How healthy is our democracy?

Canadian politics haven’t offered much in the way of inspiration recently, even though inspiration is the new political buzzword. Canadians have been appalled in recent years by the mean-spiritedness, the partisan obsessions, the lack of coherent vision or policy substance and repeated broken promises. This disgust has contributed in no small part to the record voter apathy manifested by the 59.1% voter turnout in October.

In the latest issue of the Catalyst, I noted that voter turnout and increased vote-swapping point to the need to start having conversations about the health of our democracy. So I was exceedingly pleased to see Canwest wade into the conversation with an excellent series on Canadian democracy by Richard Foot.

The first section explores the lack of dignity, the mean-spiritedness of recent Canadian politics. The second section looks at the disappearance of substantial policy debates in Canada (a topic I also looked at in this blog post following the election). The third section considers the role of political parties, and asks whether parties have any substance beyond their national offices and a small group of professional politicians. The fourth section examines the diminishing role of parliament, and how they really have become the “nobodies” Pierre Trudeau once famously accused them of being.

Part 5 offers some solutions. Some of the proposed solutions are excellent, such as banning television advertising in favour of free TV time offered to all parties in which they have to dwell on substance. Others would create as many problems as they would address, such as the suggestion to ban political subsidies. I would suggest some additional solutions, such as diminishing some of the party control over individual members and establishing a greater role in accountability for MPs. Even properly funding and not muzzling the Parliamentary Budget Officer would be a nice step.

But the solutions offer the opportunity for debate and discussion, and I am pleased to see a news organization offer that kind of thoughtful analysis on the health of our democracy.