Here’s a breath of fresh air: The Globe and Mail and the Dominion Institute have taken a page out of our Wikinomics playbook by opening up a Policy Wiki where Canadians are invited to contribute their ideas as to what Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty (pictured below, image courtesy of Ledaro) should include in his forthcoming budget. Given that the Conservative Government has appeared utterly clueless in this regard, they could certainly use the help. 

Here’s a clip from the Globe’s PolicyWiki site:

So much of what happens in Canada when it comes to developing public policy occurs behind closed doors, inside committee rooms and legislative offices. Even the discussion about many of the issues that affect us as a country, such as the federal budget, foreign policy, our relationship with the U.S. and so on, tends to take place primarily in academic or official circles. Opportunities for public comment are rare, and often overly restrictive.

We’d like to try and open that process up a little, and this is our attempt to do that. One of the benefits to the Internet is that it lowers the barriers that can prevent people from discussing these kinds of important topics, and allow them to provide their thoughts about the direction the government should take. Some would argue that it lowers the barriers a little too far, but that’s a subject for another day, and another wiki . . .

If this experiment succeeds — as we sincerely hope it will — we’d like to expand it to become an ongoing project to tap what we like to call the “Two Million Minds” of our readers and other concerned citizens, a kind of open, crowd-powered forum that we could use to collect the thoughts and opinions of the Canadian public on the important issues that confront our country and us as a society.

There are various ways to contribute. For example, you can simply vote on the ideas that have been already been presented by various Canadian politicos or you can add your own proposals. We desperately need this kind of forum in Canada, so do take some time to contribute.