In The Real Outsiders, a clear distinction was made between what people thought about “politics” and what people perceived as “democratic”. Here is some of the feedback given at our roundtable, held on December 2, 2011.

We need to unpack a sense of where the onus of responsibility is.  The amount of human energy that gets sucked into consultation processes displaces other forms of engagement when it comes to decision-making. (Norman Regetlie, Rural Ontario Institute)

There are other forms of governance that we can draw from, such as rural panchayats.  Who is a politician?  How do politicians listen to our voices?  There needs to be a way for Canadians to engage outside of voting.  They may not vote, but would like to engage in other ways. (Kripa Sekhar, South Asian Women’s Centre)

In the North, it isn’t necessarily an engagement problem, but a very young population. (James Stauch, Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation)

How do you define democracy?  Are these considered democratic processes: watching the news, getting a stop sign put up?  How informed are they about basic civics? (Mark Brosens, TVO)

We need to define how citizens already engage?  It seems as though everything is getting lumped into one pot. (Gillian Hewitt-Smith, Institute for Canadian Citizenship)

There may be a misunderstanding of the aspirational role of the civil service.  A criticism of democracy should go beyond politics and elections to include the civil service.  There has been a challenging shift in government.  Official accountability structures have not changed, but the things that the civil service are asked to do are blurred.  For people to shift blame to bureaucrats shows misinformation about the role of bureaucracy.  We should have a culture that raises kids to aspire to public service and teach them about the role of bureaucrats. (John Monahan, Mosaic Institute)

We need a mechanism where politicians and citizens can sit and think about processes used for hearing citizens’ voices.  This is deeply broken.  Your trust with a local official may be good but you see the overall system as flawed.  How do we solve this? (Chi Nguyen, CBC)