What is democracy.mov
Channel: Jie Ding
Date: 2011-10-17

On October 15th 2011, I interviewed people at the Occupy Toronto demonstration and march. I asked them three questions: what is democracy, do we have a democracy here in Canada, and how could we improve democracy? Their answers exposed a fundamental disconnect between the kind of "democracy" we have, and the kind these people want. People want democracy to reflect their views. They want their representatives to act more like delegates, with no authority to make decisions on their own without consulting the public first. They also want democracy to extend into the material realm, an economic democracy. This new attitude towards democracy is fundamentally in conflict with the neo-liberal economic and social policies which are agreed upon by the mainstream political parties.This new attitude is also in conflict with traditional western liberalism. But since the political parties which claim a monopoly right to represent us make up just 2% of the Canadian population, what kind of "democracy" do we really have? It's an open question.