Democracy Hacks: Get out of Ottawa!

This week on The 180's "Democracy Hacks" series: Why politicians should leave Ottawa.

We're collecting simple, concrete suggestions to improve democracy in Canada, and the latest comes from a professional democracy hacker.

Kevin Deveaux was an Nova Scotia NDP MLA from 1998 to 2007, and now works as a consultant to developing democracies.

He worked with the United Nations Development Programme to help Tunisia build a new constitution, after that country's 2011 revolution.

Deveaux says the big success in that project was getting politicians to leave the capital, and meet, as a group, with residents in cities and towns across the country.

"The Constituent Assembly had to leave the capital, travel to all 24 regions of the country, and had to engage the citizens and listen to their ideas about the constitution. At first, MPs were skeptical, thinking 'Well, we have nothing to learn from them.' What came out of it in the end when they passed the constitution earlier this year were some significant changes to that constitution--significant additions that wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for that citizen input".

In Canada, MPs do a lot of work outside of Ottawa already, meeting with residents in constituency offices, but Deveaux wants Canadian politicians to take the whole show on the road, just like they did in Tunisia.

In Canada, the government holds committee hearings on bills before they're passed into law, but they hold those hearings only in Ottawa. That's within easy reach of lawyers and lobbyists, but not the average citizen of Halifax or Edmonton or Vancouver.

What Deveaux suggests, is that like in Tunisia, an entire government committee travel together, meet together, and hear from citizens together, all across the country. He says that people from across parties would spend more time together, while waiting in airports and sharing cabs to meetings.

"When they actually leave Ottawa, or they start to engage as a committee, you start to get, as we found in other places, cross-party engagement," he says. "So the Tories and the Liberals and the New Democrats and the Greens begin to talk to each other on that committee. Obviously when ideas come forward and the parties can agree... I think that's better for Canada."

What do you think? Would holding committee hearings around the country improve Canadian democracy?

You can weigh in, or pitch a Democracy Hack of your own, by sending a note to [email protected]