Reinventing Canada's political circus

Published in the Globe and Mail, August 23, the Saskatoon StarPhoenix, September 4, the Windsor Star, September 5, on Canada Free Press, September 8, in the Victoria Star, September 10, Town and Country, September 17, and Grande Cache Mountaineer, October 1, 2008.

By Preston Manning
President and CEO
Manning Centre for Building Democracy

Preston Manning The North American circus market once looked much like the political marketplace in Canada today. It featured two dominant players, Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey (they later merged), plus some smaller regional circuses, all engaged in cutthroat competition. Each offered declining numbers of customers variations on traditional circus features – slapstick humour (clowns), danger and thrills (animals and acrobats), a few star performers, and “circus” food – all offered in the traditional venue of three rings in a tent at a low price relative to other entertainment options.

With rising costs and declining public interest, especially among the young, the circus industry (like democratic politics in Canada) was in big trouble.

But then along came two former street performers, Guy Laliberté and Daniel Gauthier. They re-invented the circus and attracted a whole new set of customers to what became known as Cirque du Soleil. Where did they come from? How did they do it? And could their strategies re-invent and re-energize democratic politics in this country?

Sound fantastic? It is fantastic. So is Cirque du Soleil. Fantastically successful, employing over 3500 people from 40 countries, attracting more than 70 million people to its performances, earning annual revenues in excess of US $700 million, and recently attracting investment interest from the government of Dubai which has purchased a 20% stake in the Cirque.

Guy Laliberté and Daniel Gauthier were two enterprising Quebecois with experience as buskers in street fairs – a near-circus grassroots entertainment genre particularly well developed and popular in Quebec.

What did they and their friends do to re-invent the circus? Over a period of years, they got rid of some traditional trappings that had outlived their usefulness and appeal, for example, the circus animals which were very costly to maintain and transport. They retained and upgraded other circus offerings like the venue (three rings became one), the food, and the humour. And they incorporated some additional offerings – continuous music, a theme and story line, drama, dance, and gymnastic/aquatic artistry – drawn from alternative entertainment markets (the theatre, ballet, gymnastics, and synchronized swimming) to attract near-customers from these markets to Cirque du Soleil.

(Readers who want an in depth discussion of this strategy from a business standpoint should see Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, published by Harvard Business School Press, 2005.)

What is the relevance of the Cirque du Soleil story to re-inventing and re-energizing Canadian politics? Consider the following.

If some re-invention of democratic politics in Canada is to occur, it will likely originate in one of the two regions of this country with a track record for political entrepreneurship and innovation – either Quebec or the prairies. And if our political circus is going to be re-invented, could it be that the way will be led, not by traditional, high level politicians, strategists, or academics but by street-level activists engaged in interest/advocacy group work at the grassroots level?

If our political innovators were to get rid of some of the traditional trappings of the current political circus that have outlived their usefulness and appeal, what might go? How about the daily Question Period in the House of Commons and legislatures?

Question Period – a gong show in which the most aggressive political animals on both sides of the House vie for a ten-second hit on the evening news – has an increasingly negative image with the public. Yet it is the image of our parliamentary system most frequently presented on television, thereby contributing significantly to the declining respect for politicians, parties, and Parliament itself. Of course, if we do away with Question Period in its present form it would have to be replaced by something better. How about Answer Period, where government ministers could still be held to account but also have meaningful opportunity to explain and defend their positions?

If our political innovators were to retain some of the present features of current political processes but upgrade them, what feature should be the prime target for upgrading? How about the way we nominate candidates for elected office?

At present, most candidates are nominated at an electoral district (constituency) nominating meeting organized by their party’s local executive with only local party members eligible to attend and vote. In the federal arena this means 308 separate nominating meetings per party, each held at a different time and place all over the country – a 308-ring circus, if you will, with very small rings, few with a high enough profile to attract more than local media or public attention. But suppose we were to amalgamate these 308 small rings into ten big ones by using a province-wide primary system to choose all the federal candidates in one province all on the same day, with any citizen willing to register for the primary eligible to vote for the nominee of their choice. Would we not raise the profile of the nominating process and the key races sky high, thereby dramatically increasing media/public interest and the numbers of participating voters?

And if our political innovators were to incorporate some additional offerings into the current political circus to attract participation from alternative quasi-political arenas – like those of civil society, the interest/advocacy group arena, and the social-networking world – what might these offerings be?

Suppose, for example, that the next time you went to the polls to vote in a federal election, you got two ballots. One would be the traditional ballot by which you would vote for the candidate of your choice. But the second would be a “referendum ballot” on which you would be asked to express your position on three or four of the major issues facing the country – support or non-support for keeping our troops in Afghanistan, for example, or whether to adopt a two-track health-care system, or whether or not to enter into some international environmental agreement. The election campaign would then be characterized not just by the usual party campaigns on behalf of their candidates but simultaneously by several substantive “issue campaigns” fuelled by the active and vigorous participation of the “near political” forces – NGOs, interest and advocacy groups, social networkers, and the like. Would not such an additional offering – the referendum ballot – attract increased involvement in the electoral process on a scale greater and broader than if the only offerings are partisan candidates and platforms?

Finally, the political innovators who created Cirque du Soleil did one other most significant thing. By creating a circus with a single ring and without animals, with performers rather than a technical crew moving the props, and without many of the traditional barriers that separated the audience from the actors, they succeeded in drawing the audience into the performance to a far greater extent than the traditional circus had ever been able to do. If Cirque de la Politique could do the same for Canadian politics, Canada’s democratic deficit would be a thing of the past.

Keywords: Preston Manning, Manning Centre for Building Democracy, politics, Canada, circus, Cirque du Soleil, political innovation, Question Period, nomination, traditional ballot, referendum ballot, ballot

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