This year, the Capital Regional District marks its Diamond Jubilee.

It was created in 1966 as a federation of seven municipalities and five electoral areas to provide co-ordination of regional issues and local government in the Greater Victoria region.

At the time, it had a population of under 200,000. Back then, nobody knew about climate change, the famous Club of Rome report on the limits to growth was still six years in the future, there was no internet, no social media and robots were firmly in the realm of science fiction.

Well, today, the CRD is 13 municipalities and 460,000 people, and all those issues are today’s reality.

So what is the system of governance we need to address the realities of the 21st century?

Just amalgamating some or all of the CRD is not going to cut it — that’s a 20th century solution to 21st century problems.

So here’s an idea: Why don’t we mark the Diamond Jubilee by engaging the CRD’s residents in a participatory democracy exercise of zero-based governance design?

It’s an idea inspired by my........

© Times Colonist