[Applause]
who holds a political power in your
community do you and by political power
I mean who makes decisions about stuff
in your community who makes decisions
about how resources are used how your
community gets built and the rules that
govern your community do you if we live
in a democratic society the answer is
supposed to be yes it should be yes I
have political power yes I make
decisions about my community but most of
us face to those questions that’s not
how we answer we’re not sure how to
answer those questions or at best were
uncertain that’s a problem we have been
fighting wars people have been dying for
at least 350 years some would say for
longer trying to put in place basic
democratic principles things like the
rule of law one-person one-vote
universal suffrage freedom of speech an
independent judiciary people have fought
and died for this stuff in many parts of
the world people are still fighting and
dying for this stuff and yet I ask the
question do you have political power do
you make decisions about our community
and our responses I don’t know maybe to
make matters worse when it comes to
democracy in many ways we actually seem
to be doing worse there’s a very ugly
form of populism and nationalism rising
up in different parts of the world
declining voter turnout at all levels of
government studies showing declining
levels of trust not only in elected
officials but government institutions
themselves recently I spoke at the end
of a conference there was about 70
people in the room is a mix of Canadians
and Americans and I asked how many
people here feel good about democracy
how many hands do you think went up not
one not one hand went up and I’m pretty
sure they were awake could look like not
asleep
no no one had went up so obviously we
need to do better the question is how I
believe that part of our challenge is
how we’ve
to understand political decision-making
when it comes to making decisions about
our communities we’ve come to rely on
two approaches voting and elected
representatives those are two very
specific very particular ways to do
democracy to share political power to
make decisions about our communities and
by understanding decision-making only in
those two ways going to the ballot box
elected representatives
we’re holding ourselves back we’re
holding ourselves back from finding new
and different ways to engage as
political citizens let me ask you when
you imagine a democratic community what
do you picture what does that actually
look like
is it voting let’s try out the voting
thing right now as a way to make
decisions all the time let’s suppose
that in order to go have lunch we all
need to decide what to eat so show of
hands if for lunch you would like to
have a burger and fries show of hands
all right and show van’s if you’d prefer
to have quinoa salad oh my goodness some
cheers of a lot more hands all right I
got news for you that’s what we’re all
having for lunch we’re all having quinoa
salad hopefully no one was keen on the
burger and fries is that really the best
way to make a decision this may come as
a shock voting is not the only way to do
Democratic decision-making I believe we
need to go beyond voting beyond elected
representatives now that exercise we did
was ridiculous for a whole bunch of
reasons not least of which is the absurd
notion that the preferences of this
entire room can be captured and
represented by two options so we need to
do better the question is how one place
we can look to for inspiration is a
place often credited for many of our
democratic practices but rather than
talk about Athenian or Greek democracy
generally I want to talk about
specifically something that happened
here
a place called the
this is a gathering place in Athens it
overlooks the Acropolis 2,500 years ago
the Athenians tried something here that
was radical they put in place a practice
whereby an email citizen who wanted to
participate in and discuss the issues
being put forward for a decision could
simply show up they just show up here
and participate they didn’t have to be
from a particular family they didn’t
have to be elected they didn’t even have
to register in advance the first six
thousand to show up here got to
participate how they sorted through that
was that’s another story
now we need to do better than that we
need to do much better because in that
practice they only went so far as to
include male citizens and they don’t get
a pass for that they knew better there
were writers and philosophers writing at
the time about the need to include women
the notion of abolishing slavery the
need to include other residents of the
Athenian population in practices like
this and they chose not to so we have to
do way better than them but that idea
they put in place that anybody can just
show up was radical and it’s simply the
premise there the concept that when it
comes to making decisions about our
communities about our political lives we
all get to participate and the only
thing we need to do to participate is
show up it’s the only requirement so
I’ve been working in the nonprofit
community sector most of my life and
thinking about what community
decision-making looks like today and one
place I draw drew inspiration from is
the experience that happened to me here
another very exciting picture of gravel
and rocks this this is a gravel parking
lot and this isn’t a community in
British Columbia that were sorely
lacking when it came to sport and
recreation activities for kids and youth
there was a community of people here who
had an idea for this place and by taking
democracy into their own hands they were
able to achieve something that was
incredible so I believe we need to go
beyond voting beyond elected
representatives start looking for in
finding democracy in our personal lives
in our communities and then we need to
make it awesome
and I’m going to talk about both those
things in order to do that the first
thing we needed is a different
