Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Democracy at Work: The Assembly's Decision
I'm very proud of the Ontario Citizen's Assembly on Electoral Reform. That's the group who examined many electoral systems and selected the mixed member proportional (MMP) system for Ontario. We will vote on it in a referendum tomorrow. It won't win this time around.
I think the Citizen's Assembly should be a model for many decision making processes in a democracy. In fact, I think it could be a model for grappling with complex problems in other situations as well.
Today I went to hear the President of the University brief us on long term strategic planning for the University of Toronto. I pointed out that the process was doomed from the beginning because the five major task forces were filled with appointed members of the Board of Governors and senior administrators (and former administrators). No ordinary faculty members, no students, no ordinary staff members. Nobody is going to listen to a group like that telling us what a university should be like in 20 years.
The response was that we need experienced people on these committees and that means people who have served in administrative positions in the university. I disagree. Watch this video to see another way of doing things.
I agree completely; the group did a remarkably good job.
ReplyDeleteI have some concerns (the 3% threshold should be at least 5%, for example), and I wish that the publicity had made it a bit more explicit that this is not a "binding referendum" in terms of having to live with all the details. Legislation would have to be introduced, debated, and voted on; and changes could certainly be made.
But as you say, an excellent job.