The Bridge Party of Canada

The Bridge Party of Canada was registered as an official federal party in Canada on the 28th of June, 2015. The party ran one candidate, Karim Rizkallah, in a by-election, called that same month. On August 02, 2015, the Federal writ was dropped. The Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, cancelled all by-elections which were thereby superseded by the October 2015, Federal Elections. In October, 2015, the party founder and leader, David Berlin, ran in University -Rosedale. He was the Bridge Party’s sole candidate in that election. The party was deregistered in January,2017 for three reasons. 1. Though the Bridge Party had just then gathered and remitted over 500 endorsements, Elections Canada required that the party redo the effort as a way of complying with Elections Canada’s internal audit. Compliance is no big deal for political parties with an established base. For freshly minted parties which have not yet had a proper kick at the can, the effort is almost always prohibitive. 2. The Bridge Party platform was designed to appeal to all Canadians. But the transition from nascence to maturity required the voluntary efforts of young people still capable of dreaming of a world better than the one in which they were living. And yet Canadian youth including many young people engaged in political action, expressed an incorrigible distrust of all political parties. From such acute distrust, The Bridge Party was not exempted. 3. Because no one on the planet has had any direct experience of “Real Democracy” (see below for explanation), speculation as to whether such a system could or would work, whether “the people” constituted of individuals often not well informed on the issues upon which they would be voting, was wild and quite impossible to discipline. The only method of resisting entirely ungrounded speculation is “experience” which, in this case, must be delivered by other means. Barring experience it is virtually impossible to declare that such and such happens or does not happen. VISION The Bridge Party’s aspiration and mandate was to usher in what the founder called “Real Democracy” a form of democracy in which power resides not with the people’s representatives, as is the case in Western-style democracies, but with the people themselves. Berlin claimed that representative democracy only works when a representative is able to guard against undo influence by funders, special interests and lobby groups and when a representative is accountable not only to her constituency but to the nation as a whole. With very few exceptions, this form of democracy has never been more than a dream destined to become a polarizing nightmare. Berlin further claimed that the representative system treats people like numbers to be manipulated and rallied for or against single “hot-button” issues. Rather than treat voters as human beings holding nuanced positions which cannot be packaged into boxes in which they are asked to place an X, Berlin argued that voters must be invited to deliberate and engage with the issues in the wealth of their detail and consequences. In one taped interview he argued that “it is very possible and often occurs that a voter supports one party’s foreign policy position but not its fiscal policy or its position on health care, immigration, housing and so forth” Rather than produce losers and winners which is the common result of plebiscites and elections as they are currently held, elections should arrive at maximal consensus. To do that emphasis must be placed on process and pre- election deliberation which is capable of arriving at pre-vote compromises and alternatives which dissolve the tensions between sides in advance of the vote. Rather than treating voting as the decisive actions, voting should (ideally) be no more than affixing one’s signature to agreements negotiated in advance. The Party System

Berlin was critical of the party -system as a whole.  In an essay published in an anthology titled “ Constitutional Democracy under Stress” Berlin took sides with a Quebec City mayor, Joseph Cauchon, one of Canada’s founders, who declared that competing “factions” tend to focus attention on one another to the exclusion of the common good.  

Political parties are election -machines and operate like a business equipped with whips who force MPs to tow the company line. The ideal to which political parties orient is not the common good but continued power. In the current system there is no requirement that politicians make good on their promises or that decisions be transparent. Except in the Treasury, Canada has no legislation requiring record -keeping. Much of what is decided at the Federal level is decided behind closed doors and without the stenographer’s record which party’s worry may enter the public domain. People’s Platform In Real Democracy deliberation and voting results in the “People’s Platform” which sets the agenda and provides guidelines incumbent upon all those who will

be selected to manage and implement the platform. All participants are encouraged to inform themselves before voting. Issues which require expertise are highlighted and in certain cases granulated to a level at which those social, political and economic biases become negligible. For example: Instead of asking whether day care should be subsidized, which in Canada, is already the case in most provinces – the listed question would be what % of your tax dollars would you commit to such subsidies.

A Typical pages of Real Democracy Ballot

People’s Platform In Real Democracy deliberation and voting results in the “People’s Platform” which sets the agenda and provides guidelines incumbent upon all those who will

be selected to manage and implement the platform. All participants are encouraged to inform themselves before voting. Issues which require expertise are highlighted and in certain cases granulated to a level at which those social, political and economic biases become negligible. For example: Instead of asking whether day care should be subsidized, which in Canada, is already the case in most provinces – the listed question would be what % of your tax dollars would you commit to such subsidies.

