Social Issues
Our democracy, the consequences of poverty, and changing cultural make up are important social issues that will shape the country's future. This debate begins with a featured essay by Mark Kingwell.Featured Author
The Future of Democracy
by Mark Kingwell
Toronto Star, October 3, 2006
The basic tenet of all democratic politics is a fiction. The tenet is that each one of us, simply by virtue of having existence thrust upon us, has a say in how our society is structured and run-in fact, that any society not so beholden to our desire is illegitimate.
A fiction, surely, because so often untrue in practice, but a bracing one. The vast majority of human history has run with no such belief in play. If democracy seems basic and best to us now-to the extent that we are even willing, along with our friends to the south and across the Atlantic, forcibly to export it-it is well to remember that the experiment of demos polis is still in its infancy. Our notions about democracy date from no earlier than about 1670, and even that is a scholarly stretch given that the modern forms of electoral politics are essentially twentieth-century inventions.
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Citizen Essays on Social Issues
2020: A Well-Mannered Society
by writergal
This is Elisa Chan-Cohen’s big day. Dressed in a traditional white ball gown, she is coming out, along with 19 other young women and their escorts. No, Miss Chan-Cohen, 17, is not coming out of the closet, but is making her debut at the Toronto’s Mayor’s Ball, held this year at the historic King Edward Hotel.
“I am very excited to have this opportunity,” Miss Chan-Cohen told us, “I have worked very hard over the past few months and am looking forward to the event.”
Welcome to 2020. Debutante balls are back. Debutantes were once a bastion for wealthy white society; to come out meant that a young woman was now eligible to attend “grown-up” functions and was also eligible for marriage. The Toronto Mayor’s Ball, now in its tenth year, however, is reflective of the city’s multi-cultural make-up and young women (and their male escorts) are chosen based on an essay and an interview. read more...
Other Citizen Essays
Canada 2020: Regulation Nation by tashakheiriddin, July 28, 2006
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