It is hard to believe that it was way back in November 2022 that Pierre Poilievre, during a press conference, first claimed that “it feels like everything is broken in this country right now.”
Poilievre never really defined what “everything” included or excluded, though he later posted “We can fix it” on social media with out specifying what “it” was exactly.
Granted, inflation was high at 6.9%, but unemployment was at a record low of 3.8%. The deficit was soaring, but so was GDP. Yet, this was two months before the Freedom Convoy of truckers hit Ottawa in January 2023.
The Convoy tapped into anger against the Trudeau government, in part over things related to the pandemic, but also to feelings on the right, and particularly in the West, that the government was authoritarian, corrupt and unaccountable. The Washington Post summed it up: “the freedom convoy was a disruptive protest tactic expressing opposition to the government and its policies.”
Trudeau was trailing in the polls by around 5% back then, unlike today when the Liberals trail by about triple that, around 17%. Inflation is down, and while interest rates have skyrocketed, unemployment is still low, and it seems that Canada and the US had a “soft landing” instead of a recession.
The major economic issues here today seem to be the high cost of living, housing and immigration. Inflation is down but prices are much higher than they were in 2020, and even eating at McDonald’s seems expensive to many Canadians. But GDP per capita is actually declining while the US economy outperforms practically every economy on the planet, and normally Canada’s economy follows the US economy, though large shifts in the direction of oil prices might cause Canada and the US to diverge.
We all know the US is in an election year, and while their economy seems better than ever, their politics, particularly at the federal level, seem like something from a dystopian farce. This is not entirely new as we had a similarly weird set of circumstances in the 2000 presidential election, where the count in Florida (where the Republican candidate’s brother was Governor) was in dispute over things like “hanging chads” or the “butterfly ballot”. In the end the Supreme Court, which included judges appointed by the father of the Republican candidate, stopped the count, then later ruled there wasn’t enough time to make a complete and full count, and then ruled 5 to 4, on strictly partisan lines, in favour of the Republican candidate and ruled that this decision was to be ignored as a one-off and never ever used as a precedent for anything else.
This year, a twice impeached (but not convicted) Republican ex-President, who claimed to be a billionaire, was determined by a civil court to be a sexual offender/rapist, has 91 criminal charges, and has been found in one court hearing to have lead an insurrection that should automatically bar him from the presidency, has been delaying several federal and state criminal cases by every possible delay tactic available. It could end up that the court decisions are delayed past the presidential election in November, in which the ex-President has pretty much ensured he will again be the Republican candidate, barring only a binding Supreme Court ruling, which includes 3 of 9 members he himself appointed, that he is disqualified by having been part of the insurrection he instigated to cling to power after losing the last election. The delays might mean he can pardon himself and appoint an Attorney General who will dismiss any charges still under appeal, and if not the now re-elected ex-President might try to pardon himself of his own crimes as well as pardoning anyone else of federal charges or convictions.
At the same time, the Democrats have been feckless – the President appointed a milquetoast former judge who was himself denied a spot on the Supreme Court and the Justice Department investigated the insurrectionists, but delayed investigating the ex-President for over 2 years so that the timelines for criminal cases against the ex-President may run past the presidential election. And the current President is a record setting old age of 81, just 4 years older than the ex-President. The current President, who was supposed to be “transitional”, is so unpopular that the indicted ex-President actually stands a chance of winning the election – whereas a younger moderate Democratic candidate would certainly win if the current President would step aside as he implied when he ran in the last election.
The US system also has issues such as the role of money distorting the process, in large part due to the “Citizens United” court decision. Then there is the far more partisan media, including Fox News and talk radio on the right, while the left has MSNBC and far fewer highly partisan outlets – though the mainstream media skew slightly left, at least on social issues.
The US legal structure and federal system of government is more ambiguous than Canada – states are called “states” because there were the original 13 colonies, and the Constitution still gives states power over running federal elections as well as their own, so there is the problem that if one state disqualifies Trump under the 14th Amendment, other states might not remove him from the ballot, unlike disqualifying a Congressman, Senator, Governor or judge.
