Direct Democracy - in Poland, and in Texas

         Direct democracy in Poland? Yes, even there, now!

         Just recently campaigners submitted 232,000 signatures to the electoral commission for verification,  almost double the number necessary, to require a vote upon whether to recall Warsaw’s mayor. This was according to a recent  Economist Magazine story about Poland’s governance.

         Now would not that be the sort of thing to overcome the mayoral debacle going on in Toronto? Am not personally anxious to include the right of recall within a Direct Democracy law – but one can see that it can be useful; (even in California they have it – when it recalled their governor Brown and then replaced him with that movie star – Swartzeneger.).

         But in Poland? And we cannot even vote for any issue here in Ontario, much less recalling a punchy mayor.

         And as to full-time kindergarten, another big issue in Ontario,  well, in San Antonio, Texas they had that issue there recently, according to  the Economist.  And so an idea to pay for such through a sales-tax for pre- K plan was put to a city-wide vote. It passed. It illustrated pretty well just what the citizens there thought was wise – to get kids into school while they are – young – but that the citizens must provide taxes to pay for it!    Instead, here in Ontario we are just going millions more in debt to pay for something  we had no say in at all.

         Even with a city in Texas, they have “direct democracy”.

         When will we in Ontario, permit our citizens to actually have a say in the things  in  which we want to have a real influence?