A BETTER MODEL

Dad never organized his workshop because the time he took searching for tools was time spent thinking of “a better way.”

Voting is the primary tool of democracy in Canada, but is it too handy? Have we stopped looking for a better way? Our person-perception skills are essential to our survival, for we depend on relationships of mutual obligation. Within a few minutes of meeting someone, we are good at assess- ing their intelligence, sanity and virtues.

British anthropologist Robin Dunbar notes that business, military and religious communities thrive in groups of fewer than 150 people. Let’s leverage Dunbar’s number to replace our partisan adversarial system of electing representatives with an impersonal “X” on a ballot. Every four years, we could meet in person for a day in geographic groups of 100 and, under the guidance of a professional facilitator, reach a consensus on who would best represent us. Opting out would be allowed, but discouraged through fines. No campaigning needed or allowed.

Our chosen representative then meets with 99 other representatives. One representative goes on. This is done until we have the “degrees” of representatives needed.

This system would allow full and open communication across the degrees of representation. Consensus would replace voting as our primary tool, shifting us from an uneven “votocracy” toward a true democracy. Nancy Carswell Shellbrook