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Post by Administrator on Apr 18, 2013 19:08:27 GMT -4
The purpose of this forum is to permit members of the Green Party of New Brunswick to provide input on the policies of the Party.
The policy development process will also include a series of workshops at different locations. The idea of an online forum is to enable ongoing discussion and participation in addition to the workshops.
This is an experiment as we have not previously used an online forum. Please assist in providing any input as to its utility and how it may be improved. Any suggestions or comments about the policy development process generally are welcome.
As a start, the Party policy as of April 2013 is provided in the first post of each board. You may start a thread to make comments and suggestions. If appropriate, you can quote the part or parts of the policy you wish to discuss.
The forum will be moderated, and volunteers to assist are welcome. Please keep things on topic which is generally to develop and improve the policy of the Party. Within that broad scope, all ideas are welcome including introducing new ideas, updating or retiring policies that have become outdated, and rewriting, and reorganizing policies to make them more clear and readable.
Thank you for participating in the Green Party Policy Forum.
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Post by dereksimon on May 31, 2013 12:16:38 GMT -4
I support these steps to put in place a policy development forum that is both online (through this threaded forum) and in-person (through workshops). We will need to give some thought to how the online forum and the workshops are eventually blended.
With respect to the online forum, we need to setup separate policy boards for the "treaty relationships and aboriginal title", "povertization of women" and invite the advocate for each of those boards to provide the first post on each policy area. I seem to have the impression that the "advocate" for each policy area is a member of the shadow cabinet. This may need to be formalized.
I'm inclined to think that we need to organize a workshop for each policy area, not just for "new" policy initiatives like the povertization of women or treaty relationships / aboriginal title. Perhaps a 1/2 day workshop for each policy area, perhaps two policy workshops simultaneously -- that would allow us to cover four policy areas in a 9am - 4 pm working day ie a Saturday or Sunday. The workshops could also travel to different locations. We need to nail down dates, facilitators and locations / venues for these policy workshops. Perhaps we could propose a set of tenative dates to Provincial Council at its next meeting on June 12th.
At some point, the input from the online forum and the input from the workshops will need to be seamlessly blended for each policy area by the advocate shadow cabinet member. This also needs a target timeline (this will depend onthe workshop dates, but should likely be within one month of the last workshop).
I think it's very important too, as you point out, that we not only have policy in each area but that our policies are edited and organized as a whole batch with respect to length, writing style, tone etc.. so that they speak with the common voice of the NBGP. Here we will have to clarify: will there be a "general editing team" to streamline the several policies into being readable and clear, on the same wavelength in terms of length, format, writing style and tone? Or will a "guideline" be setup in advance that each shadow cabinet advocate will need to work with in preparing her or his respective policy statement.
Question: assuming that the shadow cabinet member has blended the inputs, composed and formatted the policy statement for an individual policy area, then what? Does the policy get "approved" by Provincial council before being ratified by the general membership? Would the policies be ratified by the general membership at a special meeting or at the AGM next April?
A final comment: at some point, this process needs to be streamlined with the 2014 Campaign Prep being organized by the election campaign committee.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. All comments, whether diverging or converging, are welcome.
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Post by jeharvey on Nov 29, 2013 11:33:24 GMT -4
Hi Derek,
I have just visited this site for the first time and I think it is great!! What an opportunity for people across the province to contribute to the policy process. Thanks for taking this on.
As for the process, the Provincial Council doesn't ratify policy prior to the membership. As a member-based party, policy proposals generated by shadow cabinet would go directly to the members, as would proposals from members themselves. The venue could be a) an annual general meeting at which a policy session is held, or b) a special meeting of members called specifically to deal with policy proposals. A third option of on-line ratification is possible but as yet has not been developed. The federal Green Party has a fairly complex way of doing this which I don't think we as yet have the capacity to handle in NB. But a simpler version could certainly be conceived, I'm sure.
Regarding the meetings mentioned above where policies are ratified, the control on this would be a requirement that any policy proposals to be considered at a meeting should be submitted in advance (not sure what the by-laws say about this, if anything) so that they can be translated and the meeting can be organized so there is sufficient time to properly discuss them. Ideally they could be circulated ahead of time. This places an onus on members who want to propose policy to be prepared ahead of time to do so. Taking policy proposals from the floor of a meeting is okay if there is lots of time, but it can also be chaotic. So this should be avoided. Finally, in order for members to have time to prepare proposals and submit them ahead of time, they need to get lots of notice of such meetings. The notice requirements are in the by-laws and I think they are sufficient.
Janice H, past pres
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