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The Green Party of Canada Living Platform is a wiki used for participatory democracy - the actual authoring of a political party's platform for use in a national election. It is notable for being the very first attempt to create a binding political platform entirely on the Internet. The Party expects to have the first such platform ready in case of a Canadian federal election, 2005.
Technology
The basic technology is tikiwiki but mailing list, teleconference and chat media are also used. There is even some discussion about whether a blog element is useful.
Use in outreach and lobbying
Though the Green Party of Canada received only 4.3% of the popular vote in the Canadian federal election, 2004 and is not in the Canadian House of Commons due to Canada's antiquated "first past the post" voting system, it is an active lobbyist and has achieved some victories by working through members of other parties - see Canada Well-Being Measurement Act.
Given that history of collaboration, it is not surprising that some features of the Living Platform are open to non-members who need not be in Canada, or Canadians: The Party lets even anonymous parties add comments. Though only those who are members or advisors of the Party can edit the actual wiki pages, the comments can contain links to the internal wiki pages or other resources, letting anyone aid in policy research.
In a February 2005 meeting (http://www.greenparty.ca/lp/tiki-index.php?page=February+7%2C+2005), the "emergence of a new and improved Shadow Cabinet" was defined as one of the LP's most important goals.
An attempt to literally hand over the constitutional authority to author the platform to the LP users did not pass, however: see more on this conflict below.
Feedback-oriented Terms of Use
The Terms of Use (http://greenparty.ca/lp/Terms+of+Use) combine the Creative Commons CC-by and CC-by-nc-sa open content Creative Commons Licenses in a way that encourages maximum sharing of policy papers and feedback, potentially among many players in the noncommercial sector. Contributions by any individual may be copied anywhere as long as attribution is preserved, but commercial use of any combination of works by multiple parties is reserved to the Party. However, any noncommercial purpose - such as other parties' debates or NGO position discussions or academic research - may freely redistribute all the content.
Legal scholar Lawrence Lessig, founder of Creative Commons and Common Content, and a notable critic of monopolies on information, has pronounced the terms of use as "cool". CC's own wiki debates on terms of use (http://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/Terms_of_use) have similarly focused on this distinction between what a participant commits to the group (http://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/Participant_commits_to_group) and what the group commits to the public (http://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/Group_commits_to_public), the latter being Share Alike to ensure that the group creates a shared resource that is continously available to its non-members, even if some rights in that use are reserved to the group.
Leader attempt to seize control
By far the most important incident was the January-February 2005 crisis in which Party's Election Readiness and Campaign Team was literally destroyed in a confrontation with promoters of the Living Platform, in which the LP itself played the central role. The phases of this crisis were:
Opposed by Leader
On January 20, 2005, there was an attempt to shut down or restrict Living Platform debate by Party Leader Jim Harris (politician). The use of it by leadership rival Tom Manley to debate party governance, by a women's caucus to build their agenda (Harris is reputedly a misogynist), and an (accurate) report that Harris is sometimes characterized as a pointy-haired boss that appeared there have all been offered as reasons why. As this all seems to be politics as usual, or just trolling, some wonder if Harris has the stomach for it. There has been widespread speculation that he is about to resign.
Whatever Harris' reasons, Party Chair Bruce Abel forbade it, and ordered webmaster Pierre Denis to keep it running and intact with all comments remaining on the record. This was a very notable challenge and response that to some proved the Party's determination to build a deliberative democracy mechanism: Not just for policymaking for the Government of Canada but to test its advice on itself first, and ensure accountability, transparency and commitment to its Ten Key Values that would withstand even extreme public scrutiny and intense internal debate. It remains to be seen, however, whether Harris can manage such an open party, and will accept the Living Platform's output as the Party's direction for the next election - if he is around to make that decision.
Living Agenda
A proposal by Party Fundraising Chair Kate Holloway to integrate all political party governance in a similar framework, a subset of Living Platform called the Living Agenda, was adopted by the Party's process committee as a response to the crisis.
Despite continuing opposition from a small group of fulltime staff who prefer secrecy and lack of scrutiny on their decision making, it seems clear that the Party's basic commitment to its Six Principles - one of which is participatory democracy - is challenging the command hierarchy of staff that report to only a few Party Councillors and the Leader.