definition of democracy so I’ve thought
long and hard about this and I have a
new very complicated very technical
definition already it’s like years of
study to go into this
the thing is when this happens when
groups of people get together and make
decisions as political equals some
powerful things happen people learn from
one another they challenge one another
they come up with new and different
ideas rather than be stuck with the
decision between burger and fries quinoa
salad they decide to hold a potluck or a
buffet or go for pizza I’m perfectly
timed before lunch this is good the
challenge though becomes if this is
gonna be democracy wherewhere are we
gonna do that there’s over 30 million
people in Canada there’s a lot of people
in the world how are we gonna set this
up so the groups of people can get
together and make decisions about stuff
the exciting thing is this already
exists on a huge scale nonprofit
community organizations are governed and
directed by groups of people making
decisions about stuff and for the most
part they’re volunteers who simply
decided to arrive they’ve just decided
to show up and if you consider across
Canada there are a hundred eighty
thousand nonprofits you assume an
average board size of ten you
potentially have 1.8 million people
doing community democracy right now this
already exists on a huge scale and this
is the scope of this sector is
unbelievable it’s everything from a
community people planning a community
garden community center Association that
holds a community carnival in order to
gather feedback about what the new
playground should look like it’s
everything from an arts and cultural
group with no paid staff who puts on a
festival every year parent advisory
group prevention provincial and national
professional associations University
clubs student clubs the people who put
on this conference here in Vancouver the
YVR Airport is a non-profit so if you
think back to the first question I asked
who make decisions about
how the rules that govern your community
how your community gets built and the
resources how your the resources in your
community are used this sector is also
scaled in a way that could have an
impact on all of those things and if you
remember that gravel parking lot this is
a 20,000 square foot gymnastics and
Sports Center the vision for this the
idea for this was put forward by the
community it’s currently operated by a
non profit Society 2,000 kids between
the ages of six months and adults go
through programs in this space the
community went made it happen
and it had nothing to do with voting it
had nothing to do with elected
representatives so hopefully at this
point you’re starting to think of a
place in your life where decision making
happens where there’s groups of people
getting together to make decisions about
something about something happening in
your community when I said nonprofits
you may also have been thinking of that
last board or committee meeting you
participated in the dragon until
midnight or the ugly politics that can
sometimes happen in nonprofits so our
first challenge and those are absolutely
challenges our first task is to find
democracy in our lives in communities
and the communities where we live and
work already our second challenge is to
make it awesome and here’s how we make
it awesome the one find people who want
to participate in the decisions that
you’re the things that you’re making
decisions about there are no rules about
who and how who to include and how to
include people in the decision-making of
a non-profit every group of people can
decide who they’re going to include and
how they’re going to do it
hold a community carnival hold a block
party set up a booth at the farmers
festival go out and find people and make
it easy for them to participate this
again is a place where we need to go
beyond we need to do way better than the
Athenians who simply invited male
citizens to come we need to go and find
people and make it easy for them to
participate and nonprofits you’ve got no
rules you can do that however you want
and you can make it fun and exciting get
outside of the boardroom once you are
together co-create the agenda and as
I’ve outlined here this is a really big
deal to me when we think of democratic
decision-making we focus on the final
decision we tend not to think about who
created the agenda in the first place
it’s why we’re so frustrated with
referendums and pleb asides because we
didn’t pose the question we didn’t set
the agenda it’s why government ministry
in deciding to put a highway through a
community can say yeah we did a
completely democratic exercise we asked
residents to choose the color of the
retaining wall complete democracy in
some sense that’s true but in another
sense it’s not no one wanted to talk
about the retaining wall they’d wanted
to talk about the highway but they
didn’t control the agenda and that
exercise previously I gave you no choice
of what the menu options were not only
that I didn’t even tell you what was on
the agenda before I forced you to vote
think about the agenda who created it
and who’s participating and the form
this takes is in that question that
appears on every single committee and
board meeting agenda in the world do you
have anything to add to the agenda does
everyone approve the agenda we put that
on every meeting agenda but we skip over
it we don’t think about it stop there
pause what decide what to decide what do
we need to be talking about in fact your
next meeting throw your agenda in the
garbage grab a blank piece of paper hand
it around say everybody okay write down
what is the most important thing for us
to talk about right now that becomes
your agenda that meeting will be the
most powerful engaging meeting you’ve
ever had as a group tell stories learn
and reflect from one another
hear the perspectives and the challenges
of the individuals participating in the
group where you’re working together have
