Every year, I teach an introductory course on Canadian politics to hundreds of students at a Montreal university. There are a few central themes around which I frame the history and institutions of politics in this country. Federalism and regionalism take centre stage, of course, as does the idea of democratic deficit.<\/p>\n
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Yes: deficit. Canada\u2019s story is not one of bold commitment to democracy. Following the British political tradition, Canada is absent a true \u201cwe the people\u201d at the heart of its founding myth. Above all, we were determined to avoid becoming the United States. Thomas D\u2019Arcy McGee, one of the Fathers of Confederation, proposed that a united Canada would help us \u201cbear up shoulder to shoulder to resist\u201d being added to the great American experiment in self-government and its claims of \u201cmanifest destiny.\u201d The country\u2019s first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, took the brutality of the American Civil War as slam-dunk proof of \u201cthe superiority of our institutions, and of the principle on which they are based.\u201d This principle is: sovereignty resides in the Crown rather than the people.<\/p>\n
And so, Canada was plainly never designed to be a full-bore democracy. We remain a constitutional monarchy governed through representative rather than direct democracy. With precious few exceptions, elected representatives make laws on our behalf rather than us taking on that burden ourselves through citizens\u2019 assemblies and initiatives, popular and legislative referendums. Power to the people, sure, but only to a point.<\/p>\n
For my sins, I remain something of an unreformed democratic romantic. I believe in the transformative power of collective action, political parties, the sanctity of a democratic mandate, and the capacity of a Parliament to express the sovereign will of a people. I have sympathy for the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau\u2019s concept of the transcendent \u201cgeneral will\u201d of a people divined through the process of rigorous, informed, and, ultimately, unifying debate.<\/p>\n
In short, I\u2019m possessed by a zealot\u2019s faith in my fellow citizens to govern ourselves well in furtherance of our collective well-being. I\u2019d prefer to see far more robust forms of participatory and direct self-government and far less technocracy.<\/p>\n
This is why some of the reaction to Alberta\u2019s October 19 referendum on a potential second referendum for the province to separate from Canada troubles me. It has exposed just how little faith many of us still have in democracy itself.<\/p>\n
To be clear, the vote itself is almost entirely for the benefit of Premier Danielle Smith\u2019s tightrope act to stay atop a fracturing United Conservative Party. The premier is in thrall to the diehard separatist wing of the activist base in her governing UCP. Smith\u2019s gambit to allow a referendum to bubble up via the route of a citizen-led petition was blocked by the courts on the grounds that due diligence to consult with affected Indigenous communities was not done. Backed into a corner, Smith may have calculated that putting a version of the separation question on the October referendum ballot was essential to surviving her leadership review the following month.<\/p>\n
But the ease with which some critics have slid from opposing separatism into frankly anti-democratic territory is unsettling. Hearing David Cochrane, host of the CBC\u2019s flagship Power & Politics, warn that there is a \u201cFree Barabbas approach to some of this direct democracy thing\u201d should not sit comfortably with anyone who values democracy in Canada.<\/p>\n
The reference is to the biblical story in which the crowd chooses to free the criminal Barabbas instead of Jesus\u2014a metaphor suggesting that ordinary people, when given a choice, are prone to make reckless or morally inferior decisions. It is a familiar critique of populism, especially ten years on from the Brexit-and-Trump double earthquake of 2016: popular will is inherently suspect because the public cannot be trusted to govern wisely.<\/p>\n
But one can reject separatism in Alberta without embracing the notion that democracy itself becomes dangerous whenever citizens reach the \u201cwrong\u201d conclusion. Some elements of populism\u2014popular sovereignty, the will of the people, the distinction between the many and the few\u2014are, in fact, inextricable from democracy. Going further still, I think anything called democracy that lacks a profound populist underpinning is frankly not worth having.<\/p>\n
In my classes, it\u2019s the students\u2019 job to make up their own minds about how much democracy is appropriate in striking a balance between mitigating harms and fashioning a genuinely accountable government piloted by public will.<\/p>\n
Many will agree with the mainstream consensus that central bank independence is valid because politicians shouldn\u2019t be allowed to destabilize the economy to please their voters. The courts must have the final say over the constitutional rules of the political game because no politician can be trusted to stay free from the kind of corruption power necessarily begets. All well and good.<\/p>\n
In my own estimation, much of the malaise afflicting developed countries such as Canada comes down to the draining away of their substantive democratic character. Fareed Zakaria pointed out nearly three decades ago that the catch-all term \u201cdemocracy\u201d mostly refers to only a specific type\u2014liberal democracy. Democracy and liberalism actually pull in opposite directions.<\/p>\n
Democracy in its pure form is about redistribution of benefits, burdens, and wealth. It is nominally committed to empowering the poor in the name of an equal citizenship rooted in inherent human dignity. Liberalism tends toward markets, managerialism, and process. One empowers majorities; the other limits what they may do.<\/p>\n