What passes for “democracy” is anything but.

How much influence do your elected representatives have to represent you? Surprisingly little as I have come to learn from two credible sources.

Tasty Lunch and Good Conversation.

Yesterday, five friends met in a local restaurant. They included me, a retired senior IT Director, a retired medical doctor, a retired veterinarian and a former City Councillor/business owner. The conversations lasted over two hours and politics was a dominant theme.

Political agendas control decision-making.

During the meeting, the former Councillor confirmed that the agendas for public City Council meetings are prepared by the CAO (Chief Administrative Officer) with input from various departments heads within the City.

Councillors have no say about what items go onto the agenda. They are expected to listen to ‘deputations’ (pre-approved agenda items consisting of 5-minute speeches delivered by concerned citizens like me), ask some questions for clarification of the concerns expressed, then to vote to “accept” or reject the agenda item for subsequent consideration by Council behind closed doors. I presented two deputations to Council late last year.

A disappointing “Response”

Two days ago, I received an email from a City Planning Consultant with subject “Re: Rural Zoning By-law”. It concerned the deputation I made in October to Council as a “Committee of the Whole” meeting regarding proposed changes to rural zoning. Besides my allowed 5 minutes to present my concerns about a 380-page Final Report prepared by the the Rural Zoning By-law Project Team, plus a few minutes of Q&A from the Councillors to me, I had submitted a 7-page brief to provide Council with a thoroughly considered description of my concerns and several constructive suggestions to them.

The Planners “response” was disappointing but not surprising. City Council had evidently delegated the duty to respond to this Planner and they offered no indication that they had considered my concerns and reasonable proposals I had suggested. I had suggested modification to specific parts of the document, and proposed a reasonable and realistic way to implement much of the Final Report that would ameliorate the my concerns and those of other constituent property owners.

The Planner’s response was to copy and past my 7 page summary with no comments on its contents (did he even read it?) He then wrote a paragraph identifying the various levels of municipal and provincial authorities to which he must report on the project.

This is how City Council and the Planning Consultant chose to avoid taking any responsibility for the concerns of property owners like me. They all avoided explaining or accounting for the Rural Zoning decisions made over the past 4 years.

I believe this tactic is known as “the brush off”. I feel like how a tiny ant must feel when a human giant flicks it off his shoulder as an insignificant and minor irritant.

Federal Parliament Agendas.

About a month ago, I worked on a project to write a “principles” document for a community of people who are organizing to lobby governments to make their desired changes for a civil society. My co-author, Charles, is a retired federal civil servant to had reached senior levels within the administration over his multi-decade career in Ottawa.

Charles had personal experience of writing a Private Members Bill . It was successfully introduced to the agenda of a Parliamentary session for consideration by the 338 “elected representatives” we call Members of Parliament. As is the case in a municipal Council, the agenda for Parliamentary sessions and the Bills that appear therein are prepared within the federal bureaucracy by unelected department heads and their staff.

In addition, internal “experts” are employed who know how to “package” an agenda item to ensure smooth sailing through the choppy procedural and political waters that must be navigated to reach their intended destination in one piece.

Each MP’s job is to consider the agendas items and vote to accept or reject them.

A Committee of 338

Now, think of Parliament as a committee of 338 individuals who are expected to consider very complex topics contained in expertly-prepared documents that can reach hundreds of pages in size.

These “Parliamentary briefs” contains policy, process, procedural and legal language that make the task of thoroughly understanding the topic impossible within the few days often allocated to consider the topic prior to a vote.

When the Party “whip” hands each MP a two-pound package of written materials (the “brief”) to “review” it and reminds the MP “how to vote”. Like the “plop-plop, fizz-fizz” Alka-Seltzer ad in 1976 that provided headache relief, you can imagine the relief each MP feels knowing that his or her course in speed reading will not need to be put to the test before casting a vote in Parliament.

The game of “electoral democracy”.

Consider how much thought you put into the purchase or lease of your current residence. Now consider how much thought that you might expect your elected representatives to put into hundreds of decisions that trigger hundreds of $billion in spending. Their decisions go to funding many government departments each tasked with the creation and enforcement of rules by which Canadian citizens and businesses must abide, or else.

Cleaning the “public house”

During lunch, the city councillor recalled a time years ago when City Council undertook a project to cancel bylaws under the administration of various departments  that were no longer considered useful.

Why is this not a regular item on the agenda of every level of government in Canada and placed under the total authority of our elected representatives?

Imagine if every Councillor, MP and MPP was genuinely interested in serving the interests and priorities of their constituents and had the real power to reduce unnecessary red tape, property rules, taxes, and more?

What if no agenda item could be passed in Council, Parliament or provincial Legislatures without first cancelling two other comparable areas of public responsibility that are of lesser importance or priority? This would free up budget room for only the most vital domains of public responsibility AND free up budget room for every Canadian business and household when the resulting tax burdens begin to drop accordingly.

Behind Clouds of State Control

We know, however, that this idea will never see the light of day on any agenda until the bureaucracy and public service labour unions are forced to release their hold on power with their characteristics white-knuckling tenacity.

Canadians must find a way to share the responsibility of public governance as equal partners with those institutions to which we have unwittingly delegated too much power and control. Only then will our citizens possess the authority needed to remake Canada into a truly civil society.

Hopefully, 2024 will be the turnaround year that transforms this idea from an unreachable mirage to an achievable destination.

Our increasingly desperate citizens have watched helplessly from the sidelines as this country continues to disintegrate into a dictatorship by elites. They suffered long enough.