Citizens' assemblies are used by governments across Canada and around the world to provide detailed advice on how best to resolve complex policy issues. Randomly selected members of the public have the opportunity to learn about these issues, deliberate with others who hold different views, and work to find common ground.

The Canadian Commission on Democratic Expression has established three Citizens’ Assemblies to provide advice to the federal government, its commissioners and the public concerning the impact of digital technologies on Canadian society. The first of these Assemblies concluded its work in December 2020 and the second in December 2021.

The Four Phases of an Assembly

1. Civic lottery selection

The members of a Citizens’ Assembly are selected by civic lottery, which helps to ensure that the assembly broadly matches the breadth of perspectives and diversity of a specific region. Working with Canada Post, thousands of invitations are printed and mailed to randomly selected addresses within a jurisdiction. In this case, invitations were sent to every province and territory.

Typically, four to seven percent of recipients volunteer. From among the respondents, the required number of members are randomly selected using a stratified and randomized draw that is balanced for gender, age, and geography, as well as other predetermined representative criteria.

2. Orientation and learning 

A lot of care is taken to develop a balanced curriculum that provides the assembly members with opportunities to share their experiences and insights as well as learn from a range of experts and stakeholders. These citizen expert dialogues help to ensure that the members are working from a common base of facts and have the opportunity to hear contrasting perspectives.

3. Consensus through deliberation 

The members begin by identifying a set of values that they agree should guide their work. Next, they identify specific issues they would like to explore before singling out a series of priorities they intend to address through their recommendations. This process of moving from values to issues to priorities to recommendations provides the members with the time necessary to build respect for one another’s concerns while also developing a shared outlook. Working iteratively in small groups and plenary sessions, the members draft and refine each other’s proposals.

4. Drafting recommendations 

The assembly members are tasked with drafting their report in their own words. Together, they produce a set of consensus recommendations that forms the basis of their public report. Once a draft report has been created, it is circulated to the members to ensure that the tone, wording, recommendations, and account of the process are accurate. 

In addition to the consensus recommendations, each member is invited to write their own minority report where they can convey any concerns with the process or its conclusions, or emphasize any aspect of the recommendations that they believe deserves further consideration. These minority reports are an important check on the process, and help to ensure the accountability of the organizers and the satisfaction of the members.

Adapting the 2020 Assembly to the global pandemic

Initially, the 2020 Citizens’ Assembly had been designed as two four-day events taking place in Winnipeg and Ottawa in May and June. The global pandemic made it impossible for the members to travel or meet, and the decision was taken to postpone and virtualize their proceedings. This required careful and exhaustive planning in order to create a virtual process that could span six time zones while also working in Canada’s two official languages.

18 separate sessions were scheduled between September and mid-December, lasting between two and three hours. Among these, 10 were regional sessions that took place on weeknights and were held in triplicate — one each for Western, Eastern, and French Canada — while 7 were three-hour bilingual plenary sessions that took place on Saturdays and Sundays, with a final Saturday meeting to present the report to the Commission. Cumulatively, the Assembly members volunteered more than 1,600 hours of programmed time to this initiative.

Want to learn more about the 2020 Assembly process? Download the report here