A Citizens Society by: Victor

Every year the government allocates a portion of our tax dollars to state funded media such as the CBC or Radio-Canada. With state funded media citizens have to be aware of the conflicts of interest and push for the government to stay far away from what's broadcasted to avoid government propaganda being produced . The CBC does this effectively by only receiving funding from the government and not being told what to produce. In fact, the CBC routinely criticizes many members of government. The CBC also does very good investigative journalism, this is evident in their "Marketplace" series.

Without the CBC we would only have private media which is often owned by corporations who are pushing their own agenda. The fact is, we need the CBC to offer (mostly) unbiased journalism as well as other media which is beneficial to the population.

Elections are a way for citizens to vote for representitives who they feel is best and to give citizens a say in who creates our laws. In a democratic society every citizen has the responsibility to get informed and vote so they could increase the chances of getting the represntitive who's better for them and to push politicans to work for the people. A citizen who isn't informed may unintentionally vote for the worse politican or by not voting they are helping the politcan who is worse for them.

In a estabilished society citizens must work jobs to grow our food, give healthcare as well as provide many other essiental services. In these jobs citizens earn money which can be used to spend on services and products. To gurantee each citizen can get the most basic lifestyle and have services such as public transit, roads, water, healthcare, etc. citizens pay taxes. Our tax system is progressive which means people who make more money pay a higher percentage, this is to ensure equity and to make it easier for poorer people to escape poverty and get the most basic needs.

To ensure every citizen is educated and infromed our government has a public school system for all citizens to attend school for free. This system is needed to ensure all citizens have the basic information for daily life as well as the information for future job pathways. Many jobs in our society also mandate a certain level of education to ensure safety and efficent work.

In a fair democratic society citizens are given the right to freedom of assembly as well as the right to critize the government. It is important that citizens excercise these rights whenever injustices are being commited. Some examples of these rights include the right to petiton, freedom of assembly as well as freedom of speech.

A citizen should try to keep up to date on national issues and whenever they find a injustice or problem severe enough they should do a demonstration. A lack of inaction by the citizens would cause the government to eventually become authoritarian or would result in a less equal and just society, this is why demonstrations are important. Whenever citizens host a protest they must not infringe on other peoples right as well as break laws. In the past protests like this have happened and they got (rightfully so) shut down due to being problematic and not representitive of societys views.

There are certain situations were government mandates a certain amount of volunteer hours . Some examples of this include the 40 hour requirement for graduating school as well as required community service when people commit crimes. I believe that these requirements contribute to a greater common good. A community service requirement for criminals is especially good as it teaches them about helping the community and it allows them to pay back for the crimes they committed.