Proposal: A Direct Democracy Tax Allocation Platform (DDTAP) aka “The Civic Network”
A scalable framework for participatory governance
Note:
All the numbers in this document are fabricated for example purposes. All of the appropriate numbers should be decided by everyone.
The Direct Democracy Tax Allocation Platform reimagines the Canadian electoral and tax allocation system to give citizens direct control over how their taxes are allocated. This system empowers individuals to assign portions of their tax contributions to specific governmental sectors. Citizens can propose, discuss, and vote on initiatives in which they have assigned any percentage of their taxes. DDTAP establishes a transparent, secure, and participatory model of governance that eliminates the need for political parties while increasing accountability and collective responsibility.
Canada’s representative democracy often alienates citizens from participating in any capacity. Oversight committees are chosen by politicians. Politicians decide their own pay raises while refusing to bargain with unions in good faith. DDTAP introduces a direct democracy layer to replace the traditional electoral process, enabling every tax-paying citizen to:
This system reframes the citizen as an active policymaker instead of a passive taxpayer.
Each year at tax time, users login to the DDTAP to distribute their personal tax contributions and their percentage of the Corporate Tax Pool at each level of government. Municipal taxes can only be allocated to municipal sectors, provincial taxes -> provincial sectors, federal taxes -> federal sectors.
Reserved for essential services that citizens need to survive and the voting system to be maintained. This would need to be decided in a vote by every Canadian but some examples include:
Although the 30% is mandatory it still grants every citizen the same proportional voting and proposal rights in those essential sectors.
Citizens allocate the remaining 70% to the sectors they value most within that same level of government. So they decide what to do with their federal, provincial, and municipal taxes.
If a citizen does not allocate their remaining 70% taxes within a certain timeframe of the tax allocation deadline then those unallocated taxes are automatically evenly distributed across Critical Infrastructure sectors at that level of government.
The 30% and 70% combined allocations establish the citizen’s participation percentage in each sector. Voting and proposal rights are based on the percentage of allocation, not the dollar amount. Each percentage of a person’s tax represents 1 “participation point” in that sector.
Example: If someone directs 20% of their flexible tax to “Roads and Transit,” they have 20 participation points there. In that sector they have 20 votes on any policy making decisions.
Whether a citizen pays $1,000 or $100,000 in taxes, they hold the equal percentage-based influence in the sectors they support. This ensures that the democratic process is directly determined by those who have allocated a percentage of their taxes to a sector.
Corporate taxes are automatically assigned across all areas in proportion to the allocations chosen by citizens that year. Corporations themselves do not allocate their taxes or vote. Each individual citizen decides how corporate taxes are spent when they allocate their own taxes at each level of government.
All users must verify their identity through a deferral ID integration. The ID required and process to verify ID can be decided by citizens at each level of government. This process is to ensure anonymous participation is impossible. As all proposals, discussions, and votes are recorded for all time, this increases accountability.
Everyone’s username, voting history, and proposal activity are visible to all. Everyone’s legal name is directly connected to their account for only the legal department to see. The legal department will report any hate speech or doxing to Elections Canada to be dealt with accordingly. Transparency, sincerity, and security replace trolling and misinformation. Communities can decide what is best for themselves without outside influence.
All votes, allocations, proposals, discussions, and outcomes are recorded on a GHDL. This is a publicly verifiable, append-only system that is jointly maintained by Elections Canada, all provincial/territorial governments, and all municipalities. This ledger ensures tamper-proof transparency with no private intermediaries.
Only individual citizens may participate in DDTAP. Corporations, organizations, political parties, unions, and AI have no voting, proposing, discussion, or allocation privileges other than that of their individual owners. Corporate taxes are allocated by citizens collectively. Business owners participate only in their personal capacity as private citizens.
In DDTAP, corporate taxes are distributed automatically according to citizens’ allocations, ensuring that corporate money follows the will of the people and not the interests of the company. This guarantees that democratic power rests exclusively with human citizens and not corporations.
Only citizens who have allocated any percentage of their taxes to a sector may create proposals in that sector.
Only citizens who have tax allocation in that area for the current year may vote on proposals there.
