Ottawa

From the magazine

Checking in on the Ruth Ellen Brosseau Experiment

In the latest print edition, I check in with Ruth Ellen Brosseau.

It’s basically not feasible, but I do wonder what would happen if a certain number of MPs—let’s say, 10—were selected entirely at random from the general population. Paul Hiebert and JJ McCullough kicked this around as a solution to the Senate: make it like jury duty. I like to imagine it might have a positive effect on the proceedings. Lamenting for the “career politician” is lazy and prizing the neophyte is too simple and dismissing politics as somehow unreal or separate from real life is wrong, but there is a certain kind of reality that a randomly selected citizen might bring. It is at least an intriguing thought experiment.

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