A simple prescription for municipal government

Every day we see new attacks on our rights as citizens in a participatory Democracy from all levels of government. From the Federal government denying environmental groups a voice and ignoring First Nations concerns and welfare; through Provincial nuclear and development policies;  to Municipal governments acting as though it is the developers they were elected to serve and protect –

We need a change and we need it now!

Our government needs to be both more transparent and more responsive to voters and taxpayers. I think we need several things to happen to make changes on the municipal level:

·        Term limits for councillors and Mayors. Two consecutive terms on council and you can’t run again. This will prevent councillors from establishing  a permanent slot for themselves and give more people the opportunity to participate in government.

·        Fewer  in-camera meetings.  There are entirely too many of them and we never hear the outcomes.

·        No more private meeting investigators. The Ombudsman  is the right person to do this. Paid for by the province, and not investigating the very people that pay him like a private investigator.

• A mechanism to remove elected officials who abuse their power. This lack of a recall mechanism is left over from the days when the political thought was that the voters just couldn’t be trusted. (That is also why we have an unelected federal senate.)
• Establish municipal level a lobbyist registry for their municipality so taxpayers know who their political representatives are meeting.
• Fix the OMB and eliminate SLAPP suits so that citizens can speak their mind without being attacked by moneyed corporate interests.

Right now we don’t really have a democracy, we have an elected dictatorship. Once in power our mayors and councillors pretty much do whatever they want with little or no public input. That needs to change now!