entire meetings where you don’t decide
anything where you’re just there to
listen we heard earlier about listening
with curiosity and patience make time to
do that
this may come as no surprise for me try
to avoid voting gauge support instead
community democracy makes it possible to
gauge support and move forward on a
consensus basis instead if you’re a
group of ten and you’ve got two people
who are really opposed to a decision
moving forward maybe stop and pause is
there more information you need do you
need to go back to the agenda creation
stage and see if there’s an agenda item
that was missed use a scale from one to
ten ten complete support one is
completely opposed if
a couple people in the group are at a
four or five maybe that’s sufficient
consent to proceed if one person in your
group is that a one maybe you need to
stop and go back to listening find
someone in your group your organization
to hold accountable so partner up with
someone who you’re gonna support and
you’re gonna hold accountable to moving
forward with the decisions that they
made putting forward the ideas that the
group came up with community democracy
makes this possible when was the last
time you felt accountable and
responsible for a decision you made at
the ballot box in community democracy
we’re typically expected to follow
through with the things we say we’re
going to do so find a partner and
support them in doing that lastly as a
group talk about your process talk about
what’s working well in your
decision-making talk about what’s not
working and make changes be willing to
make changes with how you work together
how you make decisions together so my
challenge to you think about go and find
someplace in your community where groups
of people are making decisions about
stuff and your next meeting your next
get-together try one of these things
just imagine if our decisions at the
ballot box were informed not by things
we heard in the media but by the things
we learned together in groups of
communities with fellow citizens
learning from one another challenging
one another listening to one another
imagine in politicians define democracy
not as putting their name on a ballot
but showing up in communities and
empowering citizens with the power to
create their agendas imagine if you got
to create their agenda if we don’t do
this if we don’t start defining
democracy in these ways and going beyond
voting and beyond elected
representatives the things that get
talked about the things that get put
forward in the public realm will be
completely dictated and controlled by
those are the most power resources and
wealth to spit out gross generalizations
false truths sound bites and a politics
of fear and division does that sound
familiar
so to go back to the question I posed at
the start when you imagine a democratic
community what do you picture this is
what it looks like go and find it and
start making it awesome thank you
[Applause]
who holds a political power in your
community do you and by political power
I mean who makes decisions about stuff
in your community who makes decisions
about how resources are used how your
community gets built and the rules that
govern your community do you if we live
in a democratic society the answer is
supposed to be yes it should be yes I
have political power yes I make
decisions about my community but most of
us face to those questions that’s not
how we answer we’re not sure how to
answer those questions or at best were
uncertain that’s a problem we have been
fighting wars people have been dying for
at least 350 years some would say for
longer trying to put in place basic
democratic principles things like the
rule of law one-person one-vote
universal suffrage freedom of speech an
independent judiciary people have fought
and died for this stuff in many parts of
the world people are still fighting and
dying for this stuff and yet I ask the
question do you have political power do
you make decisions about our community
and our responses I don’t know maybe to
make matters worse when it comes to
democracy in many ways we actually seem
to be doing worse there’s a very ugly
form of populism and nationalism rising
up in different parts of the world
declining voter turnout at all levels of
government studies showing declining
levels of trust not only in elected
officials but government institutions
themselves recently I spoke at the end
of a conference there was about 70
people in the room is a mix of Canadians
and Americans and I asked how many
people here feel good about democracy
how many hands do you think went up not
one not one hand went up and I’m pretty
sure they were awake could look like not
asleep
no no one had went up so obviously we
need to do better the question is how I
believe that part of our challenge is
how we’ve
to understand political decision-making
when it comes to making decisions about
our communities we’ve come to rely on
two approaches voting and elected
representatives those are two very
specific very particular ways to do
democracy to share political power to
make decisions about our communities and
by understanding decision-making only in
those two ways going to the ballot box
elected representatives
we’re holding ourselves back we’re
holding ourselves back from finding new
and different ways to engage as
political citizens let me ask you when
you imagine a democratic community what
do you picture what does that actually
look like
is it voting let’s try out the voting
thing right now as a way to make
decisions all the time let’s suppose
that in order to go have lunch we all
need to decide what to eat so show of
hands if for lunch you would like to
have a burger and fries show of hands
all right and show van’s if you’d prefer
to have quinoa salad oh my goodness some
cheers of a lot more hands all right I
got news for you that’s what we’re all
having for lunch we’re all having quinoa
salad hopefully no one was keen on the
