The Various Problems with Canadian Democracy

Pssst. One of them comes from Quebec.

The greatest obstacle to a working Canadian democracy is the Bloc Québécois, writes Andrew Potter in the Ottawa Citizen. While many Bloc voters aren’t separatists and merely vote out of self-interest, this actually makes the problem worse. “The Bloc Québécois is now supported by what is essentially an ethnic voting block,” writes Potter. “[W]hen people vote according to their race, language, or tribe, rational public policy becomes extremely difficult. But when that block has also decided to abstain from any role in the national government, the effect is absolutely toxic.” The Bloc was founded as a temporary party and ideally would simply dissolve, but that being unlikely, the best Potter is hoping for is that the party finally gives up on the pipe dream of separation and joins the national discussion.

The National Post’s Father Raymond J. De Souza argues that Canada’s real democratic deficit is in the parties’ riding association nomination process, which has become “an optional extra, permitted as a luxury if the leader permits.” This is largely a problem of minority governments, where every seat is potentially huge and the leaders deem that they can ill-afford to let local party members pick their own candidates. Instead leaders devise all manner of schemes to ensure their chosen candidate is nominated regardless of local support. This is especially detrimental, writes de Souza, because the riding nomination process is “the one avenue that ordinary citizens have available to them for local participation.”

The Toronto Star and Montreal Gazette editorial boards both think that Canadian democracy would be improved if control of the leaders debates was wrested from the consortium of broadcasters it currently resides with and invested in an independent body, as it is in the U.S. The consortium has no clear criteria for inclusion in the debates, hence the recurring furor over whether Green party Leader Elizabeth May should be involved. “There are good reasons why ... May should be included,” the Gazette argues, “but also good reasons why she should not.” An independent body with clear criteria wouldn’t necessarily admit her, but at least we’d all know why.