This past few weeks the usually yawn-inducing topic of governance has figured prominently in newspaper headlines. Of note, Mayor Nenshi was lauded for his decision to hold off on fundraising and concentrate on governing and yet criticized for the steep entry fee to his first fundraiser; and The Economist carried a special feature singling out good governance as the secret weapon of Nordic success in the global economy. To read the entire FFWD column by Noel Keough click here

A big part of Good Governance is civic engagement. What do you think? Are Canadians active participants in democracy? Does our government make it easy to participate? Do we have a thriving democracy?

Over the past decade Sustainable Calgary has contributed to a national indicators project called the Canadian Index of Well-being. The CIW composite index including 64 indicators in 8 domains. Civic Engagement is one of those 8 domains.

So how does the CIW define Civic Engagement?

Five indicators show an improving trend:

Percentage of Canadians not interested in politics at all       Down 31.1%
Percentage of women in parliament                                          Up 24.5% (2010)
Percentage fairly satisfied with democracy in Canada            Up 18.5%
Percentage that strongly agree it is a duty to vote                  Up 10.8%
Ratio of registered to eligible voters                                         Up 6.7%

Three indicators show a deteriorating trend

International Development Assistance as percent of GDP                     Down 20.9%
Percent voter turnout in Federal elections                                                Down 11.8%
Percent with a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in Parliament     Down 2.6%

Overall the Civic Engagement domain shows a 7% improvement since 1994.

What do you think? Are these indicators you would choose for the Sustainable Calgary State of Our City Report?  This Saturday, March 16 have your say.

If you are an experienced engaged citizen bring your experience to the table.
Not so much? Here’s your chance! Be part of the Solution!

“Democracies do not run on autopilot – they are only as vibrant as the level of participation by our citizens.” CIW 2012 Report. To view the CIW Report click here

by Byron Miller 

What is governance?  It’s not as easy a question to answer as we might think.  Most of us, when we think of governance, think of government.  We think of “the state” and the ways in which particular governments, elected by citizens, control the activities of the state.  Our elected “governments” play a crucial role in the governance of our daily lives through the programs they enact and the laws they pass.  But, thinking more broadly, governance means more than just the programs and laws of governments.  Governance can refer to any sort of action taken by any sort of organization or group of individuals—for example, civic organizations, corporations, NGOs, and even markets—to coordinate and control how we act in our highly complex society.   Governance is about establishing the “rules of the game” for how we live and interact.

Almost everyone would agree we need governance.  We need a sense of safety and security; we need some basis for predictability.  The absence of institutions of governance would be anarchy—or more accurately, chaos.  Interestingly, even anarchists develop institutions of governance, albeit entirely from the bottom up.

So how can we evaluate the quality of our institutions of governance?  That’s a really tough question.  For one thing, if we are really going to take governance seriously, we can’t equate governance with government.  Many institutions, both state and non-state, are involved in the governance of our daily lives.  In fact, a crucial aspect of the governance of our lives is the extent to which governance functions are allocated to democratic state institutions versus undemocratic institutions, such as markets.  In the former, a critical question is “how democratic and just are these state institutions?”  In the latter, a critical question is “how efficient and productive are these non-state institutions?”  Of course, we can also ask questions about the efficiency and productivity of state institutions, and the representativeness and justness of non-state institutions, but these are not the first things we expect from these institutions.

The first question of governance is not how well the governing institutions work, but which institutions have been selected to perform governance functions.  Which functions are assigned to which institutions can have huge implications for social justice and social equity.  To take one well-known example, Canada had a very well functioning social housing program, operated by the federal government, until 1993.  In 1993 the federal government ceased all new social housing construction, and in 1996 it got out of social housing provision altogether, downloading that responsibility to the provinces, which in turn downloaded it to municipalities which lacked the capacity to maintain significant social housing programs.  In effect, the governance of affordable housing provision was transferred from state institutions to market institutions.  (This is the essence of neoliberalism.)  But because markets respond to “effective demand” and not need, the supply of affordable housing, relative to need, declined dramatically and Canada developed a significant homelessness problem.  It’s not that the market institutions worked poorly.  On the contrary, they worked well, according to market criteria.  But the criteria of markets—which centre on profit maximization—are very different from the criteria of states, which may adopt a variety of other democratically-determined criteria such as meeting social needs, ensuring social equity, etc.  The broader point is that changing the institutional mechanisms by which the provision of affordable housing is governed has had huge implications.

The second question of governance is how well the institutions of governance work, given the institutions of governance that have been selected (for the time being).  This may seem like a more straightforward  question, but it’s not.  If we are concerned about how democratic our institutions of governance are, for example, we have to ask ourselves what we think the central characteristics of  a well-functioning democracy are.  Are we concerned with voter turnout in elections?  Are we concerned with the ability of citizens to participate in the day-to-day decisions of government?  Are we concerned about the influence of powerful special interest groups?  Are we concerned about the transparency of government decision-making?  And for each of these and many other concerns, what are the best ways to measure performance?  Are the data we need even available?

None of these are easy questions and the measurement of good governance is as much value-laden as it is data-driven.  But if we are concerned with good governance we must attempt to define what we consider central to good governance, and what sort of proxy measures we might look to.  Only after we do this can we raise serious demands for better governance.

Finance Minister Doug Horner was quoted as saying the following in last Friday’s Calgary Metro, with regard to the Alberta Budget:

“We are having a tough time here.  We’re going to have five million people in this province within 17 years.  Where are their kids going to go to school?  Where are they going to have hospitals to go to?  How are they going to get to work if the road isn’t there?”