The story above would make the all-time greatest movie of TV political farce, topping Dr. Strangelove, Veep, Bulworth, Wag the Dog, the Death of Stalin or the Great Dictator (and the ex-President mused about being a dictator once elected).
The other two branches of the US government (legislative and judicial) are not in much better shape.
The US Supreme Court is split on partisan lines when it was never intended to be partisan, and is more unpopular now than it has been in decades – in part because of partisan decisions, such as on abortion. There is no way to get rid of Supreme Court judges short of an impeachment process that is bound to fail, and the judges have no real ethical rules that are binding, and cannot be forced to recuse themselves when there is an apparent conflict of interest.
The House of Representatives has had a terrible two years, with the expulsion of George Santos to top off having had to replace the Speaker, due to the Republicans having only a handful more seats than the Democrats, and a group of extremists on the right who were able to topple the speaker and are preventing nearly anything to pass.
The House is hyper partisan, unlike before the 1990s. It used to be that the US had an entrenched 2-party system, but each party was actually split internally so sometimes it was more like a 4-party system. The US legislative branch used to be able to function but gerrymandering and the way in which the parties have become polarized has made it more dysfunctional than ever. I recommend reading the book “The Tyranny of the Minority” by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, and “Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America” by Lee Drutman.
But the Senate in the US is a major problem that has become even more undemocratic than it has ever been. The US founding fathers were afraid of democracy as “mob rule” and the Senate was meant to allow elites to thwart changes they opposed – the Senate was initially appointed by the states, and not elected. But as a compromise to appease less populous states, each state gets the same number of senators: two. So, Wyoming with 600,000 and California with 40 million get the same number of Senators. Then, under Mitch McConnell, the rules have changed so there is virtual gridlock, due to the filibuster requiring 60 votes on most bills (with a few exceptions like “reconciliation”) but lifetime appointments only needing a majority (usually 51 votes). Prior to the 1980s, the filibuster was rarely used and required some actually delay votes in person, like in the film “Mr. Smith goes to Washington” with Jimmy Stewart, whereas now it is a silent filibuster.
Some things, like ending the filibuster and returning to 60 votes for lifetime appointments, could be reformed if the parties agreed, but much of the reason for the problems facing the US is the fact that they have the oldest written constitution in the world with lots of room for interpretation, and only 27 amendments, the last one being over 30 years ago. An amendment takes two-thirds of the House and Senate, then three-fourths of the states to ratify.
By contrast, Our Constitution is not as old, but had a through overhaul just over thirty years ago.
The problem in the US is that the politics there are so hyper-partisan that nothing is likely to get though, and small states tend to be “Red” Republican states which also have disproportionate power in the Senate.
In Canada, Constitutional change is not likely to happen due to Quebec. Even though legally the 1982 repatriation of the Constitution and its amending formula apply to Quebec, the governments in Quebec will want a list of concessions before agreeing to any changes, as was the case in the Mulroney era attempts to get changes satisfactory to Quebec, the Meech Lake and then Charlottetown agreements.
Some Constitutional changes require all 10 provinces, but others require at least 7 of 10 provinces representing at least 50% of the population. If changes were made and Quebec was not one of the minimum seven provinces, then separatism in Quebec would certainly flare up again and Canada would likely break up.
Of course, at various times some Canadians hoped to see us join the US, and there were fears (even up to 1988) that free trade might have made this inevitable. But given the hyper-partisanship of the US and Canada’s more left-leaning political culture, Republicans might block any or all of the anglophone provinces and territories from joining the US. Canada joining the US was even anticipated in the original US articles of Confederation that were replaced in 1789 by the Constitution, and it was generally taken for granted that Americans would never turn away Newfoundland or any other part of Canada if it sought to become part of the US.
So, the US is certainly in a far more precarious political situation than Canada, and constitutional changes in both countries are unlikely.
