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The calls keep coming for Justin Trudeau to table his party’s policies. Even Liberals worry that he’s ceding too much ground to his opponents. But what if the next election isn’t about policy? What if it’s about process instead?

Trudeau seems to be gambling on exactly that. Canadians want more than answers, he said last week — they want to be included in the process of finding answers. That calls for a very different kind of policy process and Trudeau says he wants to provide it.

If he’s right, the whole debate over when to release his policies is misplaced. The timing will be dictated by the process, not the leader. The more interesting question is whether Trudeau really will follow through on the plan.

Engaging the public usually is seen as politically risky. Strategists are reluctant to stray far from the tried and true method: Identify some policies that are ‘marketable,’ craft the right message to ‘sell’ them to the public, and then release them at the most opportune time.

If Trudeau succeeds, however, this could be a game-changer that shifts our politics from a culture of selling to one of engaging. So how does he plan to make this work? Two things distinguish his approach from conventional politics.

First, Trudeau thinks he can give Canadians a real stake in his platform by bringing them into the discussion at the beginning of the process, rather than the end. This means the policy discussion must take place out in the open, rather than behind closed doors.

Second, the process involves a series of stages. In management jargon, these are known as the vision, mission, values, goals and, finally, the actions to achieve the vision. Distinguishing between these stages allows different kinds of questions to be posed in an orderly way, starting with the most general (the vision) and progressing to the most specific (the actions). If all goes well, the actions in the final stage should be grounded in a single, unifying idea — the vision.

Political parties are bastions of old-style, top-down planning. Trudeau thinks they must be pulled into the 21st century.

Now, debates over vision, mission, values and so on are not popular with political strategists. Many see it as fuzzy, feel-good talk that is little more than a diversion from ‘real’ policy debate. Clearly, Trudeau disagrees — and he is in good company. Some version of this process is now used in almost every major private, public and voluntary organization across the OECD, from banks to government departments. Politics, in other words, is the odd man out.

Political parties — the cornerstone of our democracy — are bastions of old-style, top-down planning, where the party executive develops the platform, imposes it on the membership and then tries to sell it to the public. Trudeau is challenging conventional wisdom. He thinks political parties must be pulled into the 21st century.

His leadership campaign was the first stage in this experiment. While some observers — and some leadership candidates — complained that all the “values talk” was too vague, in hindsight, the process worked rather well. Trudeau used it to introduce himself to Canadians and to invite them to join his discussion, a little at a time.

As a result, many Canadians are now familiar with the big ideas that will shape the Liberal platform, such as an emphasis on the middle class and a more democratic, bottom-up approach to policy development.

Trudeau also used the campaign to talk about the Liberal party’s mission to renew politics through this vision and the values that will guide it, such as equality of opportunity and respect for diversity.

Most notably, however, Trudeau was constantly out in the field engaging ordinary people. He traveled extensively, meeting with large crowds and exchanging views with them on the ideas. In addition, he and his team reached out to tens of thousands of people online.

Now he’s shifting gears. While Trudeau has taken some first steps toward policy — setting goals on education, natural resources, Senate reform and national unity — the discussion is moving to another level.

Trudeau promises to hold a range of public meetings, roundtables and online discussions over the next two years. There likely will also be policy papers, op-ed pieces and working groups. Some ideas will mature faster than others and make their way into the political debate early. Others will take longer.

There is no single way to carry out such a dialogue process. The main challenge is to ensure that the vision remains the centre of gravity for the discussion. In the end, this is what will tie the process together and unite the participants.

Trudeau’s personal challenge will be to interact with Canadians in a way that helps focus, shape and amplify the emerging policy positions, while making sure Canadians feel they have some real influence over the results.

If he gets too far ahead of the dialogue — say, by making too many unexpected or unilateral policy declarations — he risks losing them. Keeping them engaged and focused on the bigger vision will be the ultimate test of his skills as a leader and communicator.

In the final stage, the policies will be assembled in a platform, which Trudeau then will offer back to the public — a public now primed to understand and receive it as their own. That will make the marketing a whole lot easier.

So when Trudeau says he is doing politics differently, he is saying he believes it’s time to stop selling policy to the public and start engaging them in the process of making it. That’s a big change. If he really is a political innovator, he will have his own way of doing it.

Rather than trying to analyze this through a conventional political lens, we should take him at his word and then assess him on his own terms. The verdict will be clear soon enough.

Don Lenihan is senior associate at the Public Policy Forum in Ottawa. He is an internationally recognized expert on democracy and public engagement, accountability and service delivery, with over 25 years of experience in the field. He is the author of numerous articles, studies and books. Don’s latest book, Rescuing Policy: The Case for Public Engagement, is published by the Public Policy Forum.

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