Presented by:

Purpose:

In partnership, Make it Good, Calgary Public Library, REAP Business Association, and other community partners are hosting "My vote could have changed that."  Make It Good cares about resilient and sustainable communities and we have identified partners who care about them too.  On September 22, we are taking a healthy stride in the direction of sustainable politics and we want you to come with us. We will start by shifting the focus away from the usual ugly collisions that take place at the intersection of rhetoric, cynicism, denial, and apathy and will attempt to move the discussion over the way people think and the way they make decisions.   

Why is this event important?  Because politics how it is currently structured is not sustainable.  Democracy  is lost.  We believe what we want to achieve is to give people the tools they need to make the decision on a mayoral candidate who will apply critical thinking in each and every decision they make and whom ultimately will do what is "right" and not what is needed to "get re-elected.

What are we doing?  It is about raising the campaign above the issues, it is about trying to understand the candidates in a way that will expose leadership characteristics and their ability to think through problems to find solutions.  Right now it sounds too much like a voter apathy talk.  What we want people to realize is municipal politics are extremely important.  Those we vote for will shape our city.

September 22  is designed to understand why we believe the things we do and knowing that, we are hardwired to fall into the traps set for us by the media and politicians, how we can minimize the impact these traps have on us. The evening will include:

• Welcome and introduction 
• The Believing Brain with guest speaker Michael Shermer - how the brain fools itself and how we get fooled by others
• Small group exploration around techniques for counteracting these built-in weaknesses 
• Moderated Q & A with Michael Shermer dealing with discussion on these challenges and how it relates to political decision making
• Moderated Q & A with mayoral candidates exploring their decision making processes, their understanding of representative democracy and NOT current issues. 

This event is supported by our friends at: