Aware that many of Salt Spring’s public conversations aren’t as productive as they could be, twenty-two people joined this ASK Salt Spring gathering. They welcomed Susanna Haas Lyons (https://susannahaaslyons.com/) and David Norget (https://sshealthadvancemen.wixsite.com/sshan & https://davidnorget.com/) to discuss how to strengthen our community conversations. During his Acknowledgement, David spoke of the local Indigenous value of working together with one heart and one mind. It is his belief that the time is ripe for Salt Springers to work together, using these values to demonstrate what it is to be good community members.
Before we began to discuss how the practice of democracy could thrive in our community, each participant had an opportunity to introduce themselves. A widely-varied group, four local candidates for the upcoming October 17 election were among the participants.
David, a registered clinical counselor with a focus on relationships and systems, shared his “excitement and delight” in the wonders of our natural world, especially his experiment growing tobacco in his verdant garden. He was also delighted by the possibilities we were about to explore at this ASK Salt Spring gathering.
Susanna, a civic engagement professional with 20 years of experience bringing inclusive groups together to address complex issues, shared her delight at being in this roomful of Salt Springers eager to discuss a better way to seek – and find – agreement on complicated local issues.
Before jumping into the conversation, we were led in a meaningful mediation by Eve Marenghi (appletreemeditation.com), pausing to ground ourselves before launching into our conversation. Susanna told us that this practice was being used effectively more and more frequently before complex conversations. She observes that folks often show up for a conversation agitated, ready to fight for acceptance of their opinion. These moments of meditation are often helpful in nurturing the ability to listen as well.
And, Susanna should know about groups coming together with set opinions: Among many other such community conversations, Susanna was on the staff team for the 2004 BC Citizens’ Assembly for Election Reform (https://citizensassembly.arts.ubc.ca/). This launched us into a discussion about Citizens’ (or Community) Assemblies, a centuries’ old format for discussion taken to an entirely new level of deliberative democracy by this electoral reform initiative lasting eight months and involving over 3,000 BC residents. Seen as having the potential to renew democracy, this BC experiment soon became one of our province’s most significant democratic innovations, with over 500,000 Canadians having received an invitation to participate in a Citizens’ Assembly. These Assemblies have also been used all over the world, with over 1,000 Assemblies in the last quarter century.
“So, what is so special about a Citizens’ Assembly. . . Isn’t it just another big meeting?” Actually, no. .
At its core, a Citizens’ Assembly is a group of individuals who come together to learn, reflect, discuss a given topic, and present actionable recommendations to decision-makers. The members are chosen randomly through a civic lottery to reflect the community along key demographic characteristics, such as age, gender, geographic location, etc.
What makes a Citizens’ Assembly unique is that decision-makers hear from the broad diversity of their community; participants help to create actionable recommendations based on both reliable information and an understanding of the constraints faced by decision-makers. They also they provide an opportunity to build people’s trust in their neighbours and their government.
A Citizens’ Assembly follows certain key principles:
- It must focus on a question that matters and can lead to action. Susanna told us about the importance of decision-makers’ readiness to respond to what citizens recommend. This starts with a clear mandate for the Assembly, and is supported by having all the key players involved with the project from the start.
- Participants reflect the community as a whole. At a typical public meeting, the people participating are often those who have the time and resources to attend. This means important community perspectives are often missed. Citizens’ Assemblies use a variety of methods to recruit representative participants, like drawing on census data, going to places frequented by groups less likely to respond to a call for volunteers, and using a civic lottery process to ensure demographic fairness.
- Informed participation helps level the playing field. Participants hear presentations, ask questions of the speakers, and receive accessible background information to help develop an informed, critical understanding of complex policy decisions.
- Adequate time. Participants require time to learn about a complex issue, build their ability to work together, consider tradeoffs, and carefully work toward consensus on recommendations.
- Deliberation. Skilled, independent facilitation helps to foster open, respectful dialogue. Participants listen to different perspectives and ideas that reflect a diversity of voices and consider them carefully as they work toward building recommendations. To be successful, all must have an openness to listening and a willingness to change one’s mind.
- Independence and integrity ensure a fair process. To maintain impartiality and support the participants to do their work, an Assembly runs independently from the elected officials or authorities who commissioned it. Participants develop their own recommendations and rationale based on the learning and deliberation they undertake as a group.
