To the Mayor and Members of City Council
City of Kingston

The Role of Citizen Participation

The following submission concerning the role of citizen participation in the work of the LVEC Steering Committee was recently submitted to the LVEC Steering Committee.

As citizen access to make appearances before City Council is a matter of current discussion it may be timely for Council to consider the matter of citizen participation in a broader perspective. The statement of Core Values for the Practice of Public Participation set out in the submission to the LVEC Steering Committee might be helpful to the discussion.

Perhaps the time is right for Council to consider adopting a citizen participation code of practice applicable to all aspects of its decision making processes. The statement of core values might be a beginning point in devising such a code.

Robert Mackenzie

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To: The LVEC Steering Committee
City of Kingston
From: Robert Mackenzie

December 7, 2004

The Role of Citizen Participation in the Work of the LVEC Steering Committee

The LVEC Steering Committee on November 23rd refused to welcome a small number of interested citizens to accompany the committee on its tour of similar Ontario LVEC facilities. In doing so was it signalling its attitude regarding the role that interested citizens would play in the work of the committee?

We live in a representative democracy and elect our representatives to make decisions on our behalf. In our system representatives have a responsibility to make responsive decisions in a process that is transparent and subject to scrutiny.

Citizens can help. They have a wealth of knowledge and bring a wide range of perspectives and interests to bear on any public matter. Citizen participation can assist representatives to be better informed and their decisions subsequently enhanced. In the process citizens learn as well.

The Steering Committee could have signalled that it really valued citizen participation by including a few engaged citizens on the tour and considering the trip as a mutual learning experience. Chairman Smith in denying the request gave no reasons. He said the citizens could go on their own. Some committee members in discussing the role of citizen participation indicated that "they were also citizens". It was not clear what meaning should be given to that response.

City Council has announced a policy of limiting citizen access to council meetings and favouring citizen involvement taking place at the committee level. In the context of that change and consistent with a meaningful role for citizens, what role can citizens expect to play as the work of the Steering Committee develops?

The committee should invite citizens who have an interest in the work of the committee to work with it to establish a committee-citizen relationship that would facilitate a productive collaborative approach. Ideas may conflict but there should be a way in which they can be expressed and considered effectively. Citizen participation should start from the beginning. The later the representatives leave it to start learning from citizens the more the representatives will appear to be just informing the citizens. It will not be perfect but that is the nature of democracy. In the end the representatives decide and the citizens hold the representatives accountable.

The following statement of core values is put forward to begin the consideration.

Core Values for the Practice of Public Participation

1. The public should have a say in decisions about actions that affect their lives.
2. Public participation includes the promise that the public's contribution will influence the decision.
3. The public participation process communicates the interests and meets the process needs of all participants.
4. The public participation process seeks out and facilitates the involvement of those potentially affected.
5. The public participation process involves participants in defining how they participate.
6. The public participation process provides participants with the information they need to participate in a meaningful way.
7. The public participation process communicates to participants how their input affected the decision.