Continuing conversations with Canadians VIII

Canadian democracy is broken. Macleans’ columnists Paul Wells and Andrew Coyne don’t beat around the bush with this conclusion. They identify sham elections, an irrelevant parliament, declining democracy within political parties, the triumph of tactics over policy, and the lack of decorum in politics as the symptoms of our democratic distress.

But the two columnists with notoriously different world views agree not only on the diagnosis, but on some possible cures.

Both agree that electoral reform – exchanging our first-past-the-post system in favour of proportional representation – would help to change our political culture and make cooperation both desirable and transparent.

However, given the current lack of popular support for electoral reform, they also consider some smaller, systemic changes. More and better debates throughout the course of an election would force leaders to focus on substance, provide clear options to voters, and give the media something other than polls and puffin poop to talk about.

Making voting mandatory, ending public subsidies of political parties, taking ownership of attack ads by putting disclaimers on them, and allowing MPs to select their party leaders are other ideas given consideration.

The Macleans column is the appetizer for an event taking place tonight in Toronto, hosted by Coyne and Wells, and featuring Ed Broadbent, former Chrétien chief of staff Eddie Goldenberg, and John Ralston Saul. For those not in Toronto, it will be broadcast nationally on CPAC. The panelists will offer more ideas on how we can fix our broken democracy.

A year ago, we were in the election campaign that caused many of us to feel that Canadian democracy needed work if it was going to be robust and healthy. Since then, I’ve highlighted a fair number of those conversations beginning to take place in the media (see Parts I, II, III, IV, V, VI and VII here). It’s encouraging to see these conversations take place. It’s also important to debate the solutions, and not merely identify the problems. The Macleans’ event seems like a very good step in that direction.