Two interesting pieces on local democracy can be found here from the Georgia Straight’s Charlie Smith and here from Montreal resident Dimitri Roussopoulos on the ThinkCity website.

Smith makes a tenuous argument about how caucus solidarity within the Vision Vancouver caucus is “undermining civic engagement,” suggesting that internal dissent, regardless of how, why or from whom, would be a path towards avoiding the death of democracy

The objections, however, seem to be more broadly based on a fundamental disagreement with partisan association amongst elected officials as a concept rather than a specific criticism of Vision Vancouver’s adherence to the notion.

The point of an arrow will only help to direct a willing democratic participant, not those who decide to sit on their hands and do nothing.

At the end of the day, however, my issue with Smith’s position stems from the following two excerpts:

“It’s antidemocratic. And it deprives the public and the media of opportunities to get educated about public issues, thereby undermining civic engagement. With its approach, I can only conclude that Vision Vancouver doesn’t want the public to pay any attention to what it’s doing.”

“Democracy withers when it’s not nurtured, and tyranny is the eventual outcome.”

Democracy is a two-way street, and the burden of engagement lies with more than those elected to inhabit City Hall.

Which then begs the question: where does citizen self-responsibility come into play when talking about the levers of a democratic system?

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