User:Masslbp/Sandbox

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MASS LBP is a public consultation firm based in the Canada.

History
MASS LBP is a public consultation firm that was founded in the months following the Ontario Referendum on Electoral Reform, 2007. Created by Peter MacLeod and George Gosbee, MASS LBP was established to build on the precedent established by Ontario’s Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform. The company works to refine and apply this participatory and deliberative democratic model to a wide range of policy issues in Canada and abroad. It is credited with developing a range of concepts and principles concerning the use of civic lotteries, democratic fitness, the democratic dividend, and devolving out. In 2007 in published its first in a series of pamphlets, titled, Civic Lotteries and the Future of Public Participation by Oliver Dowlen.

Staffed by a number of the analysts and facilitators who worked on the Ontario Citizens’ Assembly, MASS LBP has become a leading authority in Canada on civic engagement and democratic innovation.

MASS LBP has also developed a particular expertise in citizen engagement concerning health care through close collaboration with Ontario’s Local Health Integration Networks (LHIN).

In 2008, MASS LBP principal Peter MacLeod won Canada's prestigious Public Policy Forum Young Leader's Award and delivered an address calling for a new approach to democratic reform.

MASS LBP is allied with the Centre for the Study of Democracy at Queen's University and with Demos (UK think tank) and Involve (think tank) in the UK.

Name
The name MASS LBP is drawn from a quote attributed to the 18th century pamphleteer Thomas Paine: “There is a mass of sense lying in a dormant state which good government should quietly harness.” The statement embodies the central idea that animates MASS LBP—that the business and conduct of government ought to and animate the capacity of citizens to be full actors in their own self-governance. “LBP” is an acronym that stands for “Led by people.”