burger and fries is that really the best
way to make a decision this may come as
a shock voting is not the only way to do
Democratic decision-making I believe we
need to go beyond voting beyond elected
representatives now that exercise we did
was ridiculous for a whole bunch of
reasons not least of which is the absurd
notion that the preferences of this
entire room can be captured and
represented by two options so we need to
do better the question is how one place
we can look to for inspiration is a
place often credited for many of our
democratic practices but rather than
talk about Athenian or Greek democracy
generally I want to talk about
specifically something that happened
here
a place called the
this is a gathering place in Athens it
overlooks the Acropolis 2,500 years ago
the Athenians tried something here that
was radical they put in place a practice
whereby an email citizen who wanted to
participate in and discuss the issues
being put forward for a decision could
simply show up they just show up here
and participate they didn’t have to be
from a particular family they didn’t
have to be elected they didn’t even have
to register in advance the first six
thousand to show up here got to
participate how they sorted through that
was that’s another story
now we need to do better than that we
need to do much better because in that
practice they only went so far as to
include male citizens and they don’t get
a pass for that they knew better there
were writers and philosophers writing at
the time about the need to include women
the notion of abolishing slavery the
need to include other residents of the
Athenian population in practices like
this and they chose not to so we have to
do way better than them but that idea
they put in place that anybody can just
show up was radical and it’s simply the
premise there the concept that when it
comes to making decisions about our
communities about our political lives we
all get to participate and the only
thing we need to do to participate is
show up it’s the only requirement so
I’ve been working in the nonprofit
community sector most of my life and
thinking about what community
decision-making looks like today and one
place I draw drew inspiration from is
the experience that happened to me here
another very exciting picture of gravel
and rocks this this is a gravel parking
lot and this isn’t a community in
British Columbia that were sorely
lacking when it came to sport and
recreation activities for kids and youth
there was a community of people here who
had an idea for this place and by taking
democracy into their own hands they were
able to achieve something that was
incredible so I believe we need to go
beyond voting beyond elected
representatives start looking for in
finding democracy in our personal lives
in our communities and then we need to
make it awesome
and I’m going to talk about both those
things in order to do that the first
thing we needed is a different
definition of democracy so I’ve thought
long and hard about this and I have a
new very complicated very technical
definition already it’s like years of
study to go into this
the thing is when this happens when
groups of people get together and make
decisions as political equals some
powerful things happen people learn from
one another they challenge one another
they come up with new and different
ideas rather than be stuck with the
decision between burger and fries quinoa
salad they decide to hold a potluck or a
buffet or go for pizza I’m perfectly
timed before lunch this is good the
challenge though becomes if this is
gonna be democracy wherewhere are we
gonna do that there’s over 30 million
people in Canada there’s a lot of people
in the world how are we gonna set this
up so the groups of people can get
together and make decisions about stuff
the exciting thing is this already
exists on a huge scale nonprofit
community organizations are governed and
directed by groups of people making
decisions about stuff and for the most
part they’re volunteers who simply
decided to arrive they’ve just decided
to show up and if you consider across
Canada there are a hundred eighty
thousand nonprofits you assume an
average board size of ten you
potentially have 1.8 million people
doing community democracy right now this
already exists on a huge scale and this
is the scope of this sector is
unbelievable it’s everything from a
community people planning a community
garden community center Association that
holds a community carnival in order to
gather feedback about what the new
playground should look like it’s
everything from an arts and cultural
group with no paid staff who puts on a
festival every year parent advisory
group prevention provincial and national
professional associations University
clubs student clubs the people who put
on this conference here in Vancouver the
YVR Airport is a non-profit so if you
think back to the first question I asked
who make decisions about
how the rules that govern your community
how your community gets built and the
resources how your the resources in your
community are used this sector is also
scaled in a way that could have an
impact on all of those things and if you
remember that gravel parking lot this is
a 20,000 square foot gymnastics and
Sports Center the vision for this the
idea for this was put forward by the
community it’s currently operated by a
non profit Society 2,000 kids between
the ages of six months and adults go
through programs in this space the
community went made it happen
and it had nothing to do with voting it
had nothing to do with elected
representatives so hopefully at this
point you’re starting to think of a
place in your life where decision making
happens where there’s groups of people
getting together to make decisions about
something about something happening in
your community when I said nonprofits
you may also have been thinking of that
last board or committee meeting you
participated in the dragon until
