While I am keenly interested in the task of the
Citizens’ Assembly, and the need to improve
electors’ representation in the legislature, I wish to
address the issue of voter apathy. The lack of interest in voting
is not entirely driven by a notion that electors’
representation in the legislature is unbalanced or unfair, but by a
sense that electors’ interests are less important than
the personal agendas of those persons who have succeeded in
becoming elected, or by the interests of the political party to
which these members belong. It is possible that if these latter
concerns are addressed and corrected, changes in the electoral
system may be moot.
By improving the laws and policies that require
“transparency” in all government processes,
the matter of devising better representation from constituencies
will become secondary to what is being done for electors
– and by whom. Existing laws governing the process are
simply not transparent enough to satisfy the public interest. This
means that all who have a “right to know”,
the electors, must be extended the courtesy of being better advised
about candidates running for office, as well as about the other
functions and operations of government. Election information should
be coordinated by an electoral commission and not left solely to
individuals or the media. And it should be published well before
election dates and be relevant to the people running for office,
describing their background, all their sources of support, and how
their performance is to be evaluated.
Further, in that party systems are currently in favor, and party
discipline becomes a factor after a candidate’s
election, and in that there may be questions about individuals as
to how their deeds measure up against pre-election promises,
political parties should be subject to the same rules that guide
the candidates they put forward.
So changes to our electoral procedures should include discussion
not only about improving electors’ representation, but
also about the ethics of government and its officialdom, and how
all this squares with accountability. Certainly, the adequacy of
conflict of interest rules or laws should be subject to scrutiny by
the electoral commission during the life of each mandate.
There was a time when elected persons and their appointed
officials knew and expected all public service activity to be
“open”. Those that didn’t know
this when they started their assignments sometimes had rude
awakenings, and were compelled to change their ways. They simply
had to account for their deeds either in open sessions of the
legislature or in regularly published reports. And reports from
government sources in those days regularly included information
about members’ salaries and claimed expenses -
“published” in ways always that were open
to review by the media. While this policy didn’t
prevent or end scurrilous activity, the policy did set an
understandable operational undercurrent for all public servants. As
accountability in that period of history was more transparent then,
government ethics issues were less troublesome.
It may be a tall order for the Citizens’ Assembly to
get into all the ramifications of what is proposed here. To begin
with, one must ask if an electoral commission can be given such
powers or extend sufficient independence to precipitate this kind
of change and to manage it? Or, are the current regulations up to
correcting the conflicts of interest that may be exposed?
The matter of governing in an open and transparent way is an
Olympic leap away from reality in a Canadian provincial
legislature. However, certain rules, like many in effect in United
States legislatures, should be examined. If free votes (where
members are not governed by party discipline) were the norm rather
than the exception, and the Hansards of the day, and information
from sources released under the Freedom of Information Act are
released uncensored, members of government and senior staff would
soon comply with a need to act more auspiciously. They would be
compelled to seek consensus on the most contentious items of their
business. Better government would be sure to result.
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