Last week, Sustainable Calgary responded to dialogue around the budget with the following tweet: “Would love more room 4 long-term spending strategies in #ABBudget & gov budgets in general: investing in human capital can save $$ down road”.

As witnessed by Horner’s comments, the Alberta government is, of course, making long-term spending decisions.  However, they also likely feel like they have to pick and choose where they spend their limited funds, in ways they feel best reflect the views and the interests of the public. This is the conundrum governments have to face.

Picking-and-choosing where we spend gets particularly difficult, however, in light of research emerging from the health and social sectors.  The research shows that investing in the “social determinants of health” – things like income, education, early childhood development, and housing – is key to preventing and reducing the costs associated with poor health and poverty.  Investing in these areas removes pressure for the health care system and the justice system, among others, and positions people to contribute more fully in our economy: they end up having more time, more capacity, and fewer sick days.  The research suggests that investing in the social determinants of health is actually less expensive than the negative repercussions of not investing.  Lastly, it suggests that the most benefit is reaped by addressing all of the social determinants at once.

In summary, we shouldn’t be stingy when it comes to investing in people, because we’ll reap the rewards later – in a big way.

So far, there hasn’t been significant room for this line of thinking.  In my experience, it’s not because people don’t believe the economic arguments; rather, you can narrow it down to two broad reasons:

1. There  are many potential expenditures competing for a limited budget;
2. Spending in new ways is intimidating, particularly when the expected benefits are years down the line –what if it doesn’t work out way we expect it to?  How does this affect re-election?

Limited budgets can be addressed in several ways.  We can impose austerity measures.  We can go into debt.  And/or we can increase our revenue streams through tax reform.  This blog, however, focuses on the second point.

Citizens – voters – have a hard time with long-term strategies, and for good reasons.  We can’t always see progress within 4 years.  How can we trust that our governments are “on track”?  How can we trust that more investment now will reap savings 16 years from now?

To make things more complicated, innovation often involves a certain amount of trial-and-error.  With government spending, however, we voters can quickly lose faith when things do not work out as planned.  Meanwhile, getting a strategy or tactic wrong the first time might mean doing it that much better the second time.  How can we account for this as voters?

This brings me to evaluation and accountability.  What if we developed frameworks to help voters evaluate governments in a consistent way every 4 years?  What if these frameworks included strategies to evaluate long-term spending?  What if they included strategies to evaluate innovation within government policy?  What if we got major media outlets to report on these frameworks every 4 years, to help keep us up-to-date?  Could better measurement  - ie better communication between citizens and government – actually enable more innovation and progress in government policy?

Developing indicators and reporting on them is something Sustainable Calgary has been doing for YYC for over 10 years.  This year, we’re adding a new category to our indicators: a category around governance.  We haven’t settled on indicators yet, but we’re hosting a day to hash through some of these things on March 16, 8:30–3 at Hillhurst United Church.  If you’re interested in good governance and how we measure it, please RSVP here!

Good governance versus the black arts of persuasion Published December 13, 2012 by Noel Keough in FFWD’s Viewpoint.

On December 10, city council’s legislative task force debated rules for reporting gifts to the mayor and council. We learned that though the mayor apparently has a stash of gifted coffee mugs and socks, and has never received anything valued over about $100, he believes rules are required to “avoid the appearance of impropriety” in council decision-making.

If someone asked you whether you were happy with the state of  “governance” in Calgary, Alberta, and Canada, what would you say? What criteria would  inform your answer?

The World Bank describes governance as the “rules for the rulers”, and the “processes by which the rules are selected, defined, linked together, and [linked] with society generally.”

The University of Ottawa suggests that governance involves the public sector, the private sector, and the community sector, and most importantly, the areas where these sectors overlap.

Good governance is sometimes described in terms of its outcomes in society: outcomes that are fair, just, and in which all people are treated equitably.  But what do we mean by fair and just?  And how does this manifest itself in everyday life?

This will be the theme of our blogs over the next couple of weeks leading up to our event on March 16, “Good Governance: Developing Meaningful Measures,” where we ask you to help us determine the best indicators of good governance in Calgary.

During this time, we’d love to hear from you, and share some of your responses.  What does good governance mean to you?  How are we doing in Calgary?  Are there examples that would help us guide discussions?   What recommendations would you provide based on your experiences?

Find us at @sustainableyyc, or email your thoughts at info@sustainablecalgary.org

And don’t forget to register for our March 16 event at http://goodgovernancecalgary-eorg.eventbrite.ca/# !

On Monday March 18 Sustainable Calgary, as a Partner Organization to the BC Alberta Social Economy Research Alliance – Scaling Innovation for Sustainability will be co-hosting a webinar on Diffusion of Innovation. The Webinar will be led by Robin Murray of the London School of Economics. Click on the link for more information (webinar)

Whatever the outcome of the raging Keystone XL pipeline battle, it is difficult to see a scenario where Alberta comes out a winner. If the pipeline goes ahead, we go further down the road of dependence on one of the most expensive, ecologically damaging, high-risk, mega-projects on earth. If it is halted, Albertans are left to pick up the pieces of an economic development strategy in disarray (see this weeks FFWD for the full article by Noel Keough)

Marshall McLuhan once wrote “The car has become an article of dress without which we feel uncertain, unclad, and incomplete in the urban compound.” With the news last month that Calgary is at the bottom of the walkability heap according to Walk Score, isn’t it time we had a serious conversation about this urban wardrobe malfunction? (read the full article by Sustainable Calgary’s Noel Keough in Fast Forward Weekly by clicking here)