An Invitation to Fellow Bloggers

This invite goes out to Ryan McGreal of 'Raise the Hammer' and Cal DiFalco of 'The Hamiltonian', two publishers/editors of local sites dealing with-

Well, how about before I get to the invite, if we take a brief look at how they frame what they do?

The Hamiltonian:

"Inciting respectful but powerful civic engagement in the Hamilton community in matters concerning Hamilton."

Raise The Hammer:

"Raise the Hammer is a group of Hamilton, Ontario citizens who believe in our city's potential and are willing to get involved in making the city a more vibrant, livable, and attractive place to live and work."

Onwards:

I invite Mr. DiFalco and Mr. McGreal to pro-actively discuss -as three people who are clearly interested in making the city a better place in which to live- how we can increase civic involvement in the governance process.

Given my posts here on My Stoney Creek dealing with increasing what I refer to as the 'relationship of engagement' between residents and their Councillors (focusing on this dynamic, not the conventional opposite), it should be abundantly clear that I believe this involves more than merely addressing the issue of low voter turnout. Because for me, this involves an adjustment of people's default setting regarding how they view this major factor in how their lives are lived, that it's a value system shift, a migration to another lifestyle entirely. But to start the discussion off on a familiar footing, let's take a quick look at 'voter turnout', usually what people focus on anytime this discussion is broached.

In the 2006 Municipal Election, voter turnout in Hamilton was 37%.

Yup; just over a third of eligible voters executed their civic right and privilege and took the time to vote.

In the '2006 Ontario Municipal Elections AMCTO Post-Election Survey FINAL REPORT' from 2007 as produced by AMCTO (the Association of Municipal Managers, Clerks and Treasurers of Ontario), Appendix B provided over a page worth of possible reasons why people didn't cast votes in the province. While this list is long, in an article for the Flamborough Review, Metroland Media reporter Kevin Werner provided a choice offering: "...few people thought any of the contests interesting, there were no compelling issues and people just didn’t feel like voting."

Lovely.

Now, as I've maintained, getting more people out to the polls should not be the goal. At least not the most desired goal. Because if all we've accomplished is getting more uninformed voters out to the booths...even if we're talking about doubling the turnout rate, or find a way (perhaps through mandatory voting) to approach maximum participation...then really, what have we accomplished?

So, back to the invite's basic question: "How we can increase civic involvement in the governance process?

For the time being, I'll leave it at that...while I await my co-publishers' responses, in the hope that we can not only find some common ground, but also put our monies where our mouths are and through brainstorming, come up with some workable ideas that at least begin to answer the question I've posed. Because though this might not be an 'election issue' (so far I've really only seen one 'election issue' covered by both the MSM and online resources, and to me it's a red herring of the most despicable variety), it's inarguably germane to the notion of creating that 'better city in which to live'.