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 im...