midnight or the ugly politics that can
sometimes happen in nonprofits so our
first challenge and those are absolutely
challenges our first task is to find
democracy in our lives in communities
and the communities where we live and
work already our second challenge is to
make it awesome and here’s how we make
it awesome the one find people who want
to participate in the decisions that
you’re the things that you’re making
decisions about there are no rules about
who and how who to include and how to
include people in the decision-making of
a non-profit every group of people can
decide who they’re going to include and
how they’re going to do it
hold a community carnival hold a block
party set up a booth at the farmers
festival go out and find people and make
it easy for them to participate this
again is a place where we need to go
beyond we need to do way better than the
Athenians who simply invited male
citizens to come we need to go and find
people and make it easy for them to
participate and nonprofits you’ve got no
rules you can do that however you want
and you can make it fun and exciting get
outside of the boardroom once you are
together co-create the agenda and as
I’ve outlined here this is a really big
deal to me when we think of democratic
decision-making we focus on the final
decision we tend not to think about who
created the agenda in the first place
it’s why we’re so frustrated with
referendums and pleb asides because we
didn’t pose the question we didn’t set
the agenda it’s why government ministry
in deciding to put a highway through a
community can say yeah we did a
completely democratic exercise we asked
residents to choose the color of the
retaining wall complete democracy in
some sense that’s true but in another
sense it’s not no one wanted to talk
about the retaining wall they’d wanted
to talk about the highway but they
didn’t control the agenda and that
exercise previously I gave you no choice
of what the menu options were not only
that I didn’t even tell you what was on
the agenda before I forced you to vote
think about the agenda who created it
and who’s participating and the form
this takes is in that question that
appears on every single committee and
board meeting agenda in the world do you
have anything to add to the agenda does
everyone approve the agenda we put that
on every meeting agenda but we skip over
it we don’t think about it stop there
pause what decide what to decide what do
we need to be talking about in fact your
next meeting throw your agenda in the
garbage grab a blank piece of paper hand
it around say everybody okay write down
what is the most important thing for us
to talk about right now that becomes
your agenda that meeting will be the
most powerful engaging meeting you’ve
ever had as a group tell stories learn
and reflect from one another
hear the perspectives and the challenges
of the individuals participating in the
group where you’re working together have
entire meetings where you don’t decide
anything where you’re just there to
listen we heard earlier about listening
with curiosity and patience make time to
do that
this may come as no surprise for me try
to avoid voting gauge support instead
community democracy makes it possible to
gauge support and move forward on a
consensus basis instead if you’re a
group of ten and you’ve got two people
who are really opposed to a decision
moving forward maybe stop and pause is
there more information you need do you
need to go back to the agenda creation
stage and see if there’s an agenda item
that was missed use a scale from one to
ten ten complete support one is
completely opposed if
a couple people in the group are at a
four or five maybe that’s sufficient
consent to proceed if one person in your
group is that a one maybe you need to
stop and go back to listening find
someone in your group your organization
to hold accountable so partner up with
someone who you’re gonna support and
you’re gonna hold accountable to moving
forward with the decisions that they
made putting forward the ideas that the
group came up with community democracy
makes this possible when was the last
time you felt accountable and
responsible for a decision you made at
the ballot box in community democracy
we’re typically expected to follow
through with the things we say we’re
going to do so find a partner and
support them in doing that lastly as a
group talk about your process talk about
what’s working well in your
decision-making talk about what’s not
working and make changes be willing to
make changes with how you work together
how you make decisions together so my
challenge to you think about go and find
someplace in your community where groups
of people are making decisions about
stuff and your next meeting your next
get-together try one of these things
just imagine if our decisions at the
ballot box were informed not by things
we heard in the media but by the things
we learned together in groups of
communities with fellow citizens
learning from one another challenging
one another listening to one another
imagine in politicians define democracy
not as putting their name on a ballot
but showing up in communities and
empowering citizens with the power to
create their agendas imagine if you got
to create their agenda if we don’t do
this if we don’t start defining
democracy in these ways and going beyond
voting and beyond elected
representatives the things that get
talked about the things that get put
forward in the public realm will be
completely dictated and controlled by
those are the most power resources and
wealth to spit out gross generalizations
false truths sound bites and a politics
of fear and division does that sound
familiar
so to go back to the question I posed at
the start when you imagine a democratic
community what do you picture this is
what it looks like go and find it and
start making it awesome thank you
[Applause]
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