[CivicAccess-discuss] Scassa review of the OGP IRM report blogpost

Fri Feb 7 05:09:41 AEDT 2014

> Dig is easier than real meaningful consultation

What's "dig"?

I agree that the federal government is no inspiration for good consultation practices, and that the moderated-stakeholder-experts model can be used more frequently; though I should add that it can't be the only model we use, and we shouldn't discount other models.

The Google Hangouts are PR, not consultation. I'm not sure that Twitter town halls are being used for consultation - it's more about communications. Does the government ever use language to suggest that Twitter is a medium for consultation? I don't know if participation in Twitter town halls is more biased towards "boys" than other government communication mediums, I'd be curious to read analysis of that - Twitter on the whole is more or less balanced in terms of user population. In general, in-person meetings are no panacea; there are plenty of examples of poor practices, overrepresented groups, etc. there as well.

On 2014-02-06, at 11:17 AM, Tracey P. Lauriault wrote:

> Hey James, 
> 
> I am aware of all that, that was not the point, the point was that these objects, which I like,  have a way of taking a life of their own, and all I am suggesting is that we promote dig ways to engage with the public and also real face time ways to engage with the public and consult.  And I think you will agree that we are seeing twitter town halls, google hangouts comprised of mostly boys, who often do not even have open data or open gov expertise, and online processes that are clunky at best, instead of real stakeholders with subject matter expertise in a well moderated working group setting.  Dig is easier than real meaningful consultation, we see more of the former and almost none of the latter.
> 
> Cheers
> t
> 
> 
> On Thu, Feb 6, 2014 at 3:38 PM, James McKinney <james at opennorth.ca> wrote:
> I don't think anyone is suggesting that e-petitions replace all prior ways of engaging the public - having the house's policies for petitions take into account the internet is just a good development as far as petitions go. Petitions are not votes (unlike ballot questions) and have no decision-making power, so I don't see the link to direct democracy. Paper petitions were heavily weighted towards where the people distributing the signature sheets were located (urban areas) - I'd say e-petitions are an improvement in that respect.
> 
> Re: what if a petition reopens a debate: I think that's just the price of democracy - look at the circus of the Charter of Quebec Values - we already went over that ground in 2007-2008 with the Bouchard-Taylor commission. The challenge with any popular mechanism like petitions is to prevent a motivated subset of the majority from oppressing a minority, while preserving the minority's ability to use that mechanism at all.
> 
> Re: vote division, The conservatives consistently vote against non-conservative motions, even motions in committee to correct typographical or grammatical errors.
> 
> 
> On 2014-02-06, at 5:30 AM, Tracey P. Lauriault wrote:
> 
>> I think e-petititions are good, but we must temper that with real consultations and sometimes targeted consultations with the public and specialist or stakeholder communities. 
>> 
>> Direct democracy of this nature can be problematic on real questions, one form of direct democracy we have all recently witnessed is a ballot question on same sex marriage, whereby a majority votes on a minority right.  Imagine if that was done on the topic of allowing blacks to the lunch counter in 1950 US.  This form of direct democracy is also problematic in Switzerland when it comes to citizenship decisions, the whole life of the applicant is on display in a community and the community votes on whether or not they are entitled to citizenship.  Certain groups are persistently being refused irrespective of how long they have lived in a community and the good they have provided.  Does a petition on anti choice mean we get to reopen debate?
>> 
>> Also, petitions like these provide clues to a mood and a sentiment but the number or respondents can be heavily weighted to those who heard about the petition, again, if it is not discussed broadly and if the questions are formulated in such a way as to mask the nuances of an issue (the fine print), then we are no better off. Then there is the technical issue of ensuring one response per person, location specific responses, etc.
>> 
>> I think these are a very positive steps forward, but we should not have this as the default means to make decisions in government, our politics are more nuanced than a survey, and at times, a room full of experts from all sectors actively engaged in a well moderated and critical discussion about an issues might be a better approach and better solutions than those in a petition.  This is more expensive, more work, and harder to do, but I think we are worth it.
>> 
>> I love the http://openparliament.ca/votes/41-2/43/ results! Especially since the tories, if they used petitions to mobilize the religious right, who are way more organized than atheists for example, could have all kinds of nefarious debates in the House, but they predominantly voted no!  Amazing.
>> 
>> Cheers
>> t
>> 
>> 
>> On Thu, Feb 6, 2014 at 4:07 AM, James McKinney <james at opennorth.ca> wrote:
>> Awesome. The vote on OpenParliament.ca: http://openparliament.ca/votes/41-2/43/
>> 
>> 
>> On 2014-02-05, at 8:17 PM, David Akin wrote:
>> 
>>> First point Alex notes in his post was about e-petitions. Good news: Canada is going to do it.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Last week, MP Kennedy Stewart's motion on e-petitions passed. Kennedy, an NDP (opposition) MP was pretty pleased:
>>> 
>>> Kennedy's page on his e-petition motion:
>>> http://kennedystewart.ndp.ca/e-petitions
>>> 
>>> .. his Web site:
>>> http://betterpetitions.ca/
>>> 
>>> .. why this is a big deal:
>>> http://newdemocracy.craigscott.ndp.ca/topics/6956/ideas-for-21st-century-use-of-e-petitions
>>> 
>>> And here's the vote in the House of Commons -- it passed! -- but it was close:
>>> http://www.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?Pub=hansard&Language=E&Mode=1&Parl=41&Ses=2&DocId=6395387&File=0
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Feb 5, 2014, at 7:27 PM, James McKinney <james at opennorth.ca> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Alex Howard, from Canada's advisory panel on open government, shares his recommendations to the government as a panelist in this blog post: http://e-pluribusunum.com/2014/02/05/canada-public-consultation-open-government-national-action-plan/
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On 2014-02-03, at 2:23 PM, Tracey P. Lauriault wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> http://www.teresascassa.ca/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=151:canada%E2%80%99s-progress-on-open-government-ogp-report-open-for-comments&Itemid=81.
>>>>> 
>>>>> -- 
>>>>> Tracey P. Lauriault
>>>>> http://traceyplauriault.wordpress.com/2013/07/23/moving-to-ireland/
>>>>> https://gcrc.carleton.ca/confluence/display/GCRCWEB/Lauriault
>>>>> http://datalibre.ca/
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
>>>>> CivicAccess-discuss at civicaccess.ca
>>>>> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss
>>>> 
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>> 
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>> 
>> -- 
>> Tracey P. Lauriault
>> http://traceyplauriault.wordpress.com/2013/07/23/moving-to-ireland/
>> https://gcrc.carleton.ca/confluence/display/GCRCWEB/Lauriault
>> http://datalibre.ca/
>> _______________________________________________
>> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
>> CivicAccess-discuss at civicaccess.ca
>> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss
> 
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> 
> 
> -- 
> Tracey P. Lauriault
> http://traceyplauriault.wordpress.com/2013/07/23/moving-to-ireland/
> https://gcrc.carleton.ca/confluence/display/GCRCWEB/Lauriault
> http://datalibre.ca/
> _______________________________________________
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> CivicAccess-discuss at civicaccess.ca
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