Steve Paikin: Democracy around the globe has had a tough time over the last many years, but we'll hear tonight why there are reasons to be hopeful. And an experiment two decades ago in Ontario in part points the way. Hello everybody, I'm Steve Paikin and we are in Midtown Toronto for a close-up edition of TVO Today Live. This series is possible thanks to the generous contributions of the Wilson Foundation and its benefactor, Red Wilson, who loved to promote democracy and democratic engagement. And we thank Red for all of his contributions over the years. Joining us now is Peter MacLeod. He is co-founder and principal of Mass LBP, one of Canada's leading experts in public engagement and deliberative democracy. He is co-author of a new book called Democracy's Second Act: Why Politics Needs the Public. Peter, it's great to have you here.

Peter MacLeod: It's great to be here, Steve.

Steve Paikin: I want to take you back because I well remember covering this story 20 years ago. Daltton McGinty was the premier. He set up something called a citizens assembly because we were going to look into democratic reforms. Remind people what that whole thing was about.

Peter MacLeod: Well, that's right. It's hard to believe it's been 20 years. and the Ontario Citizens Assembly and Electoral Reform was in fact the second Canadian Citizens Assembly to study that issue. Two years previously, British Columbia had done the same. And that was an era when governments were concerned much as they are today with the question of declining voter turnout, trust and confidence in government. And one of the remedies that was proposed was to change the voting system. But instead of running a royal commission as you might expect government to do, instead BC and then Ontario did something very surprising. Instead of asking former judges or academics to think about these issues on everyone's behalf, they reached out to the general public.

Steve Paikin: to normal people to everyday folks.

Peter MacLeod: How scandalous.

Steve Paikin: Well, some people thought so. And at a time when it seems like people are too busy for politics and are disengaged, both governments sent out around a 100,000 letters not asking people if they would come out for a town hall meeting on a Wednesday evening, but if they would give up 12 weekends over the course of 8 months and again, not to talk about health care or transportation, but to talk about voting systems. And the incredible thing is that 12,000 Ontarians all stuck up their hands and wanted to participate.

Steve Paikin: How many people on the citizens assembly eventually?

Peter MacLeod: Ultimately, there were 103 one for every riding in the province. And one of the facts that I like best is that unlike the Ontario legislature, it was half men and half women.

Steve Paikin: Yeah. I think there about 7030 at Queens Park right now,

Peter MacLeod: right?

Steve Paikin: Yeah. Um, how do you winnow down thousands of people into 103?

Peter MacLeod: by running what has come to be known as a civic lottery. And so effectively the members were randomly selected but in a way that matched the demographic profile so that there would be half men and women. It generally respected the age distribution of the population. So again, if you were to line up the membership of the Ontario Legislature in 2006 and the membership of the Ontario Citizens Assembly point by point from education to gender to age, geography, you would see that this group was on the surface much more representative of the general population.

Steve Paikin: How much concern was there that the subject matter would be too complicated for the people who were being asked to consider it all?

Peter MacLeod: Well, I I think it was complicated. it was so complicated that you needed to take 12 weekends to really get under the hood of these issues. Frankly, that was vastly more time than members of the legislature quite reasonably had through their own committee structures to examine this issue. And is one of the virtues of a citizens assembly that legislators can delegate just as they do with task forces and committees and other exercises to bring back good recommendations. They delegated the study of electoral reform to Ontarians.

Steve Paikin: These 103 everyday Ontarians. How seriously did they take their work?

Peter MacLeod: Incredibly seriously. Um you know the members just 10 years ago had a a reunion and they all got came back together and they talked about how significant this had been um as part of their lives. I mean, most people don't have the opportunity to ever quote sit at the table, to ever do more than walk into a ballot booth and and vote. And this was an opportunity for people to take a very serious interest in the future of their society. And what we have seen since then is that time and again, there have been about 50 assemblies in Canada now, 1,500 around the world, when people are offered the opportunity to do something real, they step up. they spring into action and at a time when we seem very polarized, they managed to find consensus and common ground on very vexing issues.

