There are multiple ways that a citizen’s voice can be heard by the government. The three main ways are Pressure Groups, Petitions, and Civil Disobedience. All three have both advantages and disadvantages, and all three have been used multiple times in the past and present. Pressure groups occur when a group of people with a similar interest try to create change for a particular cause. The good thing about pressure groups is that it brings passionate and like-minded people together to fight for something they strongly believe in. This act of taking action is what creates actual change instead of doing nothing but still complaining about the issue. Unfortunately, with pressure groups, there comes lobbying and that can be unfair at times. Pressure groups that have a large amount of money are able to pay for good lobbyists, therefore resulting in a higher chance of the government listening and making a change for their cause. Whereas if a pressure group does not have the money to pay for a good lobbyist, then there is a far lesser chance that their cause will be heard by the government. There are also situations where it is only the members of the pressure group that benefit from the change that is trying to be made. An example of this would be NAFTA, where it was wealthy CEO’s who wanted this agreement in place because they would ultimately end up benefiting from it, money wise, rather than the actual country.

Petitions are also an effective way to get the government to listen to a change wanting to be made. While it can be a long process for actual changes to be made, there are quite a few petitions that have solved some problems that people were unhappy with. For example, when HST was first instated, many people in British Columbia were unhappy with the change from PST/GST. Consequently, a petition was made to reinstate GST/PST and ultimately that change was made due to a vote asking whether people wanted to keep the HST or change it. On the other hand, the disadvantage to petitioning is that even though a petition may be sent in to the government, they must read it, but it does not mean they have to listen to it. Because of this, it may sometimes give those who signed the petition false hope, when in reality, nothing will occur to change that issue at that point in time.

Lastly, civil disobedience is probably the best way to get the point across when wanting change. Civil disobedience is when a person decides to purposely break a law that they feel is unjust. They do this while knowing the consequences and it must be done in a non-violent way. The advantages of civil disobedience are that in most cases, it is the most effective way to make change because those stories make the news and gain publicity and awareness for what they are fighting for. A good example of this would be Viola Desmond’s case where she decided to sit in the downstairs area of the cinema with the white people after being told not to, resulting in her being thrown in jail and charged. Viola decided to fight this conviction with the support of her community and her story ended up being on multiple front pages of various newspapers, stating that she was fighting for people’s freedom from discrimination based on their race. The disadvantage of civil disobedience is that in some cases, things can get out of hand and people resort to violence and riots. This ends up creating bigger problems and the original issues are no longer solved and become lost in the chaos since the government is focusing on the larger problems at hand. In conclusion, there are both advantages and disadvantages to the different ways of making your voice heard in the government and there are examples from the past that we can learn from in order to make the changes we want.