When Poilievre suggested that Canada seemed broken and he could fix it, it was likely just political posturing and merely meant that he would not be Justin Trudeau and would reverse many of the Liberal policies implemented since 2015. But since November 2022, or ever since the Convoy was broken up and left Ottawa, we have seen provincial governments balking at carbon taxes and Saskatchewan threatening to break federal laws, not just challenge them in court. And then we have the expanded use of the Notwithstanding Clause in the Charter. These things do show that Canada is fracturing, but then Western Alienation and friction with the federal government has existed almost as long as Alberta and Saskatchewan have been provinces, or even longer if we go back to Louis Riel.
But Poilievre is often mocked by columnists and editorial cartoonists for his lack of specific policies, even though an election is only about 18 months away. If Dr. Poilievre has a prescription to heal a broken Canada, he has not been clear about the diagnosis or what cures he will prescribe.
We can assume deficit reduction might be a priority. Pierre has said that immigration will be tied to housing supply, but he has not suggested how this will work or what level of immigration will do this. We know he opposes carbon taxes, but he has not said what policy will address the problem of GHG emissions.
The US is fundamentally broken because, despite the dislike of many of their founding fathers for political parties and partisanship, the combination of hyper partisanship with “checks and balances” (including an elected Senate), and practices like gerrymandering or the filibuster, mean the US political system is broken and even policies like funding Ukraine, which a majority of politicians support, cannot get passed.
Canada’s problem is a little different – and for years we have had heard same accusation: that our federal government is an elected dictatorship.
On the left, the NDP and Green Party recently dredged up electoral reform as a major issue, and proposed that a citizens’ assembly should be created, likely to implement proportional representation. The left thinks that Canada’s democracy is broken because of our failure to implement proportional representation like most countries in Europe. The irony is that since 2019, the Liberal minority governments have meant that Parliament is not that different from what proportional representation would give us in an election.
But from the Conservatives, most of what we get is partisan anger directed towards the governing Liberals and criticism – essentially negative campaigning – and promises that a Conservative government will do things differently or not have the same faults. But there has really been no indication of how to fix or improve our political system since the Reform Party existed and had proposals like a Triple-E Senate. Senate reform is likely dead since it requires Constitutional change and Alberta would not gain by having an equal number of Senators anyway.
For all that can be said about the late Brian Mulroney (and I hate to say anything nice about him) his government did try to put forth some bold policies, though many of them did not emerge until after he was first elected in 1984. The GST, free trade with the US and then reopening the Constitution were not meek policies but ones meant to make a lasting difference.
So other than reducing the deficit, eliminating carbon taxes and not being led by Justin Trudeau, what change will a Conservatives bring? I looked at their website, which has a “Policy Declaration” of 189 principles or policies.
The Conservative Party “Declaration” includes balanced budget legislation, and also a rejection of federal carbon taxes or pricing, but of course, dozens of other policies, most of which are unlikely to be implemented in just fours years by a majority government, if ever implemented at all. Most of the policies would likely be overturned or replaced by a future Liberal government, or by the NDP or Greens as well.
Stephen Harper was PM for nine years (2006-2015) yet no doubt a review of the 2006 Conservative policy book would find the majority of policies were never implemented, or were reversed by the Liberals, as is possible with nearly everything not put into the Constitution, an agreement with the provinces, a trade agreement with a foreign government or a treaty.
Stephen Harper and Poilievre were both members of the Reform Party, which wanted more free votes in parliament and other reforms. Poilievre was also Minister of Democratic Reform (2013-15) in the Harper Government, so a major question is “will a Poilievre government perhaps make lasting changes to our “elected dictatorship” in line with the Reform policy or more recent Conservative policies?”
Leaving aside Senate reform, there are different types of democratic reform that a government can make, namely:
- Electoral System Reform
- Electoral Practices Reform (Elections Act)
- Political Financing Reform
- Parliamentary Reform
- Political Party Regulation and Reform
We will look at each category.
Electoral System Reform
While the NDP and Green Parties want proportional representation, and the Liberals are split three ways with Trudeau wanting Ranked Choice Voting, the Conservative policy is pretty clear – to avoid change or make it difficult.