Steve Paikin: They did and they they recommended a different way of electing our officials who would take seats at Queens Park and then it was put before the public in a referendum which was held at the same time as the 2007 Ontario election.

Peter MacLeod: Correct.

Steve Paikin: It failed.

Peter MacLeod: That's right.

Steve Paikin: It crashed and burned.

Peter MacLeod: So, can you say that this was a success? Uh the model has probably been one of Canada's most significant democratic innovations since the charter and unquestionably it has been Canada's most successful democratic exports. Ireland has changed its constitution not once but three times because it has used citizens assemblies inspired directly from Ontario to address some very difficult questions that parliamentarians themselves couldn't resolve. Look, we have royal commissions. We have other committees constantly providing recommendations to government. Not all of those recommendations are acted upon. But we also have to remember what happened in BC because when they completed the process and they took it to referendum, 58% of the public in BC voted to endorse the Citizens Assembly recommendation.

Steve Paikin: But it failed.

Peter MacLeod: Well, it failed. But Steve, you know why

Steve MacLeod: it failed? Because they needed 60%.

Peter MacLeod: They needed 60%. And as a good student of Canadian politics, you'll know that we have never elected a government in Canada with 58% of anything.

Steve Paikin: That is true.

Peter MacLeod: Right. So it was an somewhat arbitrary threshold. We were prepared, of course, during our great constitutional crisis to break up the country ostensibly with 50% plus one.

Steve Paikin: Yeah. Okay. So tell me this. We ended up, as we say, during that referendum of 2007, turning thumbs down on the suggested changes that the Citizens Assembly came up with. We still have first pass the post. You know, the good oldfashioned way of picking one person per writing. And even if they don't get 50% plus one of the votes, some some of them get elected with 35% of the votes and they're still in. I want to know what in your view we lost as a province by not adopting this new and different way of electing people that the citizens assembly was recommending.

Peter MacLeod: Well, you call it the good old-fashioned way. I know it's old-fashioned. I'm not convinced that it's good. Right.

Peter MacLeod: I think there are reasonable arguments on all sides. Uh, but we need to recognize that as Canadians, we are now one of very few countries, the US, the UK, Canada, that exclusively use first pass the post systems to elect our governments. Um, what do we give up? Well, we give up new voices and new ideas finding their way into our political system. often critics of proportional representation. Uh they point to those countries that have very low thresholds for new parties to enter the system. And they say, "How can you govern?" Except some of the highest performing, most successful countries in the world, our Scandinavian counterparts, all use different models of proportional government so that they can avoid what has unfortunately become commonplace in Canada. The constant oscillation between one party and then the next party gets a majority and it wipes out eight years of work resetting things again. uh good PR systems are stable and they force people which I think much of the public would like. They force politicians to find compromises and to work together

Steve Paikin: because no one party ever gets a majority in or it's almost impossible and they have to work with other parties to get things done.

Peter MacLeod: So let let's think about it a little bit differently because here in Canada we're used to monopolies, right? We have them in our banking sector. We have them of course with our telecom. We have it with media and Canadians don't like monopolies even if we're stuck with them. Our political parties have effectively formed a cartel and they are acting as monopolists to freeze out new entrance into a political marketplace. Politics appears to be one of the only businesses where you can regularly blame the customer for not buying your product.

Steve Paikin: Can we take one quick look at the converse side though? We didn't choose a new system for electing people. We still have the old-fashioned first pass the post. Was anything gained in your view? Is there at all a good news story by sticking with what we had?

Peter MacLeod: Well, let's remember, of course, that our last prime minister, Justin Trudeau, one of his promises was that it would be the last federal election under first pass the post.

Steve Paikin: Not quite.

