I gave an Ignite London talk on Tuesday night at the Aeolian Hall. It was a fantastic evening - lots of inspiring speakers. My mind has actually blanked out the entire 5 minutes that I was on stage, so I thought I’d post the full text of my comments in case I didn’t quite get them all out.

SHAKING UP THE 2014 MUNICIPAL ELECTION - The Time to Organize is Now

The Municipal Election is two weeks away, and I’d bet that very few in this hall are tingling with excitement. Many of you undoubtedly feel the election lacks vision and you’re not particularly inspired by where London is headed over the next 4 years.

If I wasn’t involved in a ward campaign (I’m helping out Paul Hubert in Ward 8) I think I’d be utterly disengaged. And I’m a politics guy – my wife and I fell in love as students watching Kingston City Council and way too many Senate Committees on CPAC. Yeah, really hot, I know. So if I can’t get really excited about this election it isn’t a good sign.

So I’m going to try and do two things with my talk: define two key challenges facing municipal elections; and start a dialogue about how 2014 can be different.

Making 2014 different’ centres on a two-part idea: organizing citizens to develop a vision and plan for London, and then turning those citizens into a political force that will elect candidates who can make that vision a reality.

Challenge 1 - There are close to 70 candidates running in this election. Contrary to popular belief, many of them have visions and plans for the city, and are quite talented people – I’m sure that all of us could all find at least one candidate that excites us. So why this collective sense that the election is devoid of ideas, vision or talent?

I believe it is because the greatest strength of our municipal political system also works as its greatest weakness. That strength is that councillors are elected as independents, able to vote their conscience – allowing them to think freely and work towards compromise on public policy. All good things.

Only at the municipal level would you find the famed ‘Killer B’s’ – four Councillors who would likely run under different party banners if they sought provincial or federal office, but are very effective when working together on common issues around the council table.

But this independence also acts as a weaknesses because it is difficult for voters to discern a common vision or platform during election time, which can be confusing and disempowering. Also, those informal coalitions that do exist around the Council horseshoe aren’t entirely transparent for voters – so it should be no surprise that some folks perceive there to be ‘socialist cabals’ and ‘good old boys’ running the show from behind the scenes.

This extends to the Council term, where the public perceives a Council that is always fighting about seemingly small, meaningless issues. You can find common visions among groups of councillors – to its credit, this council even wrote a strategic plan – but you really need to be looking for vision. It isn’t easily apparent.

Challenge 2. I hate the rule that you can’t bring up politics in polite company. We need to reclaim ‘politics’ and make it something we can all feel comfortable engaging with.

At its core, politics is about discourse – and turning that discourse into policy that meets the needs of our community. This doesn’t mean everyone needs to aspire to public office, but more of us need to get involved with candidates, politicians, or undertake advocacy in between elections.

Politics is participatory. It isn’t enough to point out problems, or just talk about solutions. Sometimes you’ve actually got to lay it on the line and be the solution. Unfortunately, there just aren’t enough of us willing to do that. This must change.

We can no longer view politics as a gladiator arena with winners and losers. We need to appeal to our greater instincts; through both our deeds and words we can demonstrate that politics and government can be a source of good in our community.

So what to do? I believe we must maintain the independence of councillors, but borrow some of the organizing and platform development strengths of political parties. So I suggest that we organize a coalition of candidates and volunteers for 2014. Coalition candidates that are elected would remain independent, free to vote as they choose from issue to issue, but they’d be united by a common vision and broad platform. That vision would be transparent for voters, and those voters can decide in 2018 which coalition candidates held up their end of the bargain.

The first step in building this coalition is to organize citizens to develop a vision and broad platform. This must precede the recruitment of candidates so that ideas, not egos, are at centre stage in the beginning.

The good news is that there are plenty of citizen coalitions already out there – I just think these groups need to come together around the same table more often. The Labour Council and the Chamber of Commerce; Emerging Leaders and Senior Citizen groups; Students’ Councils and Neighbourhood Associations around campus; the Urban League and the Keep London Growing Coalition. Let’s get uncomfortable, and then try and find some common ground. Too often we’re singing to the choir when we should be testing our assumptions and beliefs.

Finding a common vision may not be possible – this group of citizens may in fact splinter – but having two or three coalitions pitching different visions is better than an election with no vision at all. If we as active citizens don’t try to bridge differences, should it surprise or dissapoint us when our politicians don’t? Lets model good behaviour.

The coalition(s) must then engage with the political process. This involves finding at least 15 people – current councillors or complete newbies – willing to put their names on a ballot, and hundreds of citizens willing to support them. I can guarantee there’s a role for everyone in this hall to play if you want it.

How to select candidates is a whole other can of worms. Should one candidate per ward be supported, or any candidate that signs on to the vision and plan? The first is likely to garner greater electoral success, but would exclude some motivated people from running under the coalition banner. How should candidates be selected? These are tough choices that need to be addressed early on.

If you take anything from this talk, I hope it is this: It isn’t enough to get passionate about a vision for London – you also need to do the hard work to elect candidates who will help make that vision a reality. We’ve got 4 years and we can do this. I’m ready to get started, are you?