Politics has been defined as the authoritative allocation of values. Increasingly it is not only about values but about managing the tools of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in large and complex organizations that are private, public and global. In the democracies we had a long struggle for representation. We need now to focus on making the representation not only fairer and complete but competent.
We live in a world characterized by rapid change and a variety of existential challenges requiring multigenerational forethought and action to solve. We need to draw on the very best for our representatives in the challenges of governance in the modern world. Few of us would chose to be operated by a brain surgeon drawn by lot from among our neighbours. Competence is increasingly important to effective governance.
I take the view that we have drifted away from a representative model and that to successfully chart the challenges to come, we need to move forward once again on that model and toward a trustee model of representative democracy.
"A trustee is someone who acts on behalf of others, using their knowledge, experience and intelligence upon a certain field. The trustee model contrasts with the delegate model as this time constituents "entrust" their elected representatives to represent them however they see fit, with autonomy to vote and behave in the best way for their constituents.Wiki
In British Columbia we have moved from the least populated riding counting four times that of a vote the most populated riding to three times.
"As a result, the weight of a vote in the provinces least populated riding will no longer be four times more than the weight of a vote in the provinces most densely populated riding. The difference will be closer to three to one. We believe our proposal strongly supports the twin principles of representation by population and effective representation for all British Columbians, as the Act requires. "
Final Report of the BC Electoral Boundaries Commission Final Report
I do not share the view of the Electorial Boundaries Commission that we have anything close to a system of effective represesentation.
We have MLA's that frankly should be embarassed by their lack of qualifications.
The steady drift away from trustee representation and party discipline has meant that increasingly real government has been assigned to the senior bureaucracy in the absence of real capacity for leadership and excessive representation from sunset portions of the economy. The result has been ineffective governance and progressive economic and social gridlock.