Peter MacLeod: And not quite. Okay. So, what happened there? I think um some voices were concerned that in a time of growing polarization with extreme parties on the rise in peer countries that maybe first passed the post was a good defense from blocking those parties from entering the political mainstream. What they didn't anticipate was the ability of some of those elements to take over mainstream parties. So, the idea that big 10 parties is your best protection against illiberal ideas has proven to be false.

Steve Paikin: Okay, that brings us to I was going to say today, but not quite. I want to take you to the beginning of when you and your co-author Richard Johnson were sitting down to think about writing this book and something happened on January the 6th in the United States which I guess coincidentally was at a the time at which you two first sat down to think about

Peter MacLeod: this. It was entirely coincidental but it definitely galvanized us. Uh, and so Richard and I, we worked together and we've been very fortunate. Um, having been a part of the original Ontario Citizens Assemblies, we built an organization that has been running different kinds of deliberative processes with Canadians in every corner of the country. And Canadians have taught us a lot about what democracy can be and what maybe it ought to look like. And we thought after, you know, almost 20 years, it was time to start putting those ideas to paper. But when you saw the the riots on Capitol Hill in the United States on January the 6th, did you think to yourself, "This is futile." I mean, clearly we're too late and you know, the horses left the barn or perhaps conversely, "Boy, we need this more than ever now."

Steve Paikin: Well, it was a pretty tough 24 hours, wasn't it? Yeah.

Peter MacLeod: Um because we all were waiting for literally the calvary to arrive. Um we were waiting for um uh police to be able to to push back. But what we saw, of course, was this is in the context of the first days of the Biden presidency, and we saw the long arm of American justice over the next two years uh identify and prosecute the insurrectionists and properly. So, what we didn't anticipate then was that Trump would be reelected. And I think quite reasonably that that has heightened everybody's uh concern that democracy may be more fragile than any of us would like to assume. Democracy is something that we absolutely have to fight for. But you know, as the great poet um of American politics, the singer Bob Dylan wrote, you know, um he that is not busy uh uh uh being born is busy dying, right? And so democracy has to continue to rebirth itself. And I think for a lot of people, it feels as though democracy is stuck. that we gave everyone the vote and then the project was done. But still, that's that's just the plateau in a in a longer story of our democratic evolution. And so, I think what we saw and what we're sadly seen in this Trump era is a moment where we need to reflect and think fundamentally about what the relationship between citizens and government should look like in the 21st century and beyond.

Steve Paikin: Well, you say it's a long story, so let's go back and tell some of that story. You in the book reach back several centuries for what you call the origin story of democracy's first act, the so-called Putney debates. Okay. Tell us about that. Well, u people have been arguing of course about what um the capacity of the public is to govern their own affairs. And in the Putney debates, this is a period in revolutionary England uh when uh there were uh voices on all sides. And if you read the Putney debates today, there are there's contemporary resonance. Um, regrettably, I think over the course of the past 50 or 60 years, more recently, we've become more cynical about the public's capacity. And when the citizens assemblies took place in Ontario and BC, there were a lot of voices who said, well, who are these people anyway? Um, I think we need to see the public not as a risk, but as a resource. And uh much in those revolutionary times, we could push back against royalty and we could push back against uh uh our social betterers uh who had hereditary power. And we've demonstrated that actually representative government, responsible government is one of the great human achievements. And talking about democracy's first act is not to say that it needs to be swept away. It needs to be vigorously defended. Look at what we've achieved over the course of the past 400 years. Universal suffrage, um, peaceful transfer of power, free and fair elections, most well, at least in this country, right? And it's something that Canadians can and should be very proud of. Uh, vigorous independent media, an independent judiciary. These are things that most people in the world cannot take for granted, and we have to fight to protect them, but we also need to go beyond. Well, you also use the metaphor of uh trial by jury as an example of, you know, what may look great, you know, carved into stone tablets versus how it really works in real life. Explain.

