Neighbourhood Power - Real Democracy

If our democracy is to be real and not just a formality, it must allow us the greatest possible control over the issues and corresponding decisions that affect our lives.

All power to the neighbourhood!

Coherent with our belief that democracy is something that needs to be fostered permanently and not just mentioned during elections, in January 2001 HTO launched a door-to-door campaign to organize public input into a process that is fundamental to how Toronto is shaped: the city budget. Besides stating what their top spending priorities were, neighbours also expressed an overwhelming desire to have a say in the budget process. We've repeated the "Real Budget" project every year since, and criticized the City every time for not following our example.

City Hall likes to complain that it has no power, that it is a puppet of the upper tiers of government, and overall this complaint is valid. We live with a system of government that subordinates municipal politics to the power of provinces, and this is a situation that we must change. But nonetheless, if the City really believed in democracy, it would begin to treat its citizens with the same respect that it demands for itself. If the City really believed in democracy, it would bring decision-making power down to the neighbourhoods with a Participatory Budget.

Participatory Budgeting

The Brazilian city of Porto Alegre (pop. 1.3 million) has been drawing up their budget with the input of about 100,000 residents for the past 14 years. Their model has spread throughout Brazil and other parts of the world.

In order to create such a budget, the city is divided into 16 regions and public participation is organized through grassroots neighbourhood associations. The participatory budget is applied not only to financial matters but also to issues like urban planning, transportation, public health, etc.

Through public community meetings, the election of street and district representatives, and delegate committees to Council, the residents of Porto Alegre have a very direct say in the drawing up of their budget, as well as a direct ability to scrutinize the effectiveness of their council in carrying out the mandate given to them.

While massive public participation in this system did not arise overnight, once residents began to see that participating neighbourhoods had their needs met, things began to change. And far from being a free-for-all of naive demands resulting in Porto Alegre's bankruptcy, the city's economy is better than before.

Naysayers will level many criticisms against such a model. Rather than explain why such a system is not possible (when experience shows clearly that it is), effort would be better spent on studying ways to reconfigure our city decision-making process to include the residents of Toronto. The participatory budget experience of Porto Alegre is a proven model that needs to be developed here.