoughtful' deliberation
phase and Elections Ontario's 'populist' referendum awareness
campaign leaves Ontario's electoral review with a decisive
(63-37%) result to a misdirected & misleading process.
11. Some information provided by Elections Ontario was so
sparing in detail to the point of being meaningless to the
average voter:
http://www.tvo.org/cfmx/tvoorg/citizensassembly/index.cfm?page_id=321&action=viewthread&forum_Thread_id=3135&forum_id=1 Polling
data indicates a complete lack of understanding of the basic MMP
design elements by the public:
http://www.fairvotecanada.org/files/news%20release%20-%20oct%2026%202007%20-%20cutler.pdf
12. The lack of time (5 weeks), combined with a scarcity of
printed information, was a significant issue for the Ontario
referendum education campaign. Compare this to the BC process,
where all households received a printed copy of the citizens'
report in late January for a May 17 referendum (14 weeks): http://www.citizensassembly.bc.ca/public/news/2004/12/dmaclachlan-3_0412101016-741
13. On the pessimistic side, each electoral review in Canada
seems to be a Catch-22/ David vs. Goliath/ "stacked deck"
phenomenon. Educated citizens (ie. the BC, Ont., & Que.
assemblies), Royal Commissions (of NB & PEI), Canada Law
Commission (recommendations), etc. really do not stand a chance
against the establishments' slanted rules of engagement, its
partisan interests http://www.nommp.ca/about.shtml,
its anti-politician & populist political campaigning
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=8fcb2fb0-608e-4291-9e86-81b7e84f3ca0,
etc. Sadly, history seems to repeat itself:
http://www.parl.gc.ca/Infoparl/english/issue.htm?param=173&art=1176
14. Referendum campaign discussion in the media & public
realm seemed to "fragment" the citizens' assembly MMP model to
the point that the 'whole picture' was lost. This was a big
challenge for the assembly because, due to a minimalist
education campaign by Elections Ontario, there was not much of a
'whole picture' to begin with. The assembly's careful balancing
of values & principles was lost to the general public. "Source
documents", such as the assembly's report, could have provided
the voter with an unfragmented perspective. But, these types of
documents were legislated away as "advocacy materials".
http://www.thestar.com/article/269693
15. After the public had invested a significant amount of time
and money into an intensive, carefully managed process on behalf
of all Ontarians, a citizens report was supposed to be part of
the expected outcome. It will be difficult for citizens to trust
their governments again in the future, if they are asked to
serve on another important public assignment. By leaving
important decisions until very late, and up to the government,
it seemed that the CA proposal was unnecessarily subject to
whims of the governing party & its cabinet.
16. Citizens assembly members did everything that was asked of
them by the government, including making a final decision. The
presumption of a citizens' assembly process is that had any one
of us (Ontarians) sat & deliberated with the assembly, we would
have come up with roughly the same decision. Calling the
assembly "biased" (and withholding the citizens'
assembly report) assumes that the general public will deliberate
(on its own) from scratch, with the same type of thoroughness as
the assembly did, and then come up with better reasoning
than the assembly did. Considering the lack of a broad
'public education' support system, THIS IS NOT A REALISTIC
EXPECTATION FOR THIS TYPE OF A PROCESS!!!!
17. Here is what the Saskatchewan NDP had recommended
(after following the Ontario CA process): http://www.saskndp.com/releases?id=38 "...within
6 months of re-election...", "...it is absolutely vital that the
process be led by the citizens, and not the politicians...",
"...citizens are firmly engaged and in charge of the democratic
process..."
http://www.ballot-access.org/2007/10/23/saskatchewan-premier-pledges-citizens-assembly-to-examine-proportional-representation/ (commitment
to full funding about the proposal)
18. The governing party also needs to decide whether to
trust Ontario citizens to come up with the right decisions over
the rules of the electoral review process
itself. Several last-minute government decisions were
politically contraversial, made with insider polling data, and
made with prior knowledge of the content of the citizens'
assembly report. The cabinet decisions were influential on the
referendum results, and could possibly be viewed as meddling or
interference. http://www.thestar.com/News/article/225772
19. Once the "sum of the decisions" and the "soft influence" by
the government is studied, the process becomes almost
meaningless. The 'electoral review' turned into a nonsensical
referendum between two electoral systems (selected through a
mysterious process) , of which one had "appointed politicians"
to be selected through unregulated methods. The 'dubious'
alternative had to meet a 60/60 threshold.
20.
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/231595 "...parties must
stay out of the electoral reform campaign." (When Elections
Ontario gives this type of a directive, and combines this with
the governments' 60/60 thresholds, it means that some parties
are obviously better positioned than others to benefit from the
referendum rules.)
