Not that many weeks ago, few people would have given the petition against the harmonized sales tax much of a chance.
No petition under the provincial government's Recall and Initiative Act had ever succeeded, because the bar was set so high that failure seemed to be guaranteed. Besides, the anti-HST fight was being led by a former premier who had resigned in disgrace two decades earlier.
Today, it would be hard to find a British Columbian who does not see the petition as a done deal. With more than 500,000 signatures collected and six weeks to go, the question is no longer whether the petition will succeed, but rather how the B.C. Liberal government will respond when it does.
There is more. Not that many months ago, the notion that we couldn't fight city hall still seemed to hold true. Regardless, the forces opposed to the replacement of the Johnson Street Bridge pushed ahead with a document known as a counter-petition, even though eight similar drives had failed in the previous nine years.
The result? The group collected almost 50 per cent more names than it needed. Council's plan to tear down the Blue Bridge has been halted, pending a referendum.
We are witnessing a dramatic shift in the balance of power -- a shift that is based on communication.
Anyone can send a message to dozens, hundreds or thousands of contacts in a matter of seconds. Those messages can be resent and resent again, so quickly and so easily and so often that many of the old ways of organizing events seem to belong in the stone age.
It's called social networking, and it has been made possible to a large extent by the Internet. It includes blogs and websites such as Facebook and Twitter, which allow users to post updates or comments or opinions instantly to as many people as choose to pay attention to them. It also includes instant messages, such as the texts that teenagers can send by the hundreds.
Social networking enables like-minded individuals to compare notes and quickly produce plans for action.
It does not take away personal contact; petitions and counter-petitions require signatures, not keystrokes. It does, however, make it possible to bring together a small army of volunteers to collect those signatures, and it does allow individuals to reach an audience of unprecedented size at almost no cost.
Social networking has the power to change the way governments make decisions. Citizens can be involved like never before.
Consider the Recall and Initiative Act, the provincial legislation that sets out the rules for the anti-HST petition being led by former premier Bill Vander Zalm.
The act has been around for a decade and a half, and we have seen six petitions launched. Even the petition calling for a proportional representation system, a concept that resonates with many voters, collected less than half the number of names it needed to succeed.
It has been said that the legislation was written to fail; the notion that a petition could get the signatures of 10 per cent of the voters in every electoral district seemed outrageous.
The people who drafted the legislation could not, however, have predicted the arrival of social networking tools.
Today, individuals have a tremendous amount of power, and politicians and businesses who ignore this power do so at their own peril. Politicians who are not good at communicating their ideas -- such as the provincial ones with the HST, or the municipal ones with the bridge -- need to catch up, and fast.
The provincial government cannot simply ignore the 500,000 names on the anti-HST petition. If it does, it will open the door to recall campaigns in the fall.
There have been 20 recall attempts so far; 19 failed and the 20th was ended when the MLA resigned. But that was back in the stone age, effectively.
Voters are mad. The volunteers are ready to go -- and social networking would surely bring more out to the fight.
The rules have changed permanently, and every elected B.C. Liberal needs to acknowledge the pressure he or she faces as a result.
