I have accepted the nomination by my party to run for Member of Parliament (MP) in the Vancouver Centre riding. I am running on a platform that I do not believe has ever been done before: I am building a system which will take the words of my constituents (if elected), and allow them to use Reddit style voting to determine what I vote and what I present and say to the floor of parliament.

There are a few sides to this coin (or die?), because I of course have my own platforms too. In addition to my core platforms of:

• End any attempt to put U.S. “security” forces within Canadian borders and encourage Canadian Customs and Border Services Agency to be more open about their search / seizure practices.
• Join the IWC as an anti-whaling nation and let the rest of the world know that we will not tollerate facades of “research” mask commercial whaling.
• Increase spending on rural communications projects bringing higher speeds of internet at an affordable rate to people in rural communities.
• Advocate for all government agencies to use free, open source software to reduce government expenditures on purchases and overall maintenance of the computer networks
• Implement an inexpensive internet forum and polling website where all of Vancouver Centre’s constituents can continue to make their voices heard in Ottawa after the federal election

I also promise to uphold the Pirate Parties platforms too:

• Copyright: Reinforce and protect fair dealing, decriminalize non-commercial file sharing, allow content creators to dedicate material to the public domain, and reform crown copyright to ensure open access to Canadians
• Patent: Reduce terms to 5 years, require a higher standard of originality, and reallocate funds saved in health care due to patent reform to public pharmaceutical research
• Privacy: Enforce the same privacy laws on electronic communication as the traditional postal service, strengthen the powers of Privacy Commissioner, and fight bills and regulation that violate Canadians’ right to personal privacy
• Net Neutrality: Reform the CRTC to prevent abuses, fund undersea cables to Europe and Asia rather than relying on American bandwidth, and ensure unfettered access to telecom infrastructure for independent service providers
• Open Government: Create a combined approach of proactive release of information to the public while easing access by request, expedite freedom of information requests and reduce costs by sharing information digitally, lower or eliminate the cost of filing of FOI requests, strengthen the PSIC, and establish an anonymous online dropbox system
• Whistleblowers & Free Press: Introduce legislation to protect journalists and whistleblowers
• Charter Rights: Stand up against violations of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, especially freedom of expression and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure

There will be no surprises though. If a topic doesn’t fall under those topics, then the decision will go to the will of the people in the riding. There is no point, in our age of technology, to vote for one party that thinks they have the answers to everything, people in different areas think differently and before there was no one party that could make the largest amount of people happy while also keeping true to its core values. I feel that in the future this is how all parties will be: A couple core platforms and then calling upon the voter to decide the rest.
Another side to the coin is the fear that the minority will be silenced by having a majority having the ability to downvote ideas that run contrary to their own views. There are a few things we will be doing to decrease the chance of this happening:

• Myself and helpers will be “moderating” the board, not deleting anything (unless its obvious spam) but looking through posts and finding ones that have been down voted by the community… and tracking the conversations based on that. It’s not always the most upvoted comment that I would bring to the floor of parliament, I would use it as a chance to also bring an alternative view-point (and make sure it was clear to the floor that it was not my own thought, but just A thought that had been brought up.
• We have been thinking about the possibility to limit the number of downvotes a person can make in a day/week/month to ensure that no person can just downvote every opinion they don’t like, and only downvote ideas that they feel are genuinely flawed or, even better, are just comments that are not productive to the discussion.
• Adding phone suggestions and an email box that actually gets checked should also allow people who do not want to use the website, or are trying to use the website and keep having their comments downvoted a forum to speak directly to my team / me.

Another advantage is that I am always available, even if I was elected MP I would leave a published phone number and email address (though the number may ring to a voicemail or have an automated system) and reply as frequently as possible. I would also hold weekly IRC meetings so everyone who wanted a chance to say something could log-in and participate.

Are you ready for the politics you always thought were going to be in the future? 2011… that’s future enough for me :)