21. If the intent of the electoral review was to bolster
confidence in the electoral system or the character
of politicians, I don't think it worked. Leaders of the
governing party were unwilling to admit to a
conflict-of-interest over deciding the "rules" of a process
which would have ultimately effected their personal (or their
party's) fortunes. Elections Ontario (which is supposed to be
a non-partisan body) was unwilling to recuse itself from
making additional 'governance' decisions which could be seen as
partisan & changing the rules of the original review
process. The 'Elections Ontario' interpretation of the citizens'
assembly report as 'advocacy material' could be viewed
as shifting the original 'political balance' of the CA process
in favour of the status quo, and therefore in favour of the
governing party(s). For example: (losing) political groups in
favour of change:
http://ontariondp.com/howard-hampton-statement-citizens-assembly-decisio
http://www.gpo.ca/node/301 (includes
the NDP, the Greens & the smaller parties); (winning) political
groups in favour of status quo:
http://www.nommp.ca/about.shtml (most Liberals & PC's)
22. The 60/60 thresholds represented a wonderful 'ideal' of
public consensus, and they were a good 'goal' for the citizens'
assembly to work towards. But when these high thresholds are
legislated by the governing party, the motives are suspect.
There are plausible reasons to enforce such high thresholds
(peace, social order, stable government), but I would consider
them 'overkill' and 'fear-mongering' in a 1st world democracy.
Who decides what these 'publicly-motivated' reasons are? Who
intereprets which reasons are relevent or which reasons carry
the most weight? The governing party?
23. We now have an emerging 4-party system. Anyone who spends
any time thinking about this will realise that our
first-past-the-post electoral system is a very crude & primitive
way to organize our multi-party democracy. There is too much
discretion left in the hands of the governing party, with too
much potential for misuse of power. For example, should a ruling
political party (or 'cartel') be allowed to decide 'official
party status' for the other parties? How can a ruling party
'objectively' decide this? http://www.parl.gc.ca/Infoparl/english/issue.htm?param=162&art=1113#10 http://www.echoweekly.com/printer.php?storyid=274 http://dawn.thot.net/cfo.html (BTW,
I didn't see these types of fundamental issues being brought up
in the referendum 'education' campaign.)
24. According to former democratic renewal minister Marie
Bountrogianni: "In the end, not enough people cared about it..."
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/observer/story.html?id=e61573c9-7df5-42d8-b3dc-0dd77833bf43&p=1 Why
should people care about something that they misunderstand?
http://www.fairvotecanada.org/files/news%20release%20-%20oct%2026%202007%20-%20cutler.pdf
25.
http://www.dwatch.ca/camp/RelsNov1804.html ("Democracy
Watch" recommended in 2004 that the Ontario legislature be made
more representative. "The voting system should be changed to
ensure that the popular vote is more accurately represented in
the legislature, with safeguards to ensure that MPP's remain
accountable to constituents, and no party has disproportionate
power".)
http://www.tvo.org/cfmx/tvoorg/citizensassembly/index.cfm?page_id=321&action=viewthread&forum_Thread_id=2527&forum_id=1 ("Redistricting"
is problematic when the Electoral Boundaries Commission, a
non-partisan body, is seen to be guided by the questionable
legislation of the governing party.) Since taxpayer funding of
political parties is tied to the outcomes of the electoral
system, every effort should be made to reflect the intentions of
the voter. The 'artificial' consensus created around the 'status
quo' option needs to be examined further. I believe
that Ontarians still prefer a 'proportional' system. Our
distorted election results are not going to go away...if
anything, they will get worse in the future.
26. The principle of public consensus-building
was severely limited during this electoral review. Ways to
achieve consensus include citizen-to-citizen
communication with public education OR a preferential
(multiple-choice) ballot. Because there are as many potential
electoral system designs as there are voters, trade-offs and
compromise are necessary to create consensus. I don't think
we have a public consensus on our electoral system at the
present time.
27. It must be acknowledged that the 'winning' result for
first-past-the-post is most likely NOT an endorsement of the
current system. The more likely reasons for the referendum
results include: lack of information about MMP, lack of time
to research & compare the systems, a widespread campaign of
fear, misunderstanding due to minimalist details provided by
Elections Ontario, and the assembly's choice of an 'exotic'
electoral system without a proper means to communicate its
rationale.
28. Leaving things to the last minute:
http://www.thestar.com/OntarioElection/article/260631 According
to The Star: "Key in the effort to educate the public will be
the blackout period for political advertising". According to the
chief electoral officer, John Hollins: "One of the openings for
us is... the (election) blackout period." & "... full page
newspaper explanations on election day".
29. The predisposition of the decision-makers:
http://www.nommp.ca/about.shtml (the governing party)
http://www.mississaugablogs.com/xmarks/2007/07/sorbara_stops_by_kind_of.html (party
president & finance minister) |
Ontario still in need of Electoral Reform
By Saskboy
"While using a citizens' assembly and referendum for
electoral reform is the right approach, that process must have adequate
time and resources to allow for an informed public debate and decision,"
said Macdonald. ...
