Report of Councillor Doucet to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities Annual Meeting - 2002
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Participative Budget: How is it actually implemented?
As far as I was able to make out, the participative budget is still evolving and there is considerable flexibility from district to district i.e. the participative process is not exactly the same from one ward to another. But the skeleton of it seems to be as follows: In March, there is a single large assembly, which the mayor presides at, and which kicks off the process. There are preliminary documents available for discussion. The broad challenges for the year are sketched out.
Then there are meetings in each of the city’s districts or wards. Councillors attend these meetings but only as observers, much as Ottawa councillors do, on our advisory committees, to which they have been assigned. At these meetings, two delegates are elected and two alternates are elected. These along with delegates from the other wards will form the annual Council of Participative Budget (COP) which will ‘participate’ in the smaller meetings between staff and the public to prepare the documents and the agendas for the ward and citywide meetings. Those participating in the annual participative budget are all volunteers and those delegates to the COP are only elected for one year. Each year a new group of delegates is elected.
Then, there is a cumulative, ten month cascade of discussions between city staff, the COP, the district meetings and the city meetings as plans and priorities under various municipal funding themes, - - water, parks, recreation, roads, public transit, police etc. are gradually refined from an amorphous wish list, to actual projects and programs which make sense in terms of the city’s requirements and ability to fund.
In general, each ward expresses preferences, both across city wide sectors such as urban development, health, transport, education, culture, recreation and then in subsequent meetings each ward decides on their individual priorities. Choices are discussed and voted on in both neigbourhood meetings and also in ward and citywide assemblies that addresses each civic theme. These meetings are open to all citizens. The poorer areas of the city usually emphasize basic services such as water supply, sanitation and roads while the wealthier pay more attention to parks and recreational facilities.
One of the most impressive outcomes of the ‘participative budget’ is, however, not just the physical results of each year’s Investment and Services Plan but also in the level of civic enthusiasm and commitment to the city government. Everywhere I went people spoke well of the government and the process. Even those who were quick to preface their comments with the note that they were capitalists, not socialists, thought the city government was a good one.
Even given the possibility of some factual inflation around the process and its success, it would seem by almost any measure the Porto Alegran participative budget can be described as a model which has achieved more than anyone would have thought possible. Otherwise, it would be difficult to explain why so many other Brazilian municipalities are lining up to copy it because it requires considerable change on the part of both elected officials and staff.
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Would a participative budget process work in Canada?
Yes, I believe it would. If a participative budget was piloted in a Canadian municipality over the three year term of one council, I am sure at the end of that period, it would be clear to both the elected officials and the volunteer participants whether the system would work or not in Canada.
It would work in Canada for the same reason that it works in southern Brazil. We have a city population with a tradition of volunteerism and commitment to making their cities work just as there is in Porto Alegre. Our population is highly educated as it is in Porto Alegre. And I believe the participative budget would also bring increased transparency, understanding of the trade-offs, clarity about the preferred budget objectives, priorities, funding and budget, to make available. I, also, think it would have the side effect of reducing civic cynicism and increasing commitment to the democratic, civic government process.
Let me give an example of the kind of positive changes that I think a participative budget would bring to Ottawa.
A recent poll by Environics of Ottawa identified that 49 per cent of Ottawa residents want to see more money spent on public transit rather than on road widenings, 19 per cent want to see more money spent on road widenings than public transit. You would think that message is pretty clear and the allocation to public transit versus road construction would reflect that citizen desire. It does not. In fact, it is the reverse.
In 2002, Ottawa will spend using a combination of provincial tax money, development charges and local property taxes spend more than twice as much on new roads and road widenings than it will on pubic transit. If you take out the simple bus replacement costs that I regard as operational not capital, the transit costs sink to a quarter of the money spent on roads.
This kind of discrepancy between what the majority of people want and what city council actually funds is much less likely to happen in a participative budget process both because of the level of public involvement and the length of the process.
In a six week, public consultation process which also includes at the same time the legislative committee and council debate, there is very little time to do anything but make the most peripheral changes before rubber stamping what was supposed to be a ‘draft’ budget. But which is in reality the final budget from the moment it is introduced.