Policy 13 in the Declaration states:
“In reviewing options for electoral reform, we believe the government should not endorse any new electoral system that will weaken the link between Members of Parliament and their constituents, that will create unmanageably large ridings, or that will strengthen the control of the party machinery over individual Members of Parliament.”
Even if the Conservatives only get a minority government, they will likely avoid or delay any electoral reform, or will require a referendum on the matter, where likely they would be free to campaign against reform if they were forced into calling a vote.
Nothing Poilievre has said or done seems to indicate otherwise.
Electoral Practices Reform (Elections Act)
Since he was Minister of Democratic Reform under Harper, Poilievre has a record of statements and actions in relation to the specifics of how we conduct elections in Canada – though of course, as Minister, he was not free to do as he might have wanted and his record is really just following orders from Harper.
The Conservative Declaration says little beyond calling for a ban on foreign donations to “third parties” involved in political activity. This is likely targeted at environmental groups like Greenpeace that operate outside Canada and want to reduce carbon emissions and/or fossil fuel exploration and use.
As Minister, Poilievre was responsible for the passage of Bill C-23, the Fair Elections Act, which eliminated vouching and made other reforms. Yet, he has said little about changes to the Elections Act since 2015 – at least that has been reported in the media.
There are issues like online voting and mail-in voting that are often raised as potential reforms to make voting easier or raise turnout. So far there is no indication where Poilievre actually stands on these, and we are not likely to see the Conservatives challenge things like having fair electoral boundaries drawn up impartially instead of being gerrymandered.
Foreign interference in our elections may be another matter all together, but fixing that goes beyond the Elections Act itself.
Political Financing Reform
There is little Poilievre has said on the public record about this, but the Conservative policies provide a good indication of what they will do if elected, found in their policy #13:
“There should be no additional public funding of federal political parties beyond that presently contained in the Elections Canada Act.”
The Conservatives beat the other parties in fundraising, which is an advantage they have had from a combination of their roots in the old Reform Party combined with the banning of corporate and union donations.
Some people advocate for a change away from the current system of tax credits on donations, which benefits those with high taxable income and money to spare while providing no help to those who have low incomes and pay little or no taxes. At most, the only likely change would be to increase the maximum donation to adjust, at the very least, for inflation.
Parliamentary Reform
This is where the meat is in any hope of moving Canada away from an elected dictatorship.
Back in 1989, the Reform Party “Platform & Statement of Principles” called for at least five types of changes to democracy:
- Free votes in the House of Commons
- Free vote in a Reform Party Caucus
- Greater accountability of MPs
- Modified Parliamentary Procedures
- Direct Democracy
- Societal Control of the Political Process
This was a package designed to empower MPs in caucus and in Parliament, allow direct votes by citizens in referenda, limit the power of lobbyists, and also ensure that government employees/bureaucrats also were accountable and followed laws.
Free Votes in the House of Commons
This section was written before the tight control of Chretien or Harper over their MPs:
“The cause of more representative government in Canada requires, first and foremost, Members of Parliament who have at least some independence from party discipline. Party discipline is probably enforced more rigorously in Canada than any other democratic nation. It is enforced well beyond the demands or original intentions of Cabinet government without any ethical justification. The result is that our representatives in Ottawa become Ottawa’s representatives to us.
The Reform Party believes that the excesses of party discipline can be corrected by fairly simple changes in Parliamentary rules, as have been done elsewhere. Specifically, we maintain that the defeat of a government measure in the House of Commons should not automatically mean the defeat of the government. Defeat of the government motion should be followed by a formal motion of non-confidence, the passage of which would require either the resignation of the government or dissolution of the House for a general election.”
The current conservative Declaration does away with Direct Democracy but is still very extensive in areas of “Government accountability” in the first 8 policies and elsewhere in the document. It is actually stronger in its commitment to free up MPs in policy #10, “Free Votes”, stating:
“The Conservative Party believes in restoring democratic accountability into the House of Commons by allowing free votes. All votes should be free, except for the budget, main estimates, and core government initiatives. On issues of moral conscience, such as abortion, the definition of marriage, and euthanasia, the Conservative Party acknowledges the diversity of deeply-held personal convictions among individual party members and the right of Members of Parliament to adopt positions in consultation with their constituents and to vote freely.”
