Actual project on policy discussion

[Joe Murray]

Just going through my various lists and noticed this old post. While I don't
think the project is that germane to public access to information, I thought
I'd throw it out in terms of public engagement and online policy discussion.

In terms of civic engagement, the Ontario Citizens' Assembly on Electoral
Reform is a good project. It's looking at changing our current voting
system, perhaps by making the percentage of votes parties get determine the
percentage of seats they received. They would like to have good online
discussions. Take a look:
http://www.citizensassembly.gov.on.ca/en-CA/home%20page.aspx. They're
colloborating with TVO, who have taped all of their public hearings and just
launched a discussion site http://www.tvo.org/cfmx/tvoorg/citizensassembly/
and also do occasional programs on the topic like last week's The Agenda
<a href="http://www.tvo.org/cfmx/tvoorg/theagenda/index.cfm?page_id=7&ts=2007-01-24%2">http://www.tvo.org/cfmx/tvoorg/theagenda/index.cfm?page_id=7&ts=2007-01-24%2
020:00:00.0&bpn=279081 (yes, that's me on the panel).

I'm chairing Fair Vote Ontario, an activist group pushing for a fair,
proportional system (see http://fairvote.ca and
http://www.fairvotecanada.org/en/Ontario). We have a forum at
http://www.fairvotecanada.org/forum, but have a public one oriented to
policy discussion - ie which of the many models of voting systems would be
best - at http://citizen2citizen.ca.

Feedback on what we could be doing better is welcome. We'll probably be
moving more towards a campaign style of site as the Citizens' Assembly
deliberations wind down and Ontario revs up for a referendum on their
proposal this October.

Joe Murray, Chair
Fair Vote Ontario
57 Grandview Ave, Toronto, Ontario, Canada  M4K 1J1
416.466.1281 (w), 416.466.1277 (f)
[hidden email]

Joe Murray, PhD
President, JMA Consulting
57 Grandview Ave, Toronto, Ontario, Canada  M4K 1J1
416.466.1281, 416.466.1277 (f)
[hidden email]
Skype: josephpmurray

 

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>    1. Re: BBC -Web 'fuelling crisis in politics' (Hugh McGuire)
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> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2006 14:48:34 -0500
> From: Hugh McGuire <[hidden email]>
> Subject: Re: [CivicAccess-discuss] BBC -Web 'fuelling crisis in
> politics'
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> > But "we" also, I think share some of the blame here by not really
> > developing effective models of how to usefully engage the
> online world
> > in policy discussion/deliberation to some sort of effective
> outcome...
> I think there are two separate things here: internet as a
> means of public discourse on policy; and as a means of
> civic-engagement/action.
>
> The first one (probably) is just seen as a headache in
> politics, as important as it is; the second they probably
> can't even imagine.  
> civic action (not debate, although that is important too) to
> me is the real possibility that sits in front of us, and what
> civicaccess.ca should be (i think) striving for. Getting the
> data we need to *do* things, and actually ding them. Because
> without doing constructive things with the data, we are just
> part of the swirling hot-air of internet debate and cranks
> who complain to politicians by sending them nasty emails (as
> i do, on occasion).
>
> But what I would love to see, under the umbrella or blessing
> of civicaccess.ca, is actual projects (based on data wrestled from the
> government) whose utility is obvious to everybody. That's
> much harder to ignore than another group lobbying the
> government for one thing or another.
>
> 2 cents.
>
>
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