Government Transparency 2.0

In Egypt, a young woman stood in the streets and screamed for an overthrow of government -- then posted the video on YouTube. In Tunisia, "Thank you Facebook" was scrawled on a building during a protest in the capital. In Syria, one of the world's most oppressive regimes, young people use the Internet to leak footage of police officers murdering demonstrators.

Canada is one of the most computer literate countries in the world, with a high level of social media penetration. How will young Canadians use these tools during the federal election campaign?

Will they use Facebook to organize a 20,000-person rally for a carbon tax, or call a sit-in on one of our dwindling glaciers? Call flash mobs across major cities to protest the funding gap in First Nations education?

Or will total immersion in interactive media redefine the notion of transparency in government? Call them the online cohort: the kids who grew up with 24-hour news cycles, unlimited access to information, and the ability to follow the mundane activities and intimate thoughts of hundreds of friends.

This generation has a sense of entitlement that will demand involvement, consultation and collaboration in the process of governing.

Stephen Harper's Conservatives were found in contempt of Parliament for failing to produce detailed spending reports. The media, too, lamented a lack of communication from the administration. But for youth, transparency means more than releasing the cost of crime legislation or stealth fighter jets. They don't want information parsed or manipulated by third parties. They want to set the political agenda.

Party leaders launched election websites like they might manifestos -- Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff will host town hall meetings online. The NDP's Jack Layton has an iPhone app that lets users virtually track his campaign.

These are opportunistic promotional tools to a Wikileaks generation normally indifferent to politics and wary of mainstream media.

In the midst of downloadable campaigns, there's an online community mobilizing around issues.

The non-partisan site leadnow.ca generates debate about national values. Users rank policy issues, then pledge support to the party leader who will adapt their platform accordingly. It's Canada's embryonic answer to Moveon.org, the U.S. site that helped nudge Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign to victory.

That same year, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty saw legislation that would impose stricter rules on young drivers halted by an online opposition of more than 100,000 Facebook users.

Up until the fall of his Conservative minority government, Harper spammed his Twitter following with links to official statements and photo ops. Hours after meeting the Governor General to dissolve parliament, he tweeted congrats to his son, Ben, on a volleyball team victory, and thanked Vancouver deli owners for some Kabanosy sausage. It's hard not to react with cynicism, with such a marked difference in Harper's tweets in office to the campaign trail.

There's an expectation of immediacy, intimacy and authenticity that comes with the ability to tweet directly to a following of, say, more than 100,000 people. We want to hear thoughts and reactions from leaders as they campaign, meet the unemployed worker or the small business owner. We want to know what they are reading, which might be influencing their policy decisions. We want to be keystrokes away from our local MP.

Beyond campaign quips about sausage, young people want to set the agenda on environmental protection, heath care, education and open government -- the top issues identified on a survey from leadnow.ca.

We cast rounds of ballots for Canadian Idols and watch Twitter messages scrolling on the bottom of news programs with the expectation that somehow our opinion will find a voice with our own representatives in government -- and it's more than one vote at election time. Why can't we provide feedback on government services via Facebook? Why not an e-suggestion box?

We want to hashtag a proposed policy and get live updates on its legislative process, and then respond with concerns if it dies. We want to download the all-leader's debate on iTunes. We want to tweet questions to ministers and get an authentic response. It's not unheard of -- Industry Minister Tony Clement has been known to have policy discussions with his Twitter following.

The social media generation doesn't know the meaning of inaccessible. They certainly won't stand for anything less than total transparency from government.

 

Follow Craig and Marc Kielburger on Twitter: www.twitter.com/craigkielburger

Comments

[Skookum1]

02:02 AM on 04/28/2011

Still looking for follow-up material on items like this, now a week old, and the youth mobilization and internet backlash against the prospect of a Harper dictatorship turning into what looks like might be an NDP minority government by the time the polls closed; a political upset of the first order. Yet your sole article from today, the first in a while, is a profile on how frustrating Ignatieff has found the campaign - understandable given his current 3rd place standing, but he's an also-ran now, as even Lawrence Martin (a Tory sop) on CTV commented during a discussion with Nick Nanos, the pollster... actually "flat-lined" was the term he used. There is nothing here, surprisingly, about the "Orange surge", aka Orange Crush, or the NDP's sudden emergence in Quebec. Nothing about Harper's intent to stiffen the criminal code, build more prisons, waste money on the military while claiming there is no money for health care, and so much more. Nothing here about the anti-democratic behaviour of the Tories, nothing about the Harper style of government that led to the current election, and very likely (the majority of us hope) his expulsion from government to the Opposition. And why he deserves it, and why American progressives should feel some relief that the Republican attempt to take over Canada has, at least temporarily been thwarted. About who Jack Layton is, and why he's popular and why Harper isn't, and how "world markets" will react

[cdncommentator]

12:08 PM on 04/07/2011

The opposing force in engaging the youth is the fact that the more comfortable a society is and the more distracted it is with toys (which we have a lot of) the less people are engaged in politics.

In the middle east, the biggest contributer to the unrest is not the youth's cry out for "freedom", but rather, poverty: rising food prices, high unemployment, and a sense that the rest of the world has it better.

Unfortunately (or fortunately) in Canada, no one feels like anyone has it better (except for the weather of course). Most everyone (and certainly those with facebook pages and twitter accounts) feels very comfortable and free. They are not hungry. They are not chronically unemployed. Consequently, they do not give a rat's arse about the contempt motion in Parliament.

Until a politician campaigns on a vision of Canada the youth can buy into and support (or until our economy falls apart or our toys and "freedoms" are taken away), the youth will remain on the fringes of Canadian politics.