A study out of Simon Fraser University shows that a rising number of Canadians are only “moderately convinced” that we should be governed by a representative democracy – nearly 60 percent, which is up 15 percent since 2017. As well, 70 percent of those surveyed don’t feel that government officials care about the concerns of “ordinary Canadians,” along with rising support for populism and anti-immigrant sentiments. This shouldn’t really surprise anyone who has paid the least bit of attention to what is going on in the world, but let’s first of all get out of the way that these percentages are fairly shoddy reporting once you dig into the study, which finds that Canadians are still very much in favour of democracy, and that the representative democracy still figures better than the other alternatives (direct democracy, rule by experts, strong ruler, military rule), and much of the reporting on the anti-immigrant sentiment is fairly torqued.

To be clear, I have a great many concerns about the methodology of the study, which offers some fairly torqued binaries for participants to choose from and then tries to draw conclusions from that, leaving no room for the kind of nuance that many of these positions would seem to merit. As well, their definitions of populism are too clinical and don’t seem to really reflect some of the attitudes that those who respond to the sentiments, so I’m not sure how much utility this methodology actually has in a case like this (or in this other study which looks at pockets of “forgotten workers,” which at least admits there are no obvious answers to stemming the tide of this sentiment). Nevertheless, there is some interesting regional breakdowns in where certain attitudes are more prevalent than others, and which identified populist sentiments register more strongly in some regions over others.

This having been said, the questions on people feeling frustrated with how democracy works are pretty much why I do the work that I do, particularly with the book that I wrote, which is all about identifying where things are breaking down (reminder: It’s not structural, but rather the ways in which people are not using the system properly), and showcasing how it should be operated, which is with the participation of voters at the grassroots levels. But if we’re going to get back to that system, that requires a lot of people at those grassroots demanding their power back from the leaders’ offices, and that also means needing to get out of the thrall of the messianic leader complex that we keep falling into, going from one messiah to another once the current one loses their lustre (which I do believe also feeds into the populist sentiments, who also latch onto messianic leaders). This can’t just be people complaining about the quality of the leaders out there – it’s about how we feed the system. If we input garbage, we get garbage out of it, and this hasn’t connected in the brains of enough voters yet. One day, perhaps, it might, but we don’t appear to be there yet, and the torqued binaries of a survey like this don’t help us get any better of an understanding of what it will take for people to wise up and get serious about our democratic system.

Good reads:

• At a funding announcement about an education centre for Rouge National Urban Park, the local First Nation elder criticized the government for not consultating.
• The government says they are carrying on with Mercusor trade talks despite calls to end them over Brazil’s president’s obstinance in the face of the Amazon fires.
• Here is an examination of the ridings of several recent spending announcements.
• Rona Ambrose is publicly disagreeing with Andrew Scheer’s assertion that Canada was taken advantage of in New NAFTA talks.
• A 2015 terrorism conviction has been overturned and a new trial ordered because of problems with jury selection at the trial.
• Campaign Life Coalition is shutting down their vote-tracking database because its endorsement feature could trigger Elections Canada reporting requirements.
• The owner of the Pattinson billboard company talks about the Bernier “mass immigration” ads, the response – and lack thereof from the sponsoring group.
• Apparently the Liberals are planning to make some election promises around mobile phone and internet prices.
• Conservatives still won’t clarify if Scheer will allow backbenchers to advance anti-abortion legislation if they form government.
• An openly gay candidate running for the Conservatives says he feels confident that Scheer’s views on same-sex marriage have evolved.
• Colby Cosh offers sarcastic congratulations to everyone for giving Maxime Bernier a controversy to whine about with the mass immigration billboards.
• John Michel McGrath reminds us exactly how the Liberal record on same-sex marriage is far from spotless.
• Chris Selley castigates all of the parties for not making an election issue out of Quebec’s “secularism” law.
• Matt Gurney is unimpressed with how stupid the climate debate has been so far in this election (additional thoughts in this thread).
• My column dismantles the arguments put forward by the Independent Senators Group’s leadership in their latest op-ed on the future of the institution.

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