A more reflexive intranet - including not only the wiki but mailing list protocols - and other rules called collectively "GROOP" are apparently required to extend or replace existing Rules of Order of the Green Party of Canada. These too are being worked out entirely in public, as part of this commitment to an open party.
attacked by "spin doctors"
Many observers expected the transition to be quite divisive, as Harris is known to be very stubborn, and has a reputation for being both misogynist and - according to party members who have worked for him in both business and political contexts - a "pointy-haired boss." It was not long before the counter-attack by opponents of the open party began:
In late January, media advisor Dermod Travis (largely considered a spin doctor by longtime Greens) hired Ken Dickerson, a new "evil alien policy guy" according to one insider. Dickerson was immediately and openly critical and even disdainful of Living Platform and participatory democracy itself. His "job", in his view, was to rewrite Green Party of Canada Platform, 2004 "in case of any snap election", disregarding the process the volunteers were engaged in. It was clear that once there was an alternative to the Green Party of Canada Platform, 2005 being authored in Living Platform, it would then be possible to fire Michael Pilling, the Head of Platform and Research, its originator, strongest supporter - and most obvious rival to Harris and his spin doctors' control of the GPC.
Given that participatory democracy is one of the Six Principles in both the Green Party of Canada's own constitution, and the Global Greens Charter, this was quite a remarkable attack not only on a tool or group of users, but on an ideal. This led to more conflict:
supported by Shadow Cabinet
Pilling immediately objected to the plan in the strongest terms. and published its particulars (http://greenparty.ca/lp/project+fig+leaf) and while others speculated on its consequences (http://greenparty.ca/lp/operation+fig+leaf+II).
This triggered strong action by the Party's Shadow Cabinet (its issue advocates or critics). In early February, they decided to give their power under article 18 of the GPC's own Constitution to the subcommittee chairs authoring the planks in Living Platform. They further endorsed very strongly the work of Michael Pilling, the Head of Platform and Research. They implicitly condemned Tom Manley for going along with the plan to subvert Pilling and the LP.
counter-attack by ERCT
After this attack failed, the Green Party of Canada Election Readiness and Campaign Team, loyal only to Harris and consisting of the individuals whom he put in place in 2003 to consolidate control of the Party, set another attack.
Using overtures made to Travis and to fundraiser Debbie Hartley inviting them to resign as a pretext, GPC Organizing Chair Kevin Colton - a key member of the ERCT - moved to delete large chunks of essential materials from the Living Platform as a way to cripple it and prevent it from supporting Platform 2005 participants. Objections that this was an over-reaction came immediately, notably from longstanding Green and activist Lois Kivipelto, who had run on a "slate" against the ERCT at its 2004 AGM.
ERCT defeated, Leader turned
On February 7, 2005, the matter was partially resolved by the GPC Shadow Cabinet, which was meeting to determine the status of the materials and the potential for interruption of Living Platform itself - or distraction of the Shadow Cabinet which would have to review these materials. Under the GPC Constitution the Shadow Cabinet is legally responsible to deliver the platform and "may" consult other groups or Leader appointees, but is in no way obligated to do that.
In the meeting whose minutes are visible to the public (http://www.greenparty.ca/lp/tiki-index.php?page=February+7%2C+2005), Mike Pilling asserted that "emergence of a new and improved Shadow Cabinet would be the best thing to happen to the living platform." He had evidently triumphed in his effort to redefine the Party itself using the collaborative wiki, and had effectively turned the Leader, who claimed to be
- "very proud of living platform, LP most exciting thing we have going, pioneering the grass roots democracy. LP is the way to focus on development. All Shadow Cabinet members should participate in the living platform."
This was a flat reversal from his appointees' views. It was evident Harris had began to "lead the parade" that previously had been driving him out of the Party: many EDAs had threatened not to run candidates, several provincial divisions had revolted, there were pending lawsuits and an emergency AGM planned to remove him. An insider reported that Harris himself would soon be gone, and was simply trying to claim credit for work of people whose efforts he had starved, opposed and fought. Harris' budget was claimed to be "Media team budget ~$200,000, Platform ~$30,000, Shadow Cabinet $0."
The consensed minutes thanked not only Pilling, whom the original version of the agenda had named, but also Travis (who had announced his retirement effective June 30) and whom Pilling quoted as saying "It's a good thing the LP was not here or I would have stopped it". The "thanks" was a paper-over.
The next day, ERCT Chair Debbie Hartley resigned. The ERCT had been defeated. The Living Platform had "won". It was now the core facility of the party, validating its actual use in the 2004 election to answer questionnaires, compare policies and provide one-stop shopping for all the instructional capital of the Party.
constitutional status
Various proposals to clarify the constitutional status of the GPC Council, GPC Shadow Cabinet and the LP were being discussed as of February 2005. The plan was to accelerate the LP towards completion of a platform, integrating 2004 and 2005 materials and using deadlines as a way to require the Shadow Cabinet to use the wiki.
Also as of Feburary 2005 there were pending issues in same-sex marriage and constitutional status of cities, plus budget issues, that could easily cause a minority government to fall.
External links
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