Peter MacLeod: Well, citizens assemblies have a lot in common with juries. Um, both are randomly selected. Both are meant to represent the public and most mo both are intended to exercise public judgment, not just top of- mind opinion. And I like to say that um you're never going to walk down University Avenue here in Toronto where we have our courouses and find a sandwich board out front that says uh murder trial this afternoon, jurors wanted because you know who'd show up and you wouldn't want those folks exclusively to be administering justice. And yet every time we decide to close a hospital or think about education or the environment, we effectively put that same sandwich board out front and we say, "Come one, come all." One of the reasons why town hall meetings are often so rockous and ultimately frustrating for the people attending is because those who've chosen to be in the room have already made up their minds. It is not a broad representative public and in a mature um modern western democracy. We need more sophisticated ways of bringing the public together and we have deep historical anticidence to build on uh in creating new democratic institutions for today.

Steve Paikin: Well, I'm always curious Peter as to how people pick the titles of their books. So you you know you've got democracy's second act and you've got second highlighted right. So maybe you need to tell us what was democracy's first act and what's the second act now?

Peter MacLeod: Well the the first act is that that story of 400 years of achieving responsible government of ensuring that there is universal suffrage and of course um you know those achievements are still fresh in the minds of many. Democracy's first act is a very powerful inheritance but it's not the end of the story. The second act is about widening the range of opportunities for people to use their capabilities and talents to contribute to our civic life. And it doesn't only look like citizens assemblies. It looks like I mean what we say is that the future of of politics is publics that are productive, informed, and engaged. And we need strategies to ensure that our democratic institutions understand that their work is not just keeping up the democratic edifice. It's actually building democratic publics. And there are lots of different ways we can do that.

Steve Paikin: I was amused when you said we need to try a radical idea, namely getting the public involved. Why is that such a radical idea?

Peter MacLeod: Because democracy doesn't work without people. I mean that you you asked about the title and the subtitle is why politics needs the public. But increasingly it feels as though politics is operating without the involvement of the public. Simply periodically people and less than half of people walking into a voting booth um isn't a particularly robust um expression of our democratic potential. Uh and political parties need to be hold held to account for this. Um, not only have they not offered people a compelling reason to vote, but they've allowed their own house to fall into disorder. Party memberships continue to decline. Local writing associations are um very very thin, if not non-existent. Power continues to uh be concentrated uh in leaders offices at the center and people feel consequently frustrated and frozen out. I was always taught as a kid that every vote matters. And yet sometimes we see evidence that politics is a closed shop almost to the extent that the people who are in it really don't want to have to deal with the public at all. Do you find that to be the case?

Peter MacLeod: Uh I do. But part of it is because of the poor ways in which they have to reach out to the public. So when we hold a citizens assembly and we invite um elected representatives into the room, they express surprise and delight. These folks are so reasonable. These folks are so thoughtful. They've asked great questions. The common experience for a lot of politicians, of course, is people heranging them all day long to take one position or another or to ask why public services aren't better, right? It's not a constructive discussion. And so when you create publics that are able to think um longer term, are able to accept tradeoffs, are able to consider uh the merits of of different values and how they might intersect with policy choices, then you have something really interesting for politicians to listen to and converse with.

Steve Paikin: I got to ask you about Ireland.

Peter MacLeod: Yes.

Steve Paikin: Ireland was inspired by something we did here in the province of Ontario. Tell us about what happened over there. Well, um when the Ontario Citizens Assembly was considering different models, uh for voting systems, uh they invited a professor David Ferrell uh who is an expert on those systems and particularly Ireland's system of single transferable vote. That's what BC would recommend rather than Ontario. And uh David was so inspired by what he saw uh all of these Ontarians gathering uh weekend by weekend to really explore some difficult questions and he went back and with the support first of the Atlantic philanthropies and then ultimately with the support of the government and the prime minister's office they held some very consequential citizens assemblies that in a Catholic country like Ireland had really been beyond political reach. uh questions about same-sex marriage, question about uh reproductive services for women, um and a range of other constitutional questions that that they explored. Um the citizens assemblies met, they ultimately uh found consensus on um supporting same-sex marriage. That went to referendum uh and the population overwhelmingly endorsed it. Uh and so what began in Ontario uh leapt the pond to Ireland and once other European countries could see that a country like Ireland could deal with some of its longest standing and most divisive public issues then other European countries started to adopt this model as well.