This would be a remarkable change, if it ever came about. Poilievre has said little on the record about this, but before he entered the race to be leader, this was reported in the Toronto Star:
“Pierre Poilievre says that under his leadership, Conservative MPs would be free to bring forward legislation on abortion and vote according to their conscience. But the Ottawa-area MP, who has yet to officially announce his bid to lead the party, told the Star that no such legislation would be adopted under a Conservative government led by him. While allowing a free vote would make it theoretically possible for a Conservative government to pass a law restricting access to abortion, the small number of MPs who identify as anti-abortion make it highly unlikely…While members of caucus will always have freedom of conscience, no bill on the subject would be adopted — and Pierre would vote against it.”
But Stephen Harper also had deep roots in the Reform Party, yet perhaps ran the government with the most control over what its Ministers and MPs were allowed to say on major issues.
So, who determines which bills are “core government initiatives” where free votes are allowed? Obviously, the party leader, who will not be happy to see government policies defeated – so will this policy of free votes be kept and have any meaning? Leaders might be willing to tolerate an MP voting against the party, abstaining or being absent if it will make no difference, but then such meaningless exceptions go against the spirit of having free votes – except to allow MPs to duck voting on things that might hurt them when they run for re-election.
MPs in the UK have had greater ability to vote against their leaders, and we saw this recently on Brexit. In part, the British Parliament has almost double the number of MPs (650 vs 338 here), so backbench MPs have less of a chance at being a minister, but their slightly greater freedom is not due to any real difference in laws or rules there versus here.
If our MPs do not have the ability to vote against their party leader on important votes, without it dooming their careers, then promises of free votes are meaningless.
But even broader reforms are needed.
Currently, backbenchers have little power – whether they are in government or in opposition. Most people ignore what their MPs say in Parliament and at best a few minutes of Question Period make it into the news, and the tendency of Question Period is to pander to scores point and get coverage. Rarely is any MP’s mind changed by debate in the House, though sometimes Parliamentary committees will recommend amendments or review legislation in a meaningful way between first reading and the final version passed into law, if it gets that far.
We need to find other ways to let MPs be more accountable to their constituents or for their party and leader to have less power over them. Electoral reform, like changing to ranked choice voting, might make MPs freer if their own personal popularity in their riding become more important to their party winning it next election. Conversely, any proportional representation where some MPs are drawn from lists would break that direct accountability to voters and mean even more whipped votes and stricter party discipline.
Political Party Regulation and Reform
There are two types of federal political parties in Canada – ones which are registered with Elections Canada, and ones which are not. Actually, there are three types if you include de-registered parties, which are still found on the Elections Canada website.
Canadian MPs do not have to be a member of a political party to run for election. After being elected, they can quit their party and sit as independents, or join another party, if that party will accept them. Independents have a slim chance of getting elected, though incumbent independents have much better odds, but still face an uphill battle for a variety of reasons, including our political finance laws that give parties a big advantage in funding candidates.
Party names did not even appear on ballots until the 1972 election. Only registered party names can appear, only one name per riding, and each party appoints a person (usually their leader) to sign the form confirming who has permission.
Parties are registered in Canada mainly due to issues relating to fundraising, election spending and issuance of tax credits to donors. How parties manage their internal affairs is strictly their own business – though occasionally the courts are reluctantly forced to resolve disputes, like opposition to the merger of the Alliance and PC Party in 2003.
Each party has its own constitution and bylaws – sometimes none since there is no requirement for this. Any two people can call themselves a political party, but you need at least 250 people to become registered. There is no requirement for parties to be incorporated – and parties cannot be registered charities. Legally parties are “unincorporated voluntary associations” that are a “web of contracts” between members – they are not recognized as persons able to enter into contracts, unlike corporations (they often create a separate corporation to sign leases etc. on their behalf).