Each voter’s influence equals the percentage of their tax allocation to that sector. This ensures that only those with real investment in that area shape its priorities and policies. You may only propose, discuss, and vote on policies in the sectors where you’ve allocated a percentage of your taxes.
Any citizen may also choose to appoint a human representative to act on their behalf. The representative should be able to know and accurately represent the person as someone who could explain their views to a guest at a family dinner. With this in mind, each representative should be able to represent up to 90 people maximum. That is roughly the number of people they could genuinely speak to and understand enough to accurately represent them on every issue in a 3 month period. Their role is more of a lawyer or executor fulfilling your desires than they are a politician who does what the party wants. A citizen may assign a different representative for each sector they have allocated taxes.
Representatives cannot be represented by anyone else. All representation relationships are public and recorded for transparency.
Compensation for representation is punishable by law. No representative may receive, request, or accept any form of payment, donation, or material incentive for their service, If the representative comes for dinner they are expected to pay for everyone’s meal.
Representation is a civic trust and an act of voluntary cooperation between peers. It is not meant to be a campaign or a business. It is meant to be like helping your grandparents buy glasses on the internet. You’re just making their process easier. If a representative is found to have accepted compensation, gifts, or financial benefit from any political party or organization then it is treated as Civic Malconduct, Tier 2, subject to immediate suspension of representative status, ledge record of misconduct, and investigation by Elections Canada.
Representatives serve as a practical inclusion mechanism for citizens who may lack the time, patience, or sustained attention to participate in every proposal directly. Some sectors might be incredibly important to them where they propose many policies while other sectors might only interest them because they use services from that sector and would like to support it. Representation ensures even those who do not have the capacity to be active can be represented by those with the capacity to ensure their values are represented.
This acknowledges that the democratic system based on engagement must accommodate both the deeply involved and the intermittently engaged. Representation ensures citizens who do not have the time or capacity to constantly engage can still be accurately represented.
Any citizen with tax allocated in a sector can submit a formal proposal (policy, funding idea, reform, etc.) in that sector. All sectors affected by a proposal get access to Public Deliberation and Voting rights on the proposal. Quorum includes all affected sectors. Moderators and jury oversight help decide which sectors are affected.
Proposals remain open for public review & discussion. Each proposal includes a Comments & Suggestions section that functions like a civic discussion thread. Any citizen with tax allocated in the sectors the proposal affects may participate in the discussion by posting arguments, evidence, or amendments. Moderators ensure conversations remain civil, factual, and focused on policy while their oversight jury ensures unbiased moderation.
Before any citizen can vote on a proposal they must complete a short Reading & Comprehension test created by the proposal’s author and verified or edited by the moderators and oversight jury for accuracy and fairness. It consists of 10 questions about the proposal’s contents. Citizens must answer at least 5 correctly to proceed to vote. The test can be retaken at any time until the voter has passed the test or the proposal is removed. This ensures voters or their representatives have read and understood the proposal.
A proposal is eligible from the moment it is created for up to 90 days. All citizens in sectors affected by the proposal may vote in favour or against the proposal. Each citizen’s vote is weighted by the percentage of their tax allocated during that tax year to all sectors affected by each proposal.
Quorum: 60% of citizens in affected sectors, measured by the number of individual citizens, including those represented.
Majority: Majority of greater than 50% of weighted votes in favour.
Any proposal that does not pass quorum and/or does not receive the required votes in favour to pass is removed. After a 30 day cool-down period for revisions the revised proposal may be presented again.
For time-sensitive issues such as public health alerts, natural disasters, security threats, etc., an Emergency Flag can be triggered jointly by the sector’s moderators and citizen oversight jury to allow for an accelerated 72-hour weighted vote that requires a 60% quorum and 60% majority to pass.
Each sector of government at every level (federal, provincial, municipal) is overseen by:
Moderators are elected annually to ensure procedural fairness, verify proposals, moderate comment sections, maintain community standards , and prevent burnout. Each sector will have a proportional number of moderators for the population in that sector. Moderators cannot: hold any other form of employment; own or trade stocks or rental properties; moderate more than one sector at a time; cannot be on the citizen oversight jury in the sector they moderate. All moderators earn minimum wage regardless of previous experience and receive no stipends, housing, or transportation allowances.
