A Citizens' Reference Panel is a non-compulsory public jury used in Canada to provide policy advice to public and elected officials. They are generally convened by the government or a public agency and typically meet several times over a period of weeks or months to learn about, discuss, and reach agreement on recommendations for how to address a contentious public issue.
Citizens' Reference Panels will have anywhere from 24–54 citizens members, with equal numbers of men and women, while matching the age profile and geographic distribution of the population in the region or jurisdiction they represent.
Members of a Citizens' Reference Panel are randomly invited and selected during a civic lottery process. They are considered volunteers and with the exception of reimbursements for travel and childcare, they receive no financial compensation for their time. The idea being that the time each citizen volunteers to the panel is part of a public service, such as jury duty.
Much like a Royal Commission, the recommendations of a Citizens' Reference Panel are non-binding though they do carry moral stature.
Citizens' Reference Panels developed as an offshoot of the Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform in British Columbia in 2004 and in Ontario in 2006. There have been over 25 Citizens' Reference Panels in Canada.
Robert Baldwin was a Canadian lawyer and politician who with his political partner Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine, led the first responsible ministry in Canada. "Responsible Government" marked the country's democratic independence, without a revolution, although not without violence. This achievement also included the introduction of municipal government, the introduction of a modern legal system and the Canadian Jury system, and the abolishing of imprisonment for debt. Baldwin is also noted for resisting a decades-long tradition of Orange Order terrorism of political reform in the colony, that went so far as to burn the Parliament buildings in Montreal in 1849.
Deliberative democracy or discursive democracy is a form of democracy in which deliberation is central to decision-making. It adopts elements of both consensus decision-making and majority rule. Deliberative democracy differs from traditional democratic theory in that authentic deliberation, not mere voting, is the primary source of legitimacy for the law.
Mixed-member proportional (MMP) representation is a mixed electoral system in which voters get two votes: one to decide the representative for their single-seat constituency, and one for a political party. Seats in the legislature are filled firstly by the successful constituency candidates, and secondly, by party candidates based on the percentage of nationwide or region-wide votes that each party received. The constituency representatives are elected using first-past-the-post voting (FPTP) or another plurality/majoritarian system. The nationwide or region-wide party representatives are, in most jurisdictions, drawn from published party lists, similar to party-list proportional representation. To gain a nationwide representative, parties may be required to achieve a minimum number of constituency candidates, a minimum percentage of the nationwide party vote, or both.
Nonpartisan democracy is a system of representative government or organization such that universal and periodic elections take place without reference to political parties. Sometimes electioneering and even speaking about candidates may be discouraged, so as not to prejudice others' decisions or create a contentious atmosphere.
The Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform was created by the government of British Columbia, Canada to investigate changes to the provincial electoral system. On 25 October 2004, it proposed replacing the province's existing first past the post (FPTP) system with BC-STV, a single transferable vote (STV) system. This recommendation was put to the electorate-at-large in a referendum held concurrently with the 2005 provincial election. In order for the results to be binding, the referendum required a super-majority including approval by 60% of voters overall and simple majorities in 60% of the 79 districts in order to pass. In the event, the second of these thresholds was easily met, with a majority supporting the reform in 77 out of 79 electoral districts, but the overall vote fell short of the 60% requirement, with 57.7% of the votes in favour.
Federal elections and provincial elections use paper ballots, but electronic voting has been used since at least the 1990s at the municipal level. Committee reports and analysis from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia have all recommended against provincial Internet voting, but several provinces use electronic counting of paper ballots. A federal committee has recommended against national Internet voting.
A referendum was held in the Canadian province of British Columbia on May 17, 2005, to determine whether or not to adopt the recommendation of the Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform to replace the existing first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP) with a single transferable vote system (BC-STV). It was held in conjunction with the BC Legislative Assembly election of 2005. Voters were given two ballots at that time: a ballot to vote for a Member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia (MLA) in their constituency and a referendum ballot. The referendum received considerable support from the electorate but failed in meeting the demanding threshold that had been set. A second referendum was held in 2009.
The Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform was established by the government of the province of Ontario, Canada in March 2006. Modelled on the British Columbia equivalent, it reviewed the first past the post electoral system currently in use to elect members of the Ontario Legislature, with the authority to recommend an alternative. In May 2007, the Assembly recommended, by a decision of 94–8, that Ontario adopt a form of mixed member proportional representation (MMP).