As a liberal democracy, of course we do not want politicians or governments interfering in the internal workings of political parties – the party in power can use its power to thwart its rivals, limit debate, or skew the political process in its own favour.
Parties do get public funding and the ability to issue tax credits, yet party members have no legal rights and there is almost no way for party members to enforce any rights they think exist under the rules of the party they joined – even if they paid to join and view it as a contract.
So, if an MP votes against his or her party, the leader can likely kick them out of caucus, and maybe even out of the party, or at the very least, prevent that MP, or anyone else they want, from running or winning the nomination to stand for MP in the next election.
In the US, the government does not interfere with the internal matters of political parties. However, as we have seen with Donald Trump, the states usually run the party primary elections, though some primaries and caucuses have been scheduled separately from the government-run ones.
And in the US, generally anyone registered with a party can run in the primaries – there is no vetting, or a subjective or arbitrary way to stop people from registering in primaries. Of course, anyone elected who bucks what their party’s leadership wants can be “primaried”, which means putting up a candidate who might beat them for the nomination next election, causing some elected politicians to quit if they feel defeat is certain.
“Primarying” is most effective where districts are gerrymandered, and when there are “closed” primaries where someone not registered with that party cannot vote.
It is unlikely that Canada will move to primaries, particularly like in the system used in Alaska where there is a single open primary, with everyone voting together and multiple candidates from each party allowed, with the top four going on to the next and final round of the election decided by ranked choice voting.
But Canada could require at the very least that all registered parties be incorporated as non-profits (or they receive no public funding), that they have clear constitutions and bylaws, and that they be followed when it comes to how the party complies with their own rules. Elections Canada can also be permitted to offer services to ensure any balloting and vote counting is done impartially.
Part of the old Reform Party agenda was to make MPs more accountable to the voters back home in their electoral district. When Canada was founded, MPs ran for their party and the leader of each party was not decided by party members, but was an MP chosen by the caucus.
Conservative MP Michael Chong pushed through the Reform Act in 2014, which included the following reforms:
- The expulsion/readmission of caucus members
- The election and removal of the caucus chair
- The removal of the party leader
- The election of an interim leader
This is a good start, but the problem is that after an election, each party’s caucus is free to pick and choose if any or all of these reforms will be used by that party until the next election. It is a start, but it should be made binding on any party caucus getting any government funding.
If a party wants to not have the benefits of registration, it should be free to do what it wants, within the laws. If a party wants to register, there should be the requirement that it at least be incorporated so that it can be sued or taken to court. If a party wants to receive money from the government (that would not go to independent candidates) and have their donors receive tax credits, then there should be strings attached to ensure that the party leaders are more accountable, and their parties are run more democratically.
There are constant criticisms in the media that Pierre Poilievre and the Conservative party don’t have any policies, and there is some truth to this in areas like dealing with climate change, how it will reduce Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions, or how it will reduce the deficit. However, there is a history of the party and its forebears putting forth solutions to Canada’s longstanding problems of public dissatisfaction with our political climate and democratic deficit.
The NDP and Greens are fixated on proportional representation to solve these problems. The Liberal Party promised electoral reform, but did nothing and also chose to not adopt the full provisions of the Reform Act. It is unclear what reforms the Liberal Party would offer to make our democracy better since it has done so little on this file since winning power in 2015.
The Conservative Party is leading in the polls and is the favourite to not just win the 2025 election, but to do so with a huge majority.
The real question is if the party will take action on its promise of more free votes in its “Policy Declaration”. This would be a major step forward, though wider reforms are needed – such as making political parties themselves more accountable.
If political parties were more accountable to their members, more people would join political parties and get involved. And if MPs are given more power and start to be more accountable to their constituents, and a few other reforms are enacted to reduce the power of the Prime Minister and Opposition Leaders, then perhaps the idea of Canada being an “elected dictatorship” will recede and there will be less reason to claim that Canada is “feeling broken” regardless of how unpopular any government becomes.
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