Adding Constituency Assemblies to BC's Governing
Process
A truly democratic society is one where the voters come as close
as is feasible to actually holding the reigns of governing power
directly in their own hands. My suggestion for doing this in BC is
to leave our present governing system essentially as it is now, but
add a new controlling level of government at the constituency
level. This new level of government would add voter assemblies in
every constituency. These assemblies would have legal authority to
direct their elected member on what policies he/she should support
in the legislature. These voter groups would be called constituency
assemblies. Each elected member of the government would be required
to appear before their assembly to get instructions on what
policies to follow in drafting and voting on legislation during
sessions. These instructions would be in the form of a policy paper
drawn up by all the voters in each member's constituency. After
each session of the legislature, members would be required to
appear before their assembly to account for their actions during
the session, and receive instructions in what policies to support
in the next session. If member's voters were dissatisfied with
their performance they could recall him/her at any time they wished
and vote in a replacement.
The structure and function of the constituency assemblies would
be organized in line with the general principles of our Societies
Act and Robert's Book of Rules. Officers would be elected in a
democratic way and all major decisions would be made by open
meetings of all voters. Officers could be removed at any time by a
majority vote of voters, this would be done to keep this level of
officials under the complete direct control of the
voters. Election of members of the legislature would be
held every four years.
Voters would require comprehensive sources of information to
fulfill their new governing role. To accomplish this, constituency
assemblies working together province wide would set up a whole
network of print and electronic information facilities to fill this
need. The youth of the province would be trained at every level of
the educational system to fulfill their new governing role when
they grew up.
Change in BC's Government Function
The function of the legislature would change; party politics as
they exist now would come to an end. There wouldn't be a government
and an opposition , there would just be a continuous government
made up of elected members carrying out the wishes of their voters.
The power would rest with all the elected members rather than in a
chosen party leader and his/her cabinet. The elected members would
elect (by secret ballot) the premier and cabinet ministers out of
their number. The members of the cabinet wouldn't be in control of
their department as they are now, but would just act as chairperson
of it. They wouldn't form policy they would just facilitate the
forming of policy by the legislature as a whole. A lot of the work
of government would have to be done by committees which would be
given a specific job to do. Once they had completed their
assignment they would bring it back to the whole legislature to be
discussed and acted on.
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