Canadian Democracy: Dead or Alive?

Canadian Democracy: Dead or Alive?
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Canadian Democracy: Dead or Alive?
The health of Canadian democracy is in grave danger, according to a recent study by a public interest group in the country. According to Samara's report, the nation received a "C," showing that citizens of a nation once renowned for its democratic ideals now believe they have no control over their government. Because the very definition of democracy stipulates that the government should be chosen for the people, by the people, Canadian democracy is dead. 60% of Canadians do not believe their representatives will act in their best interests, according to a report that was created after an online survey and the analysis of data from the House of Commons and Elections Canada (Wilson, 2018). According to 62% of voters, political parties and their candidates only care about using their votes to advance their interests in the government (Wilson, 2018). Comparing the representation of different Canadian ethnicities in parliament to the House of Commons reveals stark differences. Minority communities make up 9% of the House of Commons and represent 19% of Canada's population. In parliament, only 25% of the members are women, despite the fact that women make up 51% of Canada's population. Data from Elections Canada analysis also shows a consistent drop in voter turnout since 1988 (Wilson, 2018).
The current political environment, which reveals a weakened democracy, can be used to explain a number of aspects of these statistics. First, proportional representation demonstrates how unfair the Canadian electoral system is by requiring a winning candidate to receive more votes than other candidates to receive "first past the post" and win the contested seat. For instance, if 11 parties are running in a certain election with 100 seats up for grabs, one party might win all 100 seats with only 9.9% of the total votes cast, even if 90% of the electorate did not support it. An example of this in action was the 2011 federal elections, in which the Harper Conservatives received less than 40% of the votes but 54% of the seats giving them the necessary numbers to pass laws. In contrast, the Green Party only won one seat and earned 3.7% of the vote. It makes sense that winning 3.7% of the 308 House members would result in 11 seats rather than their single seat (Kolga, 2021).
The "first past the post" rule makes it uncommon for Canada to have a majority government with commensurate majority votes. Every ruling party with a majority of members in the House has received a lower percentage of the popular vote in four of the five general elections that were held between 1988 and 2004. Additionally, nationally popular opposition parties like the NDP and the PC Party frequently end up receiving the short end of the stick and are underrepresented in parliament. This is the first past the post system's main flaw since it unfairly represents the democratic rights of voters by essentially ignoring a sizeable chunk of the public. The system is responsible for the underrepresentation of minority groups, women, and Aboriginal people in addition to favoring disproportionate results (Kolga, 2021).
The imbalance in House of Commons representations relative to the country's diversion is the second sign of Canada's failing democracy. Although there is a lot of diversity in Canada, this diversity is not reflected in the country's parliament. Since just seven members of parliament of First Nation, Inuit, and Metis descent were chosen in the May 2011 election, the Aboriginal community is one of the groups impacted by this situation. The estimated 1.2 million aboriginal people that live in Canada could not possibly be appropriately represented by these seven members of parliament. As opposed to the Aboriginal communities, which made up roughly 3.8% of Canada's population, these MPs occupied 2.3% of the House creating a dramatic contrast. As a result, both women and young people are egregiously underrepresented in the House of Commons (Kazancigil, 2018).
The majority of Canada's youth do not yet have the right to vote, yet those between the ages of 18 and 40 are not fairly represented. Only 19% of the members of parliament elected in 2013 were under the age of 40, despite the fact that Canadian youth make up 39% of the country's total population. Women are treated worse; it wasn't until the 1988 election that they were able to win more than 10% of the House of Commons seats. In 2011, women were able to win 48% of the seats, which was quite equal to their population (Kazancigil, 2018). While the number of women elected to Parliament fell somewhat in 2015 to 26%, Prime Minister Trudeau appeared to have turned the issue around by appointing a gender-balanced cabinet (Vallesi, 2021).
As was previously said, Canadians have lost faith in their political parties and representatives. They do not believe that their lawmakers take their concerns into account or pass laws that will enhance their life (Wilson, 2018). The ideal setting for the expression, articulation and constant exercise of public opinion should be the House of Commons. In response, lawmakers should be responsible for correcting the decline in Canadian democracy by attempting to bridge the gap between their election promises and what they are able to achieve.
The power of the executive has continued to increase, while the power of an individual MP has gradually decreased. This presents a difficulty for members of parliament as they attempt to represent the people. Members of the House, on both sides, frequently find themselves imprisoned by the House's adversarial culture and swiftly veer away from the desires and instincts of their ...