As some of you know, I hosted 12 people in my home who were for the most part strangers in real life but people I have come to know in my "social media community" or others who were told that they had to come check out what this big listen was all about. I will not frame for you what was said tonight, but I do want to tell you about how it made me feel, and why I am involved in this initiative for the Alberta Party.
Firstly, some background. I am on the Provincial Board of Directors of the Alberta Party, and these are my thoughts, feelings and words, and not that of our Party.
That said, I should share for you what The Big Listen is. The Big Listen is an attempt by the newly re-activated Alberta Party to find some common themes among Albertans, collect that information in an methodic and well documented approach, and begin the discernment process towards developing policy ideas and eventually resolutions to be voted on this fall at our policy convention.
The process feels backwards and even a waste of time for some of those who are clamouring for more information or immediate action. Some even feel that it is a naive, mealy-mouthed way to not get anything done, but to talk ourselves to inaction. That is simply incorrect.
A Big Listen House Party is an organized attempt to get average citizens into a safe and friendly environment where they can talk about what their pressures are, what their hopes are and finally to summarize what they are grateful about in Alberta. But rest assured, in expressing these pressures, hopes and gratitudes, we are starting a process of listening to and organizing the wishes of the community into our policy. These are the goals of my house meeting tonight which I shared with those who attended:
- Build new relationships and community networks
- Creating space for people to reflect and names their pressures/hopes
- To make talking politics (life/circumstance/vision) okay again
- Move from isolation to community
- Build a ground level campaign base
So by these standards I will admit to it being a big success, but more importantly I want to share with you how I FELT about the process and why I THINK it is the only way to start a real and meaningful political movement that focuses on the wishes of Albertans, as opposed to sticking with top-down sound bites formed by a few.
I feel that there is a reason to be hopeful about how community dialogue, when it is stripped of partisanship, can be very interesting, personal and constructive. I found that our concerns and hopes were actually quite similar even though our perceived or real ideological differences were quite broad. I feel more than ever that people want good governance, real democracy, and an innovative government that acts on the wishes of the people more than they want platitudes, sound bites and short-sightedness.
None of those things are the domain of any one ideology. Yet I sense that there is a feeling among a majority of Albertans that the present mainstream parties are not open, humble or transparent enough to let other ideas into the mix. In fact it feels to me like ideology is the only defining factor or prerequisite to current participants in the political process. There is resounding evidence, not the least of which are our voter turnouts, to suggest that only those who identify with an existing ideological stance are engaged and participating in democracy. In my opinion that leaves too many, largely "centrists" or "moderates", who are disengaged from the process.
So from tonight I gained more confidence that my party is making an attempt at acting differently. There are those who say that we must take a stand for things, first put out to Albertans what our policies are. I am more and more convinced that we must continue to do the opposite. Policies will come, that is a certainty, but they must come from the largest and most representative segment of our population possible. The Big Listen IS NOT a party member initiative. One of our founding principles of the campaign is that anyone can attend them, and anyone can submit their ideas to our discernment process. (We do of course have Guideposts which outline the Big Listen process, which I have blogged about here).
There are others who are adamant that we must have a dynamic and charismatic well-known leader before we can get anywhere, or capture the imagination of Joe Albertan. Rest assured, if we build our party on integrity and principles which respect our guidelines of transparency and democracy, and we avoid settling in on the best of who we can attract TODAY, we will find such a person. In fact I think this party has the potential to redefine how parliamentary democracies function, by finding many great community and thought leaders and giving them more voice in the party, caucus and hopefully government. The Leader of a party is an important representative of the people of the party as opposed to the people of a party being a reflection of what the leader is about.
So sticking with how I feel about this movement, I must say that I am firmly committed to a process which to me is more respectful, open, transparent and democratic than any current alternative.
But make no mistake, this is a Party that wants to actually implement government policy, govern and lead Albertans. I am under no illusions, nor are my fellow board or party members, that this can happen without many things. We DO have solid plans to release and share the results of our Big Listen. We must also raise money and find members to help carry the political load that is ahead of us. And finally we must organize constituency associations, find great local candidates and watch a leader emerge from all of that. But at least in my opinion, you don't start there, and leave behind the actual people who right now are sick and tired of politics being done to benefit the politicians, or the parties only.
For the impatient ones, or those who are still cynical about our Party or any party for that matter, I simply encourage you to stay tuned. Over the next few days and weeks, you will begin to see how we treat the process we have started, and just how committed we are to maintaining a process of openness, democracy and innovation in politics.
Note: If you would like to get involved, host or attend a Big Listen Event, buy a membership, donate to our party, or submit your ideas for policy discernment, please visit our website to share your contact information. If you're not yet comfortable doing that, please contact me directly to learn more (chris.labossiereATgmail.com).
Monday, August 2, 2010 at 10:59PM 