Steve Paikin: There's always the possibility that the elected officials um could you know subvert the process if they didn't like what was emerging from that process. Did any of that happen in Ireland?

Peter MacLeod: No. I mean, quite the quite the contrary.

Steve Paikin: They embraced it.

Peter MacLeod: They embraced it. And Dublin is one of the few cities in the world where you can walk down the street and you can ask people um what did you think of the last citizens assembly and they'll have a view. And every political party now puts forward in its platform its plans for the next Citizens Assembly to deal with the next major or tough issue that they think the public needs to weigh in on. After all, when we vote, we're not voting on every bill and every issue a government is going to examine. We're looking for a good leader. We're looking for someone who maybe exemplifies our values, our beliefs, and the interests of the country. We should be giving people more opportunities to weigh in on all of those specific issues, and citizens assemblies are one mechanism for doing that.

Steve Paikin: What about the sunflower movement in Taiwan? What was that about? Well, the sunflower movement in Taiwan was an attempt to um involve um not just a few hundred people in a discussion, but tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people in a simultaneous discussion. and using online software, a model called V Taiwan, they were able to um simulate some of the dialogues that occur in a citizens assembly and find a consensus on a a whole range of issues that the government was then able to to take up and move forward. And you know, we see lots of ways in which technology is always making good promises about how it can enhance democracy, but the Taiwanese have probably been the most successful in being able to use uh those technologies not to further polarize people and to sort them into categories, but actually to use that technology to bring people together.

Steve Paikin: Does it take a crisis for this to work?

Peter MacLeod: Well, it did in Ireland. I mean, one of the reasons why I think they embraced the citizens assemblies was because it was a moment of great political upheaval following the 2008 financial crisis. And that that opened um I think the minds of people to thinking about different ways of of doing politics. And uh you know we have to remember that the BC citizens assembly took place after a total misfire of its electoral system when uh people had expected the Liberal Party to win but uh they still only got I think 40 some% of the vote. They took all but two seats in the legislature

Steve Paikin: and that seemed indefensible to the average person looking at the result and it prompted the government to act.

Steve Paikin: As you sort of think about all of the different circumstances that led up to the use of this technique around the world, um what's the lesson? What do you what do you come away thinking? We get better democracy if what?

Peter MacLeod: If we recognize that um democratic publics can't be taken for granted. It's not just an ambient force in society. Our institutions have to create and invest in democratic publics. Um and again it's not for the purpose of policym you know we tell consistently cynical stories about the public. They're too busy. They're too apathetic. They're too illinformed. But you know, 10 years ago here in Canada, we had the most remarkable example of how productive and capable the Canadian public can be. We were horrified when we woke up one day and we saw the terrible photograph of that young boy, Alan Kurie, who had washed ashore in Turkey. He was a Syrian refugee. And Lifeline Syria and other groups said to the government of Canada, "We need to do more." and our settlement agencies that do good work, they were maxed out and the government of Canada um uh called on Canadians uh to adopt Syrian families through its group of five program and more than 125,000 Canadians put their red mitts up in the air and said, "I can do this." And this was a big lift. This was raise $30,000. This was ensure that kids get into schools, that parents get language education, get employment, get housing. And you know, a decade later, we know that those Syrians who are privately sponsored have done as well or better in integrating in Canadian society. My question to future governments is given the magnitude of our social deficits, how is it not the case that we don't issue these kinds of civic challenges at least once in every term of government to activate, you know, more than a 100,000 Canadians to collectively try and respond to a shared concern. During the pandemic, the government briefly opened a um a registry where you could say, "I could do contact tracing or I've got some medical training." Again, almost overnight, 72,000 Canadians volunteered. But then they shut down the registry and nobody was ever called.