Managers Once the People’s Platform is ratified, a second election will be held in which various managerial teams will propose managerial plans. One team and a team of auditors and reporters will be selected to implement the platform. This team will be free to alter the platform in a fashion spelled out in advance. On certain occasions, when big changes to the Platform become necessary, managers will call for a renewal of the electoral process as described above. A member of the managerial team will be chosen to represent each file ( formerly called ministry) The role of Prime Minister which will be largely a ceremonial role, with no special allotment of power and authority will be selected by the public at the same time as the team is selected.

The Bridge Party – Selected Proposals (2015) How to Ground Education? Not very long ago, the demand to acquire a well- rounded, multi- disciplined education was expressed as the demand for a “liberal education”. Meeting this demand was considered the right of passage into the elite class from which both political and business leaders emerged. Liberal education was once both the “natural right” and the imprimatur of the “old boys network” which governed the country. Liberal education is no longer in vogue. Because “Real Democracy” treats each citizen as a decision maker asked to weigh in on myriad issues responsibly, it encourages participants to inform themselves and to evaluate facts and arguments. Unlike “ liberal education” which was incumbent only on the elite, Real Democracy encourages the passion and underscores the rationality grounding the need for a rounded education and for life- long learning. Economy In 2015, The Bridge Party did not propose a budget or a preferred system of taxation. But in a televised round table with the Honorable Christia Freeland, Berlin emphasized that if the call to participate and engage in collective self- governance and collective- decision -making is not to be hollow and meaningless, people need to be provided with both time and money to undertake such endeavors. resources to do so. In Real Democracy, money, Berlin claimed, is nothing else than the way we manage ourselves collectively, and the way we express our priorities. Given various options including two official currencies ( one traded internationally and one for “internal use” only, a nation can respect its own internal needs even as it honors international trade agreements. Opposition to dual currency creates an appetite for crypto- currency. Values and needs are particular and unique but by those who commit to it, the principles of Real Democracy must become uppermost. This is to say that while active participation in Real Democracy must remain voluntary, the collective must do all in our power to insure that everyone has the opportunity to engage and to encourage our fellow citizens to inform themselves and to extend their interest to encompass the whole. The luxury to think and to consider options is, of course, related to time. But if the future ushers in an environs in which many exigencies currently addressed via human labor will become automated, we will all be freer to attend to our collective needs. Future citizens of Real Democracy will perhaps treat the daily engagement in collective self- governance as work. Every other form of labour may be understood as a job.

Refugees 

Members of the Bridge Party held that human capital is the planet’s richest resource. And yet nation- states all too often understand refugees as a burden and the act of inviting them, a charitable act. Host nations are ill- prepared to integrate refugees from failing states in the throes of major upheaval. The Bridge Party proposed to overturn this state of affairs. It was suggested that we form an International United Nations Tribunal charged with assessing requests for refugees. Nation- states seeking to host refugees would have to comply with requirements as set out by the Tribunal. The Tribunal would be mandated to evaluate requests and grant only those which demonstrated the applicants readiness to host refugees. Readiness refers to social, political and economic preparedness. • An internationally supported “refugee state” acting as a triage housing refugees not in “tent -cities” but in a manner befitting citizens often fleeing from countries whose development was choked off by colonial powers, must be established. First Nations The Bridge Party suggested that the colonial policies of assimilation be replaced by an official model of integration. The Bridge advocated for a a percentage of all property tax across the country to be paid to First Nation Bands as “rent”. The Bridge Party also supported efforts to introduce the language which local First Nation bands speak into schools situated in that region. The Bridge Party supported an initiative to offer the designation “ elder” to seniors prepared to study the art of community leadership with First Nation leaders. Climate Change and the Environment Resistance to threats posed by climate change which could end life on our planet, demands an “all hands on deck” approach which cannot be achieved by extant political systems, but only by insisting on Real Democracy and by doing all in our power to extend its reach to all corners of the planet. In the meanwhile, we all do what we can. Morality: A center that holds (Real Democracy as “System”) The ongoing, real- time engagement in a system of collective self- governance and collective- decision -making goes a long way towards expanding and enhancing the buy-in and the pride in the social, political and economic system in which we live. Such a system is not a guarantee against a tidal wave of movement to the extremes on the right or left. But it is all that can be done to keep our society from losing its center and from the constant pull and push towards such extremes.

External links

• Bridge Party of Canada – Canadian Political Parties and Political Interest Groups – Web Archive created by the University of Toronto Libraries