ward 11 - schaffrick

8/8/2019 Ward 11 - Schaffrick

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Edmonton Journal Civic Election Candidate

QuestionnaireBrent Schaffrick, 38 Running for Councillor, Ward 11

E-mail [email protected]

What are the three biggest issues in your campaign?

Your number one issue, and why?

The Airport

I disagree with the current City Council's decision to not hold a plebiscite on the fate of the Municipal Airport. I believe that one ofthe major goals of all democratic governments should be to maximize the amount of public participation.

I am a believer in True Democracy. I believe in the Wisdom of the Crowd and I have read many case studies demonstrating thatgroup wisdom is far superior to any single expert or group of experts. For a good history of the subject, look up writer JamesSurowiecki (The Wisdom of Crowds).

For a modern example, consider the game show Who wants to be a millionaire? In that game show, contestants are asked aquestion and given four choices as to the possible answer. They are also given lifelines. They can call an expert, ask the crowd,or have two of the 4 choices removed. Over time, the experts have been right 65%, but the crowd, comprised of ordinary peoplethat have nothing better to do on an afternoon than sit in a studio audience, that crowd has been right 91% of the time!

What seems to happen is this: The people that don't know the answer evenly split themselves between the wrong answers,canceling out their votes, and the few that know the right answer are enough to sway the crowd vote to be the correct one! Now Ido not say that groups of people are better a t everything, certainly situations that call for creativity, organizing or planning, arecertainly better done by individual experts (imagine a committee trying to write music or a movie script!); but the wisdom of thecrowd has been demonstrated to be superior to an expert or group of experts at making choice based decisions.

There are four conditions that must be held in order for the crowd to come up with the optimal solution. The crowd must bediverse, independent, decentralized, and aggregation must be possible. That is, the more diversity, the more uniquely differentperspectives, the more likely the correct answer will be presented. However, independence between members of the crowd isnecessary, or the crowd is likely to move from the optimal solution to a non-optimal compromise solution. Also, if the crowd isgetting all their information from one centralized source, instead of being able to specialize and draw on their own local expertise,the answer is less likely to be the best choice. Finally, there must be a way to aggregate, or sort the crowds answers.

Now I would like to look at the recent history of the Municipal in view of the wisdom of the crowd. I am aware there have alreadybeen two plebiscites on the Airport Issue already, one in 1992 and a second in 1995. Here is my take on how they went:

In the early nineties, our economy hit a slump, and as a result, air traffic, which most people see as a luxury, decreased. Ratherthan point to the economy at large as a cause, the International Airport Authority blamed their losses on competition from theMunicipal Airport, and asked the city to force all major passenger traffic to use the International. They city held a plebiscite, andthe Citizens of Edmonton voted against moving air traffic away from the Municipal Airport, which was still turning a profit. This wasproper use of the democratic process and a good example of the wisdom of the crowd.

As the economic slump continued, the International Airport Authority continued to lose more money, and lobbied City Council toreopen the movement of passenger traffic issue. City Council agreed, and a second plebiscite was held, and this one was in favorof moving traffic to the International. However, I recall reading that during this plebiscite the International Authority's marketingcampaign outspent the Municipal's marketing by a ratio of 3:1. In my opinion, the final result of this plebiscite simply demonstratedthat the people of Edmonton can be swayed by mass media, and this result demonstrates to me that the wisdom of the crowdcan be diverted from the right answer with mass media manipulation.

Remember that the crowd needs diversity, independence, decentralization and aggregation, and a media blitz campaign canremove almost all of the diversity, independence and decentralization of the individuals thought processes.

Now City Council has moved to completely close the Municipal Airport, and has done so without a direct say by the Citizens ofEdmonton. I believe that a plebiscite should be held, and furthermore, to minimize the influence of special interests, and toenable the proper use o f the wisdom of the crowd, any entity that is not a voting citizen that chooses to lobby for either sideshould have to register with the City, and the total dollars spent by non-citizen entities should be capped at a fair amount.Additionally, no individual voting citizen should be allowed to spend more than $5000 campaigning for either side.

Following this approach would allow Edmonton's Citizens the chance to hear both sides of the arguments, and then make thewisest decision of what to do, without allowing vested interests with deep pockets an undue amount of influence.

Number two issue, and why?

Privatizing Public Utilities

I am completely against the privatization of non-competitive public utilities. Public Utilities were created by Governments to servethe people when the resulting company would have a complete monopoly on the sector in question. The goal of all corporationsis to maximize profit, and a monopolistic utility would allow a non-competitive corporation to make an excessive amount of profits


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How important is social media to your campaign?

3 out of 5

What is your favourite blog?www.greaterfool.ca

What is the last book you read?

The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki

What is the last piece of music you listened to?

Manowar - Call to Arms

What is your favourite beer? Answer this question to humour Mark Suits, Edmonton Journal beer blogger

H2O

Favourite place in Edmonton, outside your home?

The hot tub at Hardisty Fitness & Leisure Centre.

Three fantasy guests you'd like to have dinner with, and why? Can be living, dead or fictional

Abe Lincoln - to discuss his creation and use of the "special interest" group of arms merchants to supply the North withthe weapons to win the Civil War. I would like to be able to sit down with him today, and show him the long term consequences of

his choice, and ask if he had any alternatives in order to win that war.

Woodrow Wilson - similarly to Lincoln, but this would be better done with me traveling back to 1912, before he signed thedocument creating the Federal Reserve. I would like to be able to show him the long term results of his decision, and convincehim that the powers of credit and money creation need to be kept in the hands of congress.

Eric Janzen - his website is www.itulip.com. One of the few people who have been able to not only point out the tech and housingbubbles, but he was able to accurately forecast the tops. I would like to discuss the Canadian Economy with him, and get adviceon how to deal with our own crashing housing bubble so we do not end up in a 20 year economic slump like Japan.

What type of car do you drive? Make, model and year

Honda Accord, 1992

What is the best advice you ever receivedWhen I have a problem, I research the problem, and look for other people/communities/countries that have had that problem inthe past. I look to see how different groups approached the problem, what they did to solve the problem, and what the long termconsequences of their decisions were.

After reading all this, I decide on what I feel is the best solution to my problem.

So, what is the advice? Always remember that a glass can be simultaneously half full AND still be half empty; and that no matterhow much you believe your point of view to be correct, other people with a different point of view may also be correct.

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