Posted by
Judyth Mermelstein on
May 17, 2006; 4:23am
URL: http://civicaccess.416.s1.nabble.com/Re-Census-2006-statistics-tp583p601.html
"Tracey P. Lauriault" <
[hidden email]> wrote in part:
>Wonderful! ACTION: What is the "proper form"?.
As per
http://www.parl.gc.ca/info/guipete.html"PETITIONING THE HOUSE OF COMMONS: A PRACTICAL GUIDE"
- handwritten, typed, printed or photocopied on sheets of paper of usual size, i.e. measuring 21.5 cm x 28 cm (8 1/2 x 11 inches) or 21.5 cm x 35.5 cm (8 1/2 x 14 inches).
- addressed "To the House of Commons" or "To the House of Commons in Parliament assembled" (Petitions to the Government of Canada, the Prime Minister, a Minister, or an individual Member of Parliament are not acceptable.)
- must be respectful and use temperate language.
- text of the petition must not be altered either by erasing or crossing out words or by adding words.
- no attachments or supporting documents. A return address is allowed.
- must concern a subject within the authority of the Parliament of Canada. The petition must not concern a purely provincial or municipal matter or any matter which should be brought before a court of law or a tribunal.
- must contain a request, called a "prayer", for Parliament to take some action (or refrain from taking some action) to remedy a grievance. A statement of grievance or a statement of opinion alone cannot be received as a petition. The petition must not, however, demand or insist that Parliament do something.
- The "prayer" [a.k.a., what's being requested] should be clear and to the point. Details which the petitioners think important may be included in the statement of grievance.
- Some signatures and addresses should, if possible, appear on the first sheet with the "prayer". The subject-matter of the petition must be indicated on each of the other sheets containing signatures and addresses.
- must contain a minimum of 25 valid signatures, each with the address of the petitioner. The signature of a Member of Parliament is not counted.
- Each petitioner must sign his or her own name directly on the petition and must not sign for anyone else. Names should be signed, not printed. Signatures cannot be attached to a sheet (taped or pasted on) or photocopied onto it. If a petitioner cannot sign because of illness or a disability, this must be noted on the petition and the note signed by a witness.
- The petitioner's address must be written directly on the petition and not pasted on or reproduced. The petitioner may give his or her full home address or simply the city and province.
- Aliens not resident in Canada cannot petition the House of Commons of Canada.
The ficticious model petition provided is:
>PETITION
>
>TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLED
>
>We, the undersigned residents of Canada, draw the attention of the House to the following:
>
>THAT incidents of X are becoming more and more frequent;
>
>THAT each incident of X harms the public; and
>
>THAT there would be fewer such incidents if certain legislative measures were taken
>
>THEREFORE, your petitioners call upon Parliament to enact legislation against X.
and they say that, after the first page with the full text,
>the subject-matter of this ficticious petition could be shown as follows: >PETITION ASKING PARLIAMENT TO ENACT LEGISLATION AGAINST X.
The rules for submission say an MP can refuse to present the petition and suggest one submit the draft text for approval before collecting signatures, which seems remarkably undemocratic to me. Anyway, a petition can be presented by any sitting MP so it should be easy enough to find one who will agree to present it.
A Member may present a petition to the House in either of two ways: by making a brief statement in the House regarding the origin and subject of the petition, or by filing the petition with the Clerk of the House while the House is sitting. The act of presenting a petition does not necessarily mean that the Member supports it.
If a Member makes a statement in the House when presenting a petition, the statement is reproduced in Hansard, the official record of the debates. A record of each petition presented, whether or not a statement is made, appears in the Journals for that day.
Once the petition has been presented, it is sent to the Government, which must table a response in the House within 45 days.
Clerk of Petitions
Private Members' Business Office
Room 131-N
Centre Block
House of Commons
(613) 992-9511
Fax (613) 947-7626
The sample form provided is from Private Members' Business Office
(July 1997) and I've bracketed the instructions to set them off from the petition's contents.
==========
PETITION
TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS
IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLED
We, the undersigned
[Here identify, in general terms, who the petitioners are, for example
- citizens (or residents) of Canada
- electors of (name of electoral district)
- residents of the Province of....
- residents of the City (or Village or Township, etc.) of....]
draw the attention of the House to the following:
THAT
[Here briefly state the reasons underlying the request for the intervention of the House by outlining the grievance or problem or by summarizing the facts which the petitioners wish the House to consider.]
THEREFORE, your petitioners
Request that Parliament
[or "call upon Parliament to"]
[... stating succinctly what action the petitioners wish Parliament to take or what action it should refrain from taking.]
Signatures
(Sign your own name. Do not print)
Addresses
(Give your full home address or your city and province)
________________________________________
THEREFORE, your petitioners
[Here repeat the "prayer" from the first page of the petition.]
