Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) is a columnist for The Globe and Mail and author of The Crisis of Canadian Democracy. In today’s episode, Andrew makes the case that Canadian democracy is headed for a crisis. He talks about the problems of Canada’s first past the post or “winner takes all” election system. The conversation includes an analysis of a wide range of issues: the diminishing contributions that MPs are allowed to make; how candidates, cabinet members, and even party leaders are selected; and the ever increasing concentration of power within the Prime Minister’s Office. Andrew outlines steps that can be taken to increase democratic representation in Canada that may avert a potential looming crisis of legitimacy.
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Democracy Watch routinely audits Canada's democracy, and offers meaningful ways for citizens to get involved to effect change, but it seems Canadians feel this takes up too many evenings, as it were. Why is it that citizens of other countries can get their heads around proportional representation, for example, but Canadians cannot? Hell, Canadians can't even figure out how to vote for prop rep and ranked ballot initiatives in referenda, as demonstrated in Toronto in the oughts! But the poor babies sure know how to throw fits over long ballot protests...
ReplyDeleteVoting, and even representation, are only means to democratic ends, which consist of organizing societies in ways that work for everyone. For this, we need strong, robust, non-partisan institutions, supported by nimble politics, instead of the molasses of our current medieval systems. Otherwise, we will have democracy by protest/revolution, as an outlet for our paleolithic emotions! There was a time when people could expect their lives, and the lives of their children, to unfold pretty much as did those of their parents and grandparents, but now, those at the bottom can no longer envision a future for themselves so live for today, the middle classes assume the immediate future will be like the immediate past and waste time worrying about things like the effects of screentime, while those at the top harness emerging godlike technology to ensure that they, at least, will be OK. So let's start by envisioning how a society that works for everyone would look and go from there. Because everything is about to change!