Steve Paikin: We were told effectively to stay at home, sit on our hands and leave it to the professionals. But that is to ignore the talents and capabilities of our public. And so the future of democratic politics is one where we recognize that they are what they've always been, an indispensable resource for building our society.

Steve Paikin: So we're talking here about a democratic deficit and get comfortable because I'm going to give you a bit of a checklist here of things uh that show us to be in deficit here. And some of these problems are pretty clearly entrenched. The perception, as you've described it, of the public being part of the problem here. the perception of elites being out of touch or even worse. Uh we have a media landscape in the country right now that is pretty hollowed out. Legacy media are in more trouble than ever before. We have social media where misinformation and disinformation is running a muk. Uh we have bots that have taken over social media so you don't even know if you're in conversation with a real person anymore. You know, we could go on. There's a long list of democratic deficit problems that we're trying to come to terms with here. If if you could suggest one thing to people that you think would move the ball down the field, what's on that list?

Peter MacLeod: Well, unfortunately, right now, uh, democracies, liberal democracies everywhere are under attack. And so, while I want to talk about all the innovative ways we can build on the public's talents and invest in their capabilities, we have to protect what we've got right now. And that means defending our information space. Um, you know, part of the reason why Canada got through the 2008 financial crisis is we had superior regulation that kept our markets and our banks in check. And right now, our information space, all of the digital services that people use through which they interact, they get their news, they form their opinions. um they are running a muk and until Canada passes its online harms legislation and establishes a digital services regulator that can powerfully push back against big tech and our foreign adversaries, then democracy is definitely in peril.

Steve Paikin: You you really seem to think that that we've got to completely, if I can put it this way, you know, ask backwards as it relates to what the public is prepared to do. Um here's the line in your book. People want to say, but they're also willing to serve. The problem isn't that we ask too much, but too little. What does that mean?

Peter MacLeod: Well, it means that um we do have to uh flip things around. We do have to look at this uh differently. Uh and we have to recognize that because the public isn't this uh physical thing, right? I I can't take this hall and say bring in the public. What would that even mean? I can't take the Roger Center and say bring in the public, right? Well, how do we know when it's there? No, the public is less a thing than it is a mindset because if I can't point to the public, I know when uh people are being uh public-minded and publicspirited. And so what we need to do are create opportunities for people to exercise those qualities of being public-minded and publicspirited because you and I know what that looks like when we see it, right?

Steve Paikin: And you're convinced people would rise to the challenge.

Peter MacLeod: Time and again we've seen in Canada, you know, one in 30 households have received an invitation to serve. We've had thousands of Canadians who've now invested tens of thousands of hours in these deliberative processes. um they never quit, they never walk away frustrated, they never get everything they want either. You know, the book is really an invitation uh not only to think about the future of democracy, but an invitation to practice a more grown-up kind of politics where we work out our differences and we're not content just saying, "Ah, 5149, I win, you lose." No, let's keep talking a little bit longer so that more of us are satisfied with the choices we make.

Steve Paikin: I do remember the last time I talked to former Premier McGinty whom we talked about earlier. He was talking about a kind of a national service something after you graduate from high school. And maybe some people don't want to go on to college or university. Maybe it's the military, but maybe it's social services. Maybe it's working in a long-term care facility. It's doing something beyond yourself to make the world a better place. You like this idea?

