In October 1992 Canada's political leaders asked voters to accept the Charlottetown Accord, a comprehensive package of constitutional amendments that was the product of years of negotiation, consultation, and compromise. Canadians rejected it outright, effectively halting the country's formal constitutional evolution. But what did the No vote mean? Were voters making a considered judgment after thorough consideration of the package or were they expressing their anger with politicians, particularly Prime Minister Brian Mulroney? The Challenge of Direct Democracy provides the definitive account of the 1992 referendum on the Charlottetown Accord.
A mood of anger with the political system has been stirring across Canada; yet rather than turning away from the system, many Canadians are actually seeking a greater say in matters that affect them. they want to become more effective participants in the political process. In this timely book, Patrick Boyer examines the important role that direct democracy -- through the occasional use of referendums, plebscites, and inniatives -- can play in concert with our existing institutions of representative democracy. This concept is not alien to our country, says Boyer, pointing to the two national plebiscites (on prohibition of alcohol in 1898 and consciption for overseas military service in 1942), some sixty provincial plebscites (on everything from sovereignty-association to abortion, medicare to women's suffrage, prohibition to ownership of power companies), and several thousand at the municipal level. Direct voting is an important instrument in a truly democratic society, Boyer argues, and it has a more important rold in the current reformation of Canada than some in the comfortable growing governing classes want to admit. In addition to clarifying an issue, it is an educational tool, as the plebiscite campaign becomes a national teach-in. Canadians can become participants, rathe rthan mere spectators, in the major changes and transcending isues that affect the future of our country. The People's Mandate is a helpful guide to understanding the distinctions between plebiscites and referendums in a purely Canadian context. It addresses some of the concerns about this unparliamentary practice, and makes a powerful and logical statement about democracy. In sum, Boyer believes it is essential to govern with the trust of the people.
The essays in this volume assess democracy in continental North America - Canada, the United States and Mexico - and the process of democratization within these countries. Despite their geographical concentration, these states have had widely differing experiences in their attempts to democratize.
This book aims to provide a comprehensive, up-to-date survey of direct democratic institutions and devices as they have developed both in the thinking of modern political theorists and in actual political practice in the world's major democratic nations.
Surveying all referendums around the world since 1793, Dr Qvortrup and contributors provide a thorough account of why and when citizens have been asked to vote on policy issues. Referendums Around the World is essential reading for political scientists and others interested in direct democracy as well as representative government.
In these essays, written during the last fifteen years, Whitaker analyses the paradoxes of federalism and democracy in a society which is deeply divided by region, language, and class. He examines the thought and action of such diverse figures as Mackenzie King, Harold Innis, William Irvine, and Pierre Trudeau and evaluates their impact on Canadian society both then and now. With an astute critical eye he surveys constitutional reform and the question of Quebec sovereignty as it has developed from 1981 through Meech Lake and beyond, and explores federalism, democratic theory, and the practice of politics in the real world. In the final essay, "Quebec and the Canadian Question," written especially for this volume, he evaluates the major changes which have occurred in Canadian politics during the last fifteen years and assesses their resounding impact on the future possibilities for Canadian democracy. The dominant political discourse, Whitaker argues, is increasingly based on human rights. This, in combination with the ascendance of free-market conservatism, the turn to continentalism under free trade, and the resurgence, since the failure of Meech Lake, of serious tensions between Quebec and the rest of Canada, has led to a compounded crisis that requires an examination not only of what Quebec wants, with or without Canada, but what Canada wants -- with or without Quebec. The Canadian idea of democracy is still evolving. Together in one volume for the first time, Whitaker's essays describe the process of that evolution and show what lies beneath the constitutional debate on the future of Canada.
This story is about Billy Jones of Niagara-on-the-Lake Ontario, Michael Simone of Niagara Falls New York and a group called the House of Owls, that they formed to developed and promote Direct Democracy, or referenda for all political decisions. In the story, members of the House of Owls group are roughed up, shot at, murdered and continually harassed by thugs hired by political lobby groups who are strongly opposed to Direct Democracy. They are opposed because they know that under a government system of Direct Democracy, they would not be able to buy votes and affect political decisions the way that they have always done in the past. But times are changing.
