Collaborative Proposal Creation
Create, improve and sponsor proposals in a respectful, fully bilingual environment. Grow proposals in the "Hothouse", for promotion to the "Workshop", to become official GPC policy.
- Proposal text
- The constitution should be amended to allow members to propose new motions on an ongoing basis, not dependent on the arrival of an annual general meeting. As things stand, while motions concerning GPC policies do not have to be approved at a general meeting, Directives and constitutional Amendments do. Removing this requirement from our constitution will make it easier for members to amend bylaws and constitution and remove processing bottlenecks associated with general meetings. This proposal specifically aims to amend sections 10.1.3, 10.1.4, and 10.1.5 of the constitution, as well as bylaws 10.2.3 and 10.3.1 to make amendments less dependent on general meetings, and thus more accessible to all members. Proposed changes in capital letters: " 10.1.3 Amendments shall be adopted by a majority of the votes cast by Members in good standing at a General Meeting OR VIA WEDECIDE OR A SIMILAR ONLINE CONTINUOUS MOTION DEVELOPMENT PROCESS PLATFORM, and shall only become effective upon Members in good standing passing an identically worded amendment by a vote of greater than 1/2 (50%) of the votes cast in a Members' vote conducted by mail-in ballot, with a ballot return date of no later than one-hundred-twenty (120) days following the General Meeting at which the amendment was passed OR THE DATE AT WHICH THE AMENDMENT WAS RATIFIED BY A SUFFICIENT NUMBER OF MEMBERS, AS DICTATED BY GM QUORUM REQUIREMENTS". "10.1.4 Notwithstanding any other provision concerning an amendment of the present Constitution, all proposed amendments concerning Article 10, Article 11, or Bylaw 1.2.3 will be adopted if: 10.1.4.1 more than 3/4 (75%) of the votes cast by Members in good standing at two (2) consecutive General Meetings are in favour of an identically worded resolution to enact the amendment OR MORE THAN 3/4 OF THE VOTES CAST BY MEMBERS VIA WEDECIDE OR A SIMILAR ONLINE PLATFORM; and 10.1.4.2 an identically worded resolution to enact the amendment is passed by a vote of greater than 1/2 (50%) of the votes cast by Members in good standing in a Members' vote conducted by mail-in ballot, with a ballot return date of no later than one-hundred-twenty (120) days following the second General Meeting at which the amendment was passed OR 120 DAYS FOLLOWING THE DATE AT WHICH THE MOTION RECEIVED SUFFICIENT SUPPORT FROM MEMBERS, AS DETERMINED IN RELATION TO GM QUORUM REQUIREMENTS. 10.1.5 After each General Meeting at which this Constitution is amended OR AFTER ANY AMENDMENT PASSED VIA WEDECIDE OR SIMILAR ONLINE PLATFORM, the Constitution Committee and any legal advisers must oversee the publication of this Constitution as amended and may, in so doing, and subject to the ratification of the Federal Council:" "10.2.3 Amendments shall be adopted by a majority of the votes cast by Members in good standing at a General Meeting OR BY A SUFFICIENT NUMBER OF ENDORSEMENTS RECEIVED ON WEDECIDE OR SIMILAR ONLINE PLATFORM, AS DETERMINED IN RELATION TO GM QUORUM REQUIREMENTS". "10.3.1 After each General Meeting at which this Constitution or the Bylaws are amended OR ONCE ANY AMENDMENT TO THE BYLAWS OR CONSTITUTION IS PASSED VIA WEDECIDE OR SIMILAR ONLINE PLATFORM, Federal Council shall ensure the publication of the amended Constitution and Bylaws, and at that time may:"
- Type of Proposal
- A constitutional amendment to change the constitution or bylaws
- Objective / Benefit
- To make the Green Party's motion development process as accessible and functional as possible
- If your proposal replaces an existing policy or policies, which one does it replace?
- 10.1.3 " Amendments shall be adopted by a majority of the votes cast by Members in good standing at a General Meeting, " and 10.1.4 "Notwithstanding any other provision concerning an amendment of the present Constitution, all proposed amendments concerning Article 10, Article 11, or Bylaw 1.2.3 will be adopted if: 10.1.4.1 more than 3/4 (75%) of the votes cast by Members in good standing at two (2) consecutive General Meetings are in favour of an identically worded resolution to enact the amendment; and 10.1.4.2 an identically worded resolution to enact the amendment is passed by a vote of greater than 1/2 (50%) of the votes cast by Members in good standing in a Members' vote conducted by mail-in ballot, with a ballot return date of no later than one-hundred-twenty (120) days following the second General Meeting at which the amendment was passed." 10.1.5 After each General Meeting at which this Constitution is amended, the Constitution Committee and any legal advisers must oversee the publication of this Constitution as amended and may, in so doing, and subject to the ratification of the Federal Council: 10.2.3 Amendments shall be adopted by a majority of the votes cast by Members in good standing at a General Meeting. 10.3.1 After each General Meeting at which this Constitution or the Bylaws are amended, Federal Council shall ensure the publication of the amended Constitution and Bylaws, and at that time may:
- List any supporting evidence for your proposal
- see constitution
- Does this proposal affect any particular group and what efforts have been made to consult with the group or groups?
- no
- Jurisdiction: Is this proposal under federal jurisdiction?
- No
- Please indicate the language the proposal is being submitted in.
- English
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Reference: PVC-PROP-2023-08-4199
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Conversation with Jean-Charles Pelland
This has nothing to do with being in a hurry. The stated purpose is "To make the Green Party's motion development process as accessible and functional as possible". Indeed, people have lives. This includes the volunteers that put together general meetings, and are faced with a bottleneck of motions to process and present to members at a GM, who are forced to work overtime because the process is currently dependent on a GM. If we care about people's lives, we need to make the motion submission process independent of a GM, so that people who have lives and yet are involved in the process don'T have to ruin their lives to participate in the process . Other people who have lives are those who would like to be involved in motion development but might not be available during a GM. Making motion development independent of a GM means more people can participate, since the process is not tied to a particular date or event. There is no " chasing up online submissions of proposals on an ongoing basis", I don't know where you get that. People who are interested in a topic can sign up and receive notifications, as is currently the case on this page. Even if this motion passes, it can still be once a year, as you seem to favor. It just wouldn't have to be, there would be more flexibility for interested members and volunteers.
With respect, GMs should not be dependent on volunteers to run. These are constitutionally provided and protected vehicles of accountability and should be treated a priority responsibilities of staff and Federal Council.
Staff members are always important leaders in the organization of any General Meeting, but a staff member or volunteer can leave at any time, so well-designed, well-resourced General Meeting teams should ideally not be dependent on any single individual to run. A great way to quantify this in organizational design, is the concept of 'bus factor' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor.
Given our resource constraints, it's often impossible to design staff-only operational models with Bus Factor >1, so a blend of staff and volunteers in operations can be a valuable tool to provide redundancy and capacity that can help the organization survive shocks. We've already had some successful examples of this type of planning helping to mitigate unforeseen challenges.
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