The Citizen oversight Jury serves as a rotating oversight body to monitor moderation and procedural fairness. The Jury is randomly selected from volunteers who opt-in each year at tax time. Each juror serves a 3 month term rotating on a staggered schedule. Jurors are restricted from serving in more than one oversight body at a time. After serving, jurors return to the back of the queue until everyone in the pool has had an opportunity with priority going to those who have served the fewest times. Jurors are unpaid volunteers, fulfilling civic duty.
Each sector of government must maintain secure, private DDTAP access points in public libraries or civic centres for citizens without access to personal devices.
All committee and jury deliberations and communications on the DDTAP are recorded and published for transparency. Any misconduct like data tampering, bias, manipulation, or noncompliance will result in immediate suspension and removal of all moderator responsibilities followed by an automatic investigation conducted by Elections Canada. Moderators serve solely as facilitators of process and compliance, not as representatives or decision makers. All disciplinary actions are logged publicly to the ledger for accountability.
Abusing the ability to report a moderator will equally not be tolerated. Abuse of the system could lead to fines or jail depending on the Elections Canada investigation. This ensures that anyone abusing the system, moderator or citizen, is held accountable.
Every citizen retains the right to speak, comment, debate, and criticize within DDTAP. Expression is protected under Section 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms unless it crosses into categories explicitly not protected by law.
All participants are entitled to respectful treatment. Speech that targets identity rather than argument undermines deliberative equality and it is treated as civic misconduct like in any court.
DDTAP never restricts content for political disagreement, criticism of the government, satire, or unpopular opinion. Sanctions address how a citizen behaves, not which viewpoint is held.
Category | Definition | Examples |
Hate Propaganda | Willfully promoting hatred or violence toward an identifiable group | “All [X group] should be eliminated.” |
Threats & Incitement | Advocacy or encouragement of imminent violent action or targeted harm | “Let’s go attack them tonight” |
Defamation & False Accusation | Knowingly false claims that harm reputation | “[X] stole funds from DDTAP” |
Harassment & Targeted Abuse | Repeated or severe intimidation, demeaning, or stalking behaviour | Slurs, dog-piling, or repeated personal jabs |
Malicious Disinformation | Fabricated evidence or impersonation meant to deceive civic deliberation | Fake ledger screenshots; Ai-forged data. |
Doxing & Privacy Breaches | Posting or threatening to post private information | “Here’s their address” |
Obstruction & Manipulation | Spam, brigading, or vote tampering that distorts outcomes | Using another citizen’s account without properly representing them |
A protected opinion becomes unprotected hate speech when intent, target, or effect crosses a civic harm threshold:
Factor | Protected Opinion | Unprotected Hate |
Intent | Express belief or critique | Hostility or dehumanization of the group you disagree with |
Target | Policies, ideas, or behaviours | Identity traits of the group you disagree with |
Effect | Invite debate or reform | Incite exclusion or violence of the group you disagree with |
Language | Factual, satirical, or argumentative | Derogatory, violent, or demeaning to the group you disagree with |
Tier | Description | Consequence | Duration/Remedy |
Tier 1 | Hate, threats, harassment, doxxing, or coordinated attacks | Public ledger flag; 14 day comment pause in affected proposals; Elections Canada investigation | As determined by Elections Canada |
Tier 2 | Bribery, paid representation, or evidence tampering | Immediate suspension of roles; Elections Canada investigation | As determined by Elections Canada |
Tier 3 | Spam, brigading, or vote fraud | Account verification reset; Elections Canada Investigation | As determined by Elections Canada |
Criminal acts are referred to law enforcement and other penalties determined by an Elections Canada investigation. Civic records of events remain public.
Even during penalties or investigations a citizen’s right to propose and vote on proposals remains intact. Commenting may pause temporarily for safety or deescalation. No speech is ever erased; all moderated actions remain part of the civic ledger. No citizen shall lose their right to speak, propose, or vote within DDTAP because of misconduct.
