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Democracy and confidence in government depend on citizens being informed, engaged and feeling like their voices matter. Experiences from assemblies around the world show that citizen input in our democratic processes can be dramatically improved through deliberative democracy using citizens' assemblies.
Challenges with our democratic processes
In modern politics, large corporations and well-funded interest groups often shape decisions through lobbying, campaign donations, and public-relations influence. This gives them disproportionate power to influence public policy - especially compared to ordinary citizens whose input is usually indirect and comes only once per election cycle.
Proposed reforms like ranked-choice voting or term limits fail to gain traction because voters respond emotionally and distrust unfamiliar institutional changes and see elite politicians as self-serving and disconnected. The lack of meaningful action then allows populist and nationalist movements to grow by appealing to people’s desire for stability, authenticity, and control in a confusing world.
The most unifying and emotionally resonant reform combines reducing the influence of money in politics with empowering citizens through deliberative democratic processes — giving ordinary people, not wealthy donors, a direct voice in shaping fair and trustworthy governance.
Mary Kate Godfrey
10 minute read that goes much further into the details for those who are interested
Citizens’ assemblies help to solve these problems:
By putting power in the hands of the people:
Citizens’ assemblies use "sortition" to bring together a randomly selected, diverse group of everyday people to study issues and recommend solutions. Because members are chosen randomly (while ensuring proportional representation across age, gender, education)...
- and not by wealth, status, or political connection—they are independent of political contributions and corporate/partisan pressures
- they faithfully represent the diversity of the people - the whole point of democracy (from Greek "demos" = people + "kratos" = power or rule)
Roger Hallam
5 minute read on why randomly selected citizen rule is truly democratic while our current "representative democracy" is not
And using deliberative processes:
The assembly meeting/discussion processes encourage well informed, thoughtful, evidence-based decisions that reflect the values and consensus of the wider community. Structuring an assembly involves a number of phases that take careful planning to ensure fairness, transparency, and representation.
These selection and deliberation processes allow citizens’ assemblies to restore balance and public trust in how decisions are made.
Citizens Assemblies are being adopted in BC, Canada and all over the world
Citizen's assemblies have been proven around the world - the OECD Deliberative Democracy Database (2023) lists almost 800 of them around the world including 45 in Canada. Within BC in 2024 and 2025 alone, citizens' assemblies were convened in Gibson's Landing, Burnaby and New Westminster. New Westminster's community assembly is a permanent body that has addressed a number of topics over time. Gibsons and Burnaby addressed the following topics:
- How can Gibsons best plan for the future and meet the housing needs of our growing population?
- How should Burnaby grow and change by 2050 to create a city where everyone can thrive?
Establishing a citizens’ assembly in Vancouver
Creating a citizens’ assembly requires political will, funding, and public understanding of the process. Elected officials, and their special interest backers, may be resistant to share decision-making power or fear losing control over the agenda.
Please visit our Act page to understand our campaign to make this happen.