Many peoples voices are never heard over the power of the government. there have been countless occasions where the people are not happy and want to get the government to change thing but aren’t heard. Though we may not have a big voice alone, we can come together and make our voices be heard. There are 3 main ways that we can get the governments attention, the 3 main ways are; Pressure Groups, Petitions, and Civil Disobedience. These antics have been used many times in the past, present, and I’m sure they will continue to be used in the future. These 3 actions all have all have their advantages and disadvantages.

Pressure groups gives the public and minority a voice. They bring people who are likeminded and share the same interest and ideas for change together. They are a great way to rise public awareness of matters affecting peoples interests and causes. A great example of a pressure groups is Father4justice who has been successful through many stunts as they raised awareness for fathers who have been denied access to their children after divorce. However, disadvantages of pressure groups are that some large pressure groups that represent powerful organisations are extremely influential therefor difficult for smaller pressure groups to match their impact. Also, the methods of some pressure groups can be a problem. For example, strikes and protests like the blocking of oil deports can cause disruption. Pressure groups can help the government seek what the public wants through protest, if well organised and influential they can change the law. However if they don’t have clear aims then they won’t be able to make a difference.

A great example of a petition is the HST petition. The idea surrounding the petition was to remove HST and reinstate it with PST/GST instead. The petition was signed by over 700,000 people and in turn the government let the citizens vote on whether hey wanted to keep HST or bring back PST/GST. In the end HST was voted out and PST/GST was reinstated and is what we are using today. Some advantages to petitions are it is a non violent way to get the governments attention about different issues. A disadvantage of petitions are that they can be sent to the government and they have to be read but the government does not have to listen to it or take action. this means that whatever cause the people are trying to changed will not be fixed.

Civil disobedience is when people will come together to stand up against the government in a vocal protest usually out in a public place. People in these protests are not allowed to use physics force or violence to get their point across, the point of it is for the government to hear what your saying but not having violence add any negative press to the matter. Civil disobedience has the power to cause real change in society, law, government and even in foreign relations. Civil disobedience has worked successfully in India, South Africa and in the United States among other countries. Although civil protests are started with the idea of it being nonviolent sometimes things can spiral out of control if there are some agitators among the crowd. another disadvantage to civil disobedience is since there is no immediate threat to the people in power and the movement is not aggressive in a literal sense, there is less inclination to initiate the change or even respond to the expression of the protestors. Even if the protest does work it will take a lot of time to start seeing any movement or impact. In some cases when protests do get violent they end up creating a bigger problem than the original issue. Viola Desmond is a great example of civil disobedience. She was tired of being discriminated because of the colour of her skin so she decided to sit in an area of the theatre where people of colour were not allowed. she was eventually dragged out of the theatre and put in jail . Desmond decided to flip the scenario and pressed charges against the theatre instead for assault of when they forcefully removed her from the theatre. he story made front page on the newspaper and helped bring attention to the way coloured people were being treated and fought for a change. Civil disobedience has also been used by the likes of Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. In my opinion civil disobedience is the best way to get your point across, it says that you want a change and you aren’t afraid to publicly speak up about it.

All 3 of these action have proven time and time again that they do make a difference. If people want a change they can’t just sit back and hope something will happen, they have to stand up and make something happen. They can do that by gathering people who all agree on the same issue and that something needs to be changed and then they can use one of these ideas to further their cause.