Welcome Letter

PolicyWiki

Welcome to the Public Policy Wiki, a joint venture between the Globe and Mail and the Dominion Institute.

So much of what happens in Canada when it comes to developing public policy occurs behind closed doors, inside committee rooms and legislative offices. Even the discussion about many of the issues that affect us as a country, such as the federal budget, foreign policy, our relationship with the U.S. and so on, tends to take place primarily in academic or official circles. Opportunities for public comment are rare, and often overly restrictive.

We'd like to try and open that process up a little, and this is our attempt to do that. One of the benefits to the Internet is that it lowers the barriers that can prevent people from discussing these kinds of important topics, and allow them to provide their thoughts about the direction the government should take. Some would argue that it lowers the barriers a little too far, but that's a subject for another day, and another wiki :-)

This is an experiment, and one that we hope will provide a useful forum for concerned citizens of all kinds to contribute their thoughts and ideas on all kinds of important issues.

In the first phase of the wiki, we asked contributors to create List of Positions based around the federal budget and the economic health of the country. The second major issue we asked you to help us tackle was the topic of Afghanistan, and how Canada should approach that country in both a military sense and a humanitarian sense. And we have recently launched the third wiki issue, which asks you to contribute your thoughts on the topic of Climate Change. There's more discussion of all of these issues on the Issues page.

You can contribute in any one of a number of ways:


1) Comment on the policy proposals we have prepared

2) Vote for the ones you agree with (or vote against the ones you disagree with)

3) Post your thoughts in the forums

4) Edit the policy proposals using the built-in wiki tools

5) Create your own policy proposal


However you choose to contribute, please keep in mind our Code of Conduct and (if you are editing or creating policy proposals) the Policy Note Guidelines. If you have any questions or thoughts, please email me.

Mathew Ingram
communities editor, The Globe and Mail