Signatures [in cursive]
Addresses [full home address or your city and province]
Petition concerning
[Here state the subject matter of the petition.]
Signatures [in cursive]
Addresses [full home address or your city and province]
============
Especially in the light of the interview snippet "Ted Hildebrandt" <
[hidden email]> posted, we should probably discuss what, if anything, this group would like to petition the House for.
Much as I object personally to awarding the contract for the census technology to Lockheed Martin, that deal has already been done. Once the government outsourced that stuff, it lost the "privilege" under NAFTA of keeping any foreign company from getting taxpayers' money, no matter what the company does to incur our disapproval as citizens. In other words, there isn't a damned thing Parliament can do about it, short of voting to get us out of NAFTA ... which neither a Liberal nor a Conservative government will ever allow them to vote on.
To me, that means it would make more sense for us to reserve the use of petitions for something on which MPs will have the chance to vote, and preferably something which provides enough lead-time to do a bit of public education on the issue as well as gathering signatures from the activists who regularly sign petitions and write to their MPs.
In other words, what I would like to see is a broader petition on free accessibility of information developed at public expense, in which the full census data (barring personal identities) would be included, but also a much wider variety of reports, studies, etc. conducted by various government departments and crown corporations. I doubt it will make much difference in legislative terms --- the present Prime Minister having tonight ditched yet another essential component of his "clean up government" initiative just because his nominee wasn't rubber-stamped by the House as the "impartial" maker of federal appointments.
Tracy responded to my question
>> Can anyone think of a good argument for the government foregoing the income and assuming the extra costs, just so the citizenry can get access to information on their own country?
>>
with
>It would be great to get as many valid answers to this as possible! If
>we brainstorm here on the list, i will gladly put on the wiki, or you
>can do that to! I posted the question and these already.
>2 big reasons:
>a) Cost more to manage selling it than it does to give it away!
>b) As a society we all loose (this pres provides a nice community online
>mapping argument in the second half -
>
http://www.pnclink.org/pnc2005/chi/Presentation-PDF/018-Andrea%20Huang-GIS2.pdf)
>
>would be good to get quotes and such.
Actually, it would be fascinating if one had the means to do the math on how much our federal government spends to delay and reject Freedom of Information requests from the media and the public, as well as the real costs of maintaining the cumbersome mechanisms which keep much "public" information from being easily located by members of the public.
I recently spent over 60 hours trying to gather information from the "accessible" federal Web sites on the application procedures and deadlines for grants to the various arts. Most of the Web pages more-or-less met the degree of *Web* accessibility the Liberals promised 2-3 years ago ... but the actual information which prospective applicants or researchers would need was in many cases only to be gathered from consulting several pages, sometimes including pages on the sites of different departments or even external agencies, and occasionally not available at all since the previous year's data had not been updated. Imagine the joys of trying to do that kind of research with a slow dial-up connection or in odd blocks of an hour here and there obtainable on a library's public access computer. Maybe it's naive of me but I can't help thinking if you genuinely want the public to get all its information from the 'Net (to cut back public service jobs and save office costs, natch) then you should surely keep in mind that only about half the public has regular Internet access and only half of them have the unlimited broadband access and/or stubbornness to scan dozens of pages for relevant dates, forms and links.
I think her item a) fits the bill, though b) is unlikely to cut any ice with the folks I referred to in:
>> By "good" I mean one which would make sense to politicians who are
>>both fiscally and socially conservative,
If one were to take Stephen Harper at his word and assume he genuinely wants to clean up the corruption in government spending, he just might be receptive to the argument that if the Liberals had had to post Groupe Action's reports on the Web on receipt, next to the specs of their contract and the price paid for the "work," the so-called "sponsorship scandal" would have been available to his party in opposition, not to mention the many muckraking journalists who would have helped bring the Liberal government down that much sooner. Of course, he might by somewhat less keen on the idea if he reflected on the equal accessibility of evidence of many previous political scandals and those which will undoubtedly emerge in the future. On his performance thus far, I'm afraid I thing Harper uses "accountability" and "open government" as slogans without expecting Canadians to hold him accountable and demand to be kept fully informed.
It would be awfully nice to get legislation which actually made sure *no* federal government could hide its skeletons to protect the "good buddies" who got paid off in contracts for their campaign contributions or the bagmen and appointment-holders who get rich at public expense for facilitating the chicanery. Anyone here game for a shot at drafting that petition?
Regards,
Judyth
(a.k.a. Doña Quixote)
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Judyth Mermelstein "cogito ergo lego ergo cogito..."
Montreal, QC <
[hidden email]>
Canada H4C 2P9 <
[hidden email]>
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"A word to the wise is sufficient. For others, use more."
"Un mot suffit aux sages; pour les autres, il en faut plus."