Legal Research

McGuinty and Web 2.0

By David Bilinsky

? Singing power to the people
Power to the people
Power to the people
Power to the people, right on.. ?

Written and recorded by John Lennon.

The Toronto Star reported today on how Premier Dalton McGuinty backed down on a proposed regulation that would have prohibited teen drivers 16-19 years old with a G2 licence from having more than one other teen passenger in their vehicle in Ontario.

“Transportation Minister Jim Bradley said the 150,000 people who had joined a Facebook protest against the teen driving restrictions clearly had an impact on the government’s thinking, as did people in rural and northern Ontario, where public transit is scarce.”

Barack Obama’s victory in the recent US Presidential election is largely credited with his ability to raise funds via his use of the internet - particularly email. Closer to home, while Gregor Robertson recently debated Peter Ladner, his opponent for the Mayor of Vancouver position, CBC conducted a simultaneous Twitter conversation.

CBC.ca reported:

“While Twitter and other internet social networking technologies have yet to have a significant impact on mainstream politics in Canada, it may just be a matter of time. In the recent U.S. presidential election, Barack Obama’s victory was credited in part to his campaign’s ability to mobilize youth voters by using a number of online social networking sites.”

It seems that John Lennon was just ahead of his time. Web 2.0 - Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, email - have given democracy a huge boost and mobilized the young voter (answering the question, “Why Young People Don’t Vote” - the answer being that no one took the effort to talk to them on their terms.) It seems that there is a huge lesson here for politicians - and lawmakers - and that is speak to the people using the tools that their audience is using. In the process, not only have they engaged and given power to the people, the people may just - if the message is right on - give power back to them.

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on December 09, 2008 (boomark / email).