Abandoned Stuff by Saskboy -
http://www.abandonedstuff.com
Globe and Mail Why Ontarians said no to MMP FRED CUTLER AND ...
By Wayne Smith(Wayne Smith)
Its source - a Citizens' Assembly - was probably even more
unfamiliar to the public. Voters tend to be skeptical of referendum
proposals from politicians, so the assembly might have provided
much-needed grassroots legitimacy. ...
The Neon News - http://wayneon.blogspot.com/
Bountrogianni voted for MMP, agrees the Citizens' Assembly
process ...
By Matt Guerin(Matt Guerin)
Bountrogianni was reacting to criticism from Fair Vote Ontario that the
Citizens' Assembly that recommended the new system was set
up too late in the McGuinty government's first term, leaving little time
for public education and debate. ...
Liberals For Electoral Reform -
http://www.liberalsforelectoralreform.com/
A Different Kind of Strategic Thinking
By Brent Wood(Brent Wood)
The Mixed-Member Proportional system proposed by the Citizens'
Assembly was recommended in part because it provides a way for those
few people who understand ecology to have their voices count at Queen's
Park. ...
Green ideas - http://ideasgreen.blogspot.com/
Newspapers—Ontario
The fight is far
from over
Toronto Star - Ontario, Canada
The fact that Ontario voters rejected the recommendation of the
Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform does not mean that
electoral reform is not required. ...
See all stories on this topic
Electoral bill row
continues
TVNZ - New Zealand
Meanwhile, the Greens will be driving for a citizens assembly to
be included in the bill. The concept would see a selection of voters
taken from each ...
See all stories on this topic
One Citizen, One Vote
Walrus Magazine - Toronto,Ontario,Canada
Of course Daniel Aldana Cohen found the Citizens' Assembly
civil and intelligent — its members were not competing for power. But
while it may be true that ...
See all stories on this topic
Why Ontarians said no to MMP
Globe and Mail - Canada
Its source - a Citizens' Assembly - was probably even more
unfamiliar to the public. Voters tend to be skeptical of referendum
proposals from politicians, ...
See all stories on this topic
Bad timing
undermined exercise
Toronto Star - Ontario, Canada
George Thomson waves a copy of the Citizens' Assembly
final report on electoral reform at a press conference in May. Marie
Bountrogianni, Ontario's minister ...
See all stories on this topic
Finish sulking
Ottawa Citizen - Ontario, Canada
We need electoral reform but the Citizens' Assembly route
is the wrong way to go. The assembly did what it was told to do.
It was told that political ...
See all stories on this topic
Blog—Saskatchewan
NDP calls for Citizen Assembly
By ken(ken)
The Citizens’ Assembly will be a non-partisan group of
randomly-selected individuals who reflect Saskatchewan’s demographics
and geographical regions. The Assembly would consult widely and
propose changes to the province’s electoral ...
KenonCanpolitics -
http://kencan7.blogspot.com/
Newspapers—Saskatchewan
The case for PR in SK
Regina Leader-Post - Regina,Saskatchewan,Canada
Premier Lorne Calvert's recent announcement that a re-elected NDP
government would strike a Citizens' Assembly to examine
how Saskatchewan elects its ...
See all stories on this topic
Saskatchewan Premier Pledges Citizens Assembly to Examine ...
Ballot Access - San Francisco,CA,USA
He also said, if the Citizens Assembly then recommends
proportional representation and the matter is submitted to the voters,
that the government will fund ...
See all stories on this topic
Election Roundup
Discover Moose Jaw - Saskatchewan, Canada
The Citizens’ Assembly will be a non-partisan group of
randomly-selected individuals who reflect Saskatchewan’s demographics
and geographical regions. ...
See all stories on this topic
Blogs—New Zealand
Fisking the fisk
By Russel
National opposed Green idea of citizens' assembly to
decide campaign finance rules. So did Labour, NZF, UFNZ and everyone
except the Maori Party. The Greens opposed National's idea of asking the
public for their views on the ...
frogblog - http://blog.greens.org.nz
Newspapers—New Zealand
Greens to push for changes to electoral spending laws
TV3 News - Auckland,New Zealand
The Party's Co-leader Russel Norman says the party will be issuing
amendments to the bill to try and put in place a Citizens Assembly
process to electoral ...
See all stories on this topic
Legislation could have gone further - Greens
New Zealand Herald - New Zealand
The Greens were also disappointed that they could not muster any support
for their proposed "citizens' assembly" to investigate
electoral issues such as ...
See all stories on this topic
Greens say decision belongs to the people
New Zealand Herald - New Zealand
By Audrey Young The Green Party has called for the whole issue of
election funding and parliamentary spending to be sent to a "Citizens'
Assembly" based on ...
See all stories on this topic