An Ontario electoral reform referendum was held on October 10, 2007, on the question of whether to establish a mixed member proportional representation (MMP) system for elections to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. However, the resulting vote was strongly in favour of the existing plurality voting or "first-past-the-post" (FPTP) system.
Fair Vote Canada (FVC) is a grassroots, nonprofit, multi-partisan citizens' movement for electoral reform in Canada. It promotes the introduction of an element of proportional representation for elections at all levels of government and throughout civil society, instead of the first-past-the-post electoral system currently used at all levels of government in Canada.
Civic engagement or civic participation is any individual or group activity addressing issues of public concern. Citizens acting alone or together to protect public values or make a change or difference in the community are common types of civic engagement. Civic engagement includes communities working together in both political and non-political actions. The goal of civic engagement is to address public concerns and promote the quality of the community.
A United Nations Parliamentary Assembly (UNPA) is a proposed addition to the United Nations System that would allow for greater participation and voice for Members of Parliament. The idea was raised at the founding of the League of Nations in the 1920s and again following the end of World War II in 1945, but remained dormant throughout the Cold War. The Campaign for a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly (CEUNPA) was formed in 2007 by Democracy Without Borders to coordinate pro-UNPA efforts, which as of June 2017 has received the support of over 1,600 Members of Parliament from over 100 countries worldwide. The Commission on Global Security, Justice and Governance, chaired by former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former Nigerian Foreign Minister Ibrahim Gambari, has called for the creation of a United Nations Parliamentary Network "to raise greater awareness and participation by strengthening the voices of legislators in global institutions." The commission proposes that this Network "would be similar in initial composition to the Parliamentary Network on the World Bank and International Monetary Fund and the Parliamentary Conference on the World Trade Organization".
The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) (CPC-ML) fielded 71 candidates in the 2006 federal election. Some of these candidates have their own biography pages. Information about others may be found here.
In governance, sortition is the selection of political officials as a random sample from a larger pool of candidates. Filling individual posts or, more usually in its modern applications, to fill collegiate chambers. The system intends to ensure that all competent and interested parties have an equal chance of holding public office. It also minimizes factionalism, since there would be no point making promises to win over key constituencies if one was to be chosen by lot, while elections, by contrast, foster it. In ancient Athenian democracy, sortition was the traditional and primary method for appointing political officials, and its use was regarded as a principal characteristic of democracy.
A civic lottery, a popular term for the contemporary use of sortition or allotment, is a lottery-based method for selecting citizens for public service or office. It is based on the premise that citizens in a democracy have both a duty and the desire to serve their society by participating in its governance.
In Canada a policy jury or citizen jury is a body of people convened to render a decision or advice on a matter of public policy. It is similar to juries used in modern court trial except that the subject of its deliberation is a matter of public policy, rather than law. The concept of the policy jury is closely connected with deliberative democracy or participatory models of democratic governance, and is similar to a deliberative opinion poll.
A citizens' assembly is a body formed from the citizens of a state to deliberate on an issue or issues of local or national importance. The membership of a citizens' assembly is randomly selected, as in other forms of sortition.
Civic technology, or civic tech, enhances the relationship between the people and government with software for communications, decision-making, service delivery, and political process. It includes information and communications technology supporting government with software built by community-led teams of volunteers, nonprofits, consultants, and private companies as well as embedded tech teams working within government.
The House of Commons Special Committee on Electoral Reform (ERRE) was a special committee of the House of Commons of Canada established during the 42nd Canadian Parliament to investigate reforms to the Canadian electoral system. The formation of "an all-party Parliamentary committee to review... [electoral] reforms" was an election promise by Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau in the 2015 federal election. After becoming Prime Minister, Trudeau indicated the formation of a special committee was a priority in his mandate letter for Minister of Democratic Institutions Maryam Monsef. Shortly after the committee submitted its report to parliament on December 1, 2016, Monsef was transferred to the position of the Minister of Status of Women and Karina Gould took over the electoral reform file. Shortly after taking her position Gould announced that the government would no longer be pursuing reform of the electoral system, stating "It has become evident that the broad support needed among Canadians for a change of this magnitude does not exist".
Athenian democracy developed around the sixth century BC in the Greek city-state of Athens, comprising the city of Athens and the surrounding territory of Attica. Athenian democracy is often described as the first known democracy in the world. Other Greek cities set up democracies, most following the Athenian model, but none are as well documented as Athens' democracy.
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