A unique experiment in Canada offers a democratic model for citizens world-wide. In May 2005, a referendum will decide whether British Columbia (BC) will adopt a new voting system pro-posed by a randomly selected Assembly of 160 citizens.

Every week during 2004, members, chosen from BC’s population of five and a half million, went out to every corner of the Canadian province inviting their fellow citizens to discuss constitutional reform. And people came out in their thousands, grabbing this unique opportunity to shape the future of their democracy. Over the year-long process, members of the Citizens Assembly gave an in-credible level of commitment, studying different electoral systems and asking searching questions of experts. Finally, they plumped for a local variation of the Single Transferable Vote: the BC-STV electoral system’.

The Premier and Legislature of BC have kept their promise to accept what-ever conclusions the Assembly reached and the question in May will be: Should British Columbia change to the BC-STV electoral system as recommended by the Citizens Assembly on Electoral Reform? Yes or No?

No politicians or political parties will take sides whilst the main campaigning for the Yes vote will be done by Alumni from the Citizens Assembly. The whole project cost five and a half million Canadian dollars, just over two million pounds, with Assembly members being paid 150 dollars per day plus travel expenses. Everyone who had any contact with the process came away extremely impressed by its intelligence, its honesty, fairness and sheer good sense. It has shown how a well-designed, well-resourced and properly led participation process can achieve results and help us deal with our so-called crisis of democracy’.