Submission TEBBITT-0797 (Online)

My concern about the Citizens' Assembly is that it may be an expensive piece of window dressing, a carefully guided sham consultation with the great unwashed public to simply avoid the charge that the public hasn't been consulted. [1 page]

I never again want to see the current disproportional misrepresentation which exists in the BC Legislature, resulting in the passage of irrevocable and fundamental changes to the social and economic structure of this province, made by a group of people as near to dictatorship as possible in a democracy. I came to Canada from a fascist police-state and am appalled to find that the checks and balances of parliamentary debate, which are the basis for sustaining democracy and human rights, are virtually non-existent in this province and that all aspects of BC society are being subordinated to our government's economic ideology seemingly without conscience.

My concern about the Citizens' Assembly is that it may be an expensive piece of window dressing, yet another one of those carefully guided sham consultations with the great unwashed public to simply avoid the charge that the public haven't been consulted. I do not want to hear you say subsequent to the Assembly process that the complexities of changing the existing system are so onerous as to make change more problematic than leaving things as they are. Nor do I want to hear the "the economy" would suffer were change to be made. "The Act to Confer the Electoral Franchise Upon Women" 1918, was a very difficult change to put into effect. Justice is always difficult for people who feel entitled to deny entitlement to others.

I know the work you are doing is very demanding, and I am extremely grateful for your attention to this task. For those of us who have lived in systems where many voices are silenced, your work has a profound resonance.