Democracy - Canadian Style

For those still laboring under the delusion that here in Canada we live in a democracy, this last week in the British Columbia legislature might give pause for doubt. Once again, as has happened many times in the past, a member of the legislature, and a member of the official opposition no less, has been unceremoniously kicked out of the party caucus for speaking his mind. It makes no difference if he was voicing the views of his constituents, those who elected him to represent their interests, he offended the leader of the party and was booted from the caucus.

Every four years, or there about, the electorate of the country, or the province, are asked to vote for individuals running for the various parties in their riding. The idea being that the one who garners the greatest number of votes will go to either the Federal or Provincial Legislatures and be their voters voice in those milieus. Of course, what actually happens is the party which winds up with the most members elected takes office, Federal or Provincial, and the party leader, chosen by the party not the electorate, becomes a virtual monarch for the next for years; assuming that his party holds a majority of parliamentary seats. The vast majority of the party members, who form the government, do exactly what they are told to do by the leader for the balance of their term of office. The leader says ‘Jump’ and the party members jump, they may ask how high they must jump,also when they may come down. This is known in our system as a ‘democracy’.

Once the party with the greatest number of seats takes the control the leader of that party runs the parliament pretty much as he sees fit and the voters have no further input for the next four to five years. This may be the reason why the voters take less and less interest in the process and the number of people actually participating in the vote constantly decreases. Another aspect of the system is that rarely, if ever, does the winning party receive 50% of the vote; ergo, a party that usually managed to get no more than about 40% of the popular vote rules us.

I other systems, for instance that of Switzerland, all enacted legislation is subject to the possibility of a binding referendum. Should the legislation affect the country’s constitution then a referendum is mandatory. This arrangement, one feels, would require the government to be very careful what it foisted on the voters and would also cause the general public to take a continuing interest in how they are governed; a far cry our paternalistic approach