Before any citizen-generated content (proposals, comments, etc.) is published to the Government Hosted Distributed Ledger (GHDL). It passes through a Civic Data Security Layer (CDSL). The CDSL acts as a preprocessing buffer designed to detect, redact, and quarantine sensitive personal information. The CDSL automatically identifies and removes personal information like addresses, phone numbers, emails, SINs, IDs, etc. This layer operates before permanent ledger recording to ensure no sensitive data makes it on the GHDL.
Flagged posts enter a quarantine buffer where moderators and oversight jurors confirm whether redactions are valid or maliciously triggered. Content is written to the GHDL in its sanitized form only after it is cleared. Original unredacted submissions are cryptographically archived under restricted access for use only in misconduct investigations.
Deliberate attempts to post or circulate another person’s private information, including addresses, personal identifiers, etc., are classified as Tier 1 Civic Malconduct. Penalties include:
Any citizen with tax allocated in a sector may click “Request Source” under a statement, claim, or proposal comment. The original author is notified and may add a source within 72 hours. During this period the statement is flagged as “Unverified Claim - Awaiting Source.” If a source is not added then the statement is flagged as “Unverified Claim - Opinion.” At any point the author or another citizen may add a source and the statement will be flagged as “Verified - Source: [Source Author: Source Title (source link)]”
If no verifiable source is provided then the statement remains flagged as “Unverified Claim - Opinion.” Opinion-flagged posts remain visible and are marked with a grey banner that says “Unverified Claim - Opinion.”
When a source author is added, moderators and oversight jurors review them for authenticity and credibility. Acceptable sources include: peer reviewed research, government data, reputable journalism, first hand documentation.
Once the source is verified then the statement is relabeled: “Verified - Source: [Source Author: Source Title (source link)].”
If a source is later disproven or withdrawn then the statement will be flagged as “Unverified Claim - Opinion” until a new source is provided.
CRA-linked sign-in with multi-factor authentication
A nationwide, permissioned network maintained by federal, provincial.territorial, and all municipal governments.
Detect manipulation, misinformation, hate speech, and coordinated inauthentic behavior within proposal discussions
Each proposal includes threaded discussions, voting, moderation tools, and permanent archiving for civic research
The platform code is fully open-source. Citizens who allocated taxes to this area may propose upgrades or new features. Each approved proposal then creates a public bounty for developers to submit their solutions. Submitted code improvements are voted on by those with taxes allocated in that sector.
This new system empowers citizens as active fiscal and policy agents. It ends the partisan gridlock by removing political parties from the equation. The new system fosters civic literacy and engagement through discussion-based policymaking. The DDTAP replaces political parties and career politicians with direct, citizen-based governance. DDTAP eliminates opaque lobbying and backroom politics. It adds public visibility to every tax dollar, proposal, and debate.
Tax allocations reflect real public demand, improving budget efficiency. Sectors with strong public support receive proportionate resources and citizen oversight. Corporate taxes serve the public good directly with citizens determining how that money is spent rather than lobbyists.
All operating costs for DDTAP, including the GHDL, moderation, administration, and Elections Canada investigations are covered by funds previously allocated to political salaries, stipends, vehicles, and other government luxuries. These redirected funds sustain the platform, pay moderators minimum wage, and cover oversight and transparency operations.
Phase | Duration | Description |
Pilot Program | 1-2 years | Start with a few MLAs/MPs who are willing to volunteer to listen to the results from citizens willing to test the DDTAP in their ridings. |
Expansion | 3-5 years | Extend the system to replace provincial government |
Legislative Transition | 5-10 years | Conduct a constitutional amendment or national referendum to officially replace the partisan, representative model with DDTAP’s direct democracy structure |
TL;DR:
The DDTAP is a direct democracy platform that is designed to replace politicians. Citizens log in and decide where they want their taxes to go every year at tax time. Depending on where they put their taxes they get percentage points to use for voting. If they put points into a sector, they can create proposals, participate in discussions and vote on proposals in that sector. Each citizen’s vote is worth the percentage points they put into that sector.
This document covers the details of how this works and how we can make it happen.