Graeme Bacque wrote: "Unfortunately under the existing system -- whether the
balloting process is proportional or first-out-of-the-gate -- elected public
servants have become so abstracted from the lives of their constituents (and
in many cases, so grossly self-infatuated) that true accountability simply
does not exist."

What I think needs to happen is both proportional representation and a
complete reversal of the direction of political responsibility. 

Slowly, slowly, over the 140 years of Canada's existence, the provincial and
federal governments have taken more and more power unto themselves. As new
provinces joined the Dominion, the jurisdiction of the federal government
expanded. Much of the political talk today is about the 'fiscal imbalance'.
Regardless of whether a fiscal imbalance exists or the term is just another
spun frame, I submit that it's not the crucial issue. What's crucial is that
communities act to take back what has been taken away from them: their
ability to set their own course, determine their own destiny.

It's in communities that birth and death, sickness and health, work and play
happen. It's at the local level that politicians are the most accessible,
transparently accountable and cognizant of the needs, wants and expectations
of their citizens. Where a local politician lacks any of these, their
neighbours can and are apt to act quickly to fill in the gap of their
knowledge. It's therefore at the local level that governments should have
the responsibility and resources for the design and implementation of all
policy but that which has an obvious broader scope.

Instead, what we have are upper-tier governments imposing one-size-fits-all
policies, programs and services which, given that people and communities are
not homogenous, end up with inequitable and unjust results. Harper's
Universal Child Care Program is a case in point. Wealthy two-parent families
with one stay-at-home parent end up pocketing more of the $100/month than
single low-income working parents.

Local governments, not upper-tier governments, should have the
responsibility for all issues concerning the day-to-day wellbeing of their
citizens, issues such as:
 
	- housing; 
	- employment, education and training; 
	- health policy, promotion and services; 
	- food security and the ensuring of local food sources; and 
	- community economic development. 

(Of the latter, Community Futures Development Corporations have, since the
1980s, had a lock on CED and its funding in many small urban and rural
communities. While we may be told that CFDCs are 'community-based',
'non-profit' and 'volunteer-led', the use of these phrases is, at best,
misleading. E.g., CFDCs are not registered non-profits. They are registered
as companies with Industry Canada. In Western Canada, they are funded
through Western Economic Diversification Canada.) 

If local governments had the full authority and money to address citizen
needs, then of course local politicians should receive the largest salaries,
not the feds. Accountability would be much less an issue. Contact with
constituents would be unavoidable.

These changes will never happen, of course, until citizens in communities
across Canada become more active and vocal in political, including local,
affairs. Citizens particularly need to make the Canadian Federation of
Municipalities aware of their concerns. The fact that present society, as
molded by Canada's elite and their corporate, single-bottom-line,
consumerist agenda, discourages this makes a rising citizen movement all the
more difficult, yet urgent, to achieve.

Ocean

----------------------------------------------------------
Chrystal Ocean, Coordinator
Wellbeing through Inclusion Socially & Economically
http://www.wise-bc.org/

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