From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Living Platform is a
participatory democracy wiki
that combines citizen input into a
political platform. It is hosted and run in Canada, but is
independent of any
political party or movement. It works on issues at all
scales from global
simultaneous policy to
trade bloc scale
bioregional democracy and
urban autonomy. Its main restriction is that it works
presently only in English.
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Contents
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1
Green lobbyists' tool
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2
Origin as protest
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3
Living agenda
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4
Reliable Shadow Cabinet tool
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5
Possible role in Canadian
federal election
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6
Ongoing role
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7
External links
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Green lobbyists' tool
As presently used, it is primarily a tool for
lobbying various levels of government for "greener"
policies:
- a
green tax shift to fund efficiency measures by taxing
waste
- support for vocational training in
sustainable trades and
green building technologies
-
full cost accounting and
performance auditing of government using
Genuine Progress Indicator or at least
Net Domestic Product measures
- meeting all
international treaty obligations including the
Social and Economic Right Convention
- establishing favourable
land trust and other
habitat conservation measures
Origin as protest
Living Platform
forked from the
Green Party of Canada Living Platform in February 2005. It
is now supported by the
Wild Greens,
Free U of T,
Green Party of Ontario,
Green Party of Nova Scotia,
Province of Toronto Party, the
Green Party of Canada's own
Shadow Cabinet and
Women's Caucus, and a few volunteers and former employees
involved in the GPC effort. One of these claims to have been
ordered to violate the
open content (CC-by)
under which the GPC-LP had gathered its materials, and had been
fired for refusing to do so.
The fork was part of an ongoing resistance against current
GPC Leader
Jim Harris (politician), who had sought to tightly control
policy and
press releases, and to censor all debate about
political party governance and the structure of the party
itself. A major issue was Harris' reputedly persistent targeting
of women to exclude from party decision making (thus the Women's
Caucus support).
Despite its origin as a protest move, however, broad support
for the new Living Platform convinced its supporters that it had
a permanent place on the map.
Since most of the progenitors of the GPC-LP are now using the
free LP exclusively, it is a matter for debate "which is the
fork".
Living agenda
Prior to the collapse of
deliberative democracy in the GPC, there had been a proposal
by Party Fundraising Chair
Kate Holloway to integrate all
political party governance debate into the
Living Agenda, which was adopted by the Party's process
committee originally as a solution to a prior attempt by the GPC
ERCT to shut down all debate about democracy and governance
itself in the GPC wiki.
This mechanism for dealing with governance questions and
bringing maximum expertise to bear on
political party matters, is part of the
open party mindset that the new free LP has adopted as its
ideal. The slogan however is more conventional:
- "this
is what democracy looks like"
Reliable Shadow Cabinet tool
Some members of the GPC Shadow Cabinet, and others opposed to
central control of any Green Party, are using the free LP as a
forum to debate the recovery from the disastrous command and
control ideology of Harris and others who are relatively new to
the leadership of the Greens.
GPC Shadow Cabinet Chair
Sharon Labchuk, widely seen as a potential Party Leader,
strongly protested the firing of Pilling, and signalled her
intent to use the new non-GPC Living Platform (since Pilling
retained administrator status there and so could continue the
Party's official process).
Also, the free Living Platform is committed, unlike the rump
GPC LP, to keeping its URLs in a simple reliable format, e.g.
the following
naming conventions.
Possible role in Canadian federal
election
In the
next federal election, the free Living Platform will provide
a base for independent candidates, or municipal governments, to
reflect citizen policy requests outside any existing party
structure. Some of these independents may in fact run as "real
Greens" against "Jim Harris Greens".
If this occurs, a
wiki-based political dispute will have escalated into a
major split in a significant party in a developed nation - a
significant escalation of
wiki politics.
Ongoing role
Living Platform's primary goal long term is to provide
support for
Federation of Canadian Municipalities and
Global Greens and
Green Party of Ontario,
Green Party of British Columbia,
Green Party of Nova Scotia, and other English-speaking
Green parties in Canada. Other parties are also welcome to
use it, though, the primary terminology and editorial policy
will be set mostly by Green activists.
It was used in February 2005 to prepare a submission to
Canadian Finance Minister
Ralph Goodale from the
Civic Efficiency Group.
External links
Categories:
NPOV disputes |
Wiki