Citizens’ Assemblies require work on the part of conveners, participants, and facilitators. An organization that seeks to use this process as simply a public relations exercise to check off the engagement box while continuing along their predetermined path will have failed: Citizens’ Assemblies are collaborative democracy leading to action.
Citizens’ Assemblies are an enticing concept, discussed widely throughout BC and Canada and with increasing frequency by candidates for our upcoming local election. Participants explored whether Salt Spring is a good place for such an Assembly. Some of these questions included:
- Since everyone on Salt Spring seems to think they are the mayor, could common recommendations be produced?
- Can speaking be safe for all participating, even those who may be most impacted? Can it be safe for those with lived experience to express more emotion and even anger about the issue?
- Can decisions be made from the bottom up when action upon recommendations must be made from the top?
- Since our local government is fragmented (or “divided by design” as some insist), could any recommendations be implemented? Can our community benefit from a Citizens’ Assembly, or does our government structure need to change first?
- Can we build a community of trust and trustworthiness? Can those who participate speak, listen, compromise, and even admit they may be wrong? Can organizations receiving these recommendations be trusted to respond or implement them?
Moving forward to create a Citizens’ Assembly requires funding, selecting the right facilitators, getting participants representing our community in the room, building trust, agreeing on recommendations, and the will and courage of the implementing organization to act on the recommendations. Needless to say, a daunting task. Despite the challenges, both David and Susanna are confident that Citizens’ Assemblies and their principles could be very effective on Salt Spring.
David spoke with appreciation about the progress of the Mental Wellness Initiative creating a “Culture of Care” through our community. He sees numerous community members and organizations stepping up to work together. With this strong and caring foundation, David sees many community examples of working well together: listening, engaging, welcoming diverse voices, and a responsive leadership. Using the success of this strong collaborative foundation, David believes that Citizens’ Assemblies could also be very valuable for Salt Spring.
Susanna spoke of the power of building trust by developing a shared vision of where we want to go, and working backwards from there. She has found that beginning with shared visions for, say, 30 years from now, can often be effective in building the trust needed to agree on complex issues.
We had learned a lot about the magic that can occur in a Citizens’ Assembly. But, what about that faceless communication that thrives on social media? What about those folks that write with ill will and meanness? While some choose to simply ignore it, many seem compelled to read the next posting, however vitriolic.
As most in the room agreed that social media was not going away soon, some wondered about using decentralised tools like Mastodon (https://joinmastodon.org/. What if our local government was more present in social media, perhaps using a tool like Mastodon to offer rich content, respectful dialogue, and, maybe even, a safe way for readers to offer their input to these local government posts?
There was agreement in this ASK Salt Spring gathering that a reliable source of governmental information could be useful. What if our local government embraced social media by offering significantly more information? Rather than having to wait long periods to get minutes of meetings and then be disappointed that these minutes give no information about discussions, only motions, would it be worth exploring a local government social media source for reliable information and productive discourse?
As our time together was drawing to a close, we spent a few moments remembering that tragic day 25 years ago as well as honouring the shared commitment to action that emerged. Our gathering was partly inspired by the April Fulford Hall screening of the documentary 9/11: Reclaiming Ground Zero.If you didn’t get a chance to see it, the film brilliantly depicts how 5,000 New Yorkers came together in an enormous town hall to figure out how to move forward. Instead of the expected chaos and divisiveness, this audacious experiment resulted in collaboration and cooperation, modeling a democracy that works. If you’d like to watch the film, it has just been made available, and you can rent it for $7 from Prime Video Canada by clicking this link:
As we were about to leave this gathering, a participant lauded Brian Webster for the years of leadership he had given to the exploration, formation, and establishment of our Local Community Commission as well as recognition of the important role of our weekly ASK Salt Spring gatherings.
As we got up to continue multiple one-on-one conversations, we were satisfied with an intriguing conversation, pondering the wealth of new information received and hopeful that trust and trustworthiness can be a hallmark of our upcoming local election. We were also so very grateful for the wisdom, courage, optimism, and simply hard work our guests have committed to a respectful, deliberative democracy that works. (Thank-you, Susanna and David!)
Just in case you are interested. . . .This report has been written by Gayle Baker, founder of ASK Salt Spring, currently also a Salt Spring Local Community Commissioner. It has been reviewed by Susanna and David.