Peter MacLeod: I love this idea. I I mean most other um mature liberal democracies have some form not of mandatory service but of voluntary public service. And um you know unfortunately given the uh illegal war in the Ukraine and um the efforts of illiberal countries to undermine parts of Northern Europe, you've seen countries like Sweden reactivate its civil defense corps and its uh psychological defense agency to better protect the public online but also give people way to become more skilled and ready to meet whatever uh crisis they might face. the the conventional wisdom is you couldn't do that in Canada. There just wouldn't be enough public buyin to make that happen. You believe that?

Steve Paikin: Of course not. Why do we keep talking down the public? You know, and it's not even for such consequential things as our ability to protect ourselves. You'll remember back when we were in the leadup to the Vancouver Olympics, people were saying, "Terrible idea. Folks won't come. Canadians won't enjoy it." And then we got closer and closer and closer and they put out a call for volunteers. A 100,000 Canadians leapt into action. They put on those wonderful blue and green coats and we can have an honorable debate about the merits of the Olympics. But the reality is people were proud to then show off their city and their country to the world. You know, it's the tyranny of low expectations that is really undermining our uh politics. It has nothing to do with what people are actually capable of. Canadians are generous. They're caring. They're selfless. They're kind, but they need opportunities to express those qualities in public life.

Steve Paikin: We're more public-spirited and we take our civic responsibilities more seriously than we are ever given credit for. Right.

Peter MacLeod: 100%.

Steve Paikin: That's the way. Um, let's finish full circle here. We started with the citizens assembly in Ontario of nearly 20 years ago. So, let's finish on that. You know, I remember talking to members who were in that citizens assembly and they were inspired by the whole thing. They thought it was an amazing way to try to do something to change their province, to give back to their province, however you want to describe it. But of course, the vote didn't pass. And I think it's fair to say that the whole exercise has pretty much been forgotten, even though, you know, if you're of a certain age, you lived through it, you remember it, etc. What do we do with that? Is there an opportunity to kind of bring that back? And what would the issue be that we'd want to bring it back for?

Peter MacLeod: Right?

Steve Paikin: How do you like where's the future in all this going?

Peter MacLeod: Well, the the the the broader point is that citizens have never gone away. In fact, they have flourished uh both within this country where they have been used to do everything from um in the past year considering whether Victoria and its neighboring city of Senate should amalgamate. uh 42 randomly selected residents were selected by the two councils and they went out and come back with a recommendation health services in this province. Um the major investment of $2 billion in primary care was informed by the our care initiative, a series of citizens assemblies across the country that said, "No, this is the minimum standard of care." And of course around the world, they're being used in all kinds of ways. But citizens assemblies aren't the thing that save or solve for all of our democratic challenges. What they demonstrate time and again is what we are capable of. So my hope is that everyone in the future won't have had a chance to serve on assembly, but they will know somebody who's had the chance to serve on an assembly because we know from jury service in our court system that even though people often talk about wanting to get out of that thing, if they are selected and they do serve, they walk away with a greater appreciation for the court system, for our judiciary, for what is consequential in our society. and they also feel esteemed by the experience. We should be looking to create processes in our society that pay a democratic dividend and build the democratic fitness of Canadians. Peter, I will make this confession to you. When I picked up your book, I thought to myself, "Yeah, this is all well and good, but it's probably ain't going anywhere." But I got to the end of your book and I thought, "This is pretty inspiring, and this guy's on to something, and maybe we've got a shot at this." So good for you for writing Democracy Second Act.

Peter MacLeod: Thank you

Steve Paikin: and thanks for doing our program today here on TVO.

Peter MacLeod: My pleasure.

Steve Paikin: Uh the book once again is called Democracy Second Act: Why Politics Needs the Public and his co-author is Richard Johnson. Thanks as always to the Wilson Foundation for making TVOT Today live. This whole series possible. You can see our previous conversations in this series at tvO.orgtvoive or they're all on YouTube as well. Our YouTube channel is TVOT Today. I'm Steve Paikin from Midtown Toronto. We'll see you next time.

Steve Paikin: TVO Today Live is made [music] possible by the generous support of the Wilson Foundation.