[fvc-wat-announce] Roundtable on Democratic Reform Planning Meeting

[lanickerson at b2b2c.ca]

Hi Fair Vote supporters! After our two awesome, well attended events this spring
- and a summer of having booths at the Multicultural Festival, NonViolence
Festival and Tribute to Woodstock - we're planning our first fall Fair
Vote/CAPP sponsored event!

As you may recall from a few weeks ago, Minister Stephen Fletcher (Minister of
Democratic Reform), with local Conservative MP's Braid and Woodworth, held a by
invitation only "roundtable on democratic reform" in Kitchener in August.
Fletcher has been travelling Canada holding these "roundtables." A couple of
our local Fair Vote group were invited, plus quite a number of local
professors. Regular voters were not allowed (no room). The Fair Vote attendees
reported that Fletcher mainly wanted to talk about the Conservative plan to add
more seats to the House of Commons for Ontario, BC, and Alberta. He also wanted
to get the professor's ideas about increasing voter turnout and took their
contact information afterwards (he was not interested in getting anyone else's
contact info). The impression of the Fair Vote members that attended was that
other kinds of electoral reform were not on the agenda and were not going to
make it into the report - the Conservatives of course oppose proportional
representation and it was dealt with as a "dead issue" to which they had no
comment.

We have had a number of good ideas for our next CAPP/Fair Vote sponsored event,
and having our own "roundtable on democratic reform", perhaps with speakers in
which different ideas for democratic renewal/reform are presented and discussed
with public participation, is one of them. Other ideas are most welcome, too!

I hope you will consider joining our planning group to create this event on
Wednesday September 8, 7:30 PM, at the Queen Street Commons Cafe (downtown
Kitchener across from the Working Centre).

Your support and input to make this happen is most appreciated!

Anita