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In all developed countries today there is some form of indirect democracy and a democratic process for electing the representatives who actually govern. However, is it really democracy?

The word "democracy" according to Merriam-Webster means: "government by the people; especially rule of the majority... a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections."

In Canada, the Constitution Act 1982 ("Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms") in Section 3 states the Democratic Rights of Citizens: "Every citizen of Canada has the right to vote in an election of members of the House of Commons or of a legislative assembly and to be qualified for membership therein."

So far so good. There is a strong history of democracy in Canada and its provinces, and there is a transparent democratic process for elections; where democracy in Canada breaks down is in the execution.

Based on the results of the federal election in October 2015, the winning Liberals were elected by just 26 per cent of the eligible voters. That means that 74 per cent of Canadian voters either voted for another party or didn't vote at all. In fact, about 9 million (or about 34 per cent) of Canadians did not vote and exercise their democratic right. And this was the highest voter turnout in 20 years!

In Ontario, the story is even worse. In the 2014 election, the Liberals won a majority of the seats to form the government in which less than 19 per cent of eligible voters actually voted for them (and only 51 per cent of eligible voters actually voted). That means a staggering 82 per cent of Ontarians either voted for another party or didn't vote at all!

This is clearly not democracy as defined by Merriam-Webster, and there is lots of blame to go around.

First and foremost, many of the citizens of Ontario are to blame for not bothering to inform themselves of political issues, and then once informed, exercising their democratic right to vote. But some of the blame falls elsewhere.

The education system does not adequately prepare students for a life of civic engagement and their responsibilities of citizenship. In fact, in 2016 the Liberal government was thinking about scrapping civics as a secondary school subject all together. Fortunately, that idea was killed, but the current civics course is woefully inadequate at preparing our future citizens.

And, finally, some of the blame goes directly to governments and politicians who actually like the current cozy system. Low voter turnout coupled with first-past-the-post electoral systems is a significant advantage to incumbents and to those who are able to mobilize a small minority of voters to actually show up on election day.

So, while we have democracy in theory and a democratic process, we do not have democracy in practice. In fact, we are a long way from it. One can argue that the current Ontario government, while it has the legal authority to govern, is a long way from having the moral authority to do so. It is approving and implementing significant changes that affect all Ontarians including our current social structure and it is doing so with over 80 per cent of Ontarians either opposed or indifferent.

In today's age of choice, widespread access to information and more direct control over our lives, why have we allowed government to remain as the sole intermediary on important social questions? In many aspects of our lives, we have been steadily eliminating intermediaries and taking more control ourselves, so why not government?

Now, it would be impractical to have no government to regulate society, but is it not reasonable to require government to seek more direct and binding input on major questions of social policy. How can we as citizens allow these important questions to be left in the hands of a government that has less than 20 per cent support?

Switzerland has long maintained a system of semi-direct democracy. Representatives are elected to the country's parliament, but major policy questions are often referred to the people directly and voted on by way of a referendum. In order for a policy question referred to a referendum to become law, it must be supported by at least a two thirds majority of votes cast.

With the significant changes in the world and in our lives, democracy must change to keep pace. Democracy is fragile and must be protected at all costs, and each one of us must do our part if it is to survive and prosper. In 2018, in Ontario, you will all have a chance to do just that.

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Trudeau Government's Broken Promises (So Far)

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Is Democracy An Endangered Species In Canada? - Huffington Post Canada

The White House set the terms: Mr. Trump was to be met by cheering crowds, giving the world the impression of a strong American leader adored by foreign masses and their leaders. Conveniently, because the Three Seas Initiative summit meeting was taking place in Warsaw, Mr. Trump could meet with leaders from 11 other countries in the region in one fell swoop.

The visit worked for Mr. Kaczynski, too embattled in Europe, his government needed to show that Poland enjoys the respect of one of the worlds most powerful politicians.

And so Mr. Trump came to Warsaw, confirmed his commitment to NATOs Article 5 on collective defense, and promised contracts for the sale of Patriot missiles and natural gas to Poland. Mr. Kaczynskis party bused in cheering crowds, and both sides concluded with good reason that the visit was a success.

Law and Justices standing in the polls improved; the latest, carried out before the vote on judicial reform, showed 38 percent support for the party and only 19 percent for Civic Platform, the largest opposition party.

Mr. Trumps visit coincided with the judicial legislation, which was already awaiting a vote in the Sejm, the lower house. But shortly before his arrival, the bills were abruptly withdrawn.

Once the poll numbers and press accolades began to pour in, though, the party put the bills back in action, and added a third, to recall the judges of the Supreme Court so that their successors could be chosen by the Sejm. Because the Supreme Court confirms the results of parliamentary and presidential elections, the bill would have given Law and Justice control not only over the courts, but also over electoral results (this was one of the bills that Mr. Duda vetoed).

In short, for the price of some applause, Mr. Trump gave Mr. Kaczynski the cover to carry out a coup. And what has the United States done since? The State Department issued a dry statement formulated not to offend the Polish authorities (We urge all sides to ensure that any judicial reform does not violate Polands Constitution).

Its unlikely that Mr. Trump meant to condone Mr. Kaczynskis power grab. But by not using his visit to press the Law and Justice leader to respect democracy, Mr. Trump gave his implicit imprimatur to a renewed campaign to get the bills into law. And while Mr. Duda showed political independence in vetoing two of the bills, he has otherwise been a faithful ally of Mr. Kaczynski. Well see if his new drafts will really run counter to Mr. Kaczynskis, or only extend Mr. Dudas own influence over the courts at the expense of Law and Justice.

The ultimate responsibility lies with Poles, and it is they who will have to respond as they have done admirably over the last few weeks, staging big protests that most likely pressured Mr. Duda into his vetoes. But until very recently, they wouldnt have had to go it alone: This is precisely the sort of situation in which previous American presidents could and would have used their countrys prestige to push for freedom and democracy. Instead, beyond the cheers of manufactured masses, all the Polish people hear from the White House is silence.

Slawomir Sierakowski is a sociologist, a founder of the Krytyka Polityczna movement and the director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Warsaw.

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A version of this op-ed appears in print on July 25, 2017, on Page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: Why Is Trump Silent on Poland?.

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Poland Turns Away From Democracy, Thanks to the US - New York Times

With Republicans dominating the White House, Congress and state governments, its no surprise that dominating the judiciary is the next goal. Efforts to control that independent branch of government have prompted debate on an obscure Senate rule called the blue-slip process.

Billionaire industrialist brothers David and Charles Koch, among leaders of the effort, urged supporters at a recent private retreat to work against the rule. The 100-year-old rule keeps judicial nominees from moving forward in Senate confirmation if a home-state senator objects.

The slim Republican margin in the U.S. Senate 52-48 has party bigwigs concerned that if the practice isnt eliminated, Democrats will retain too much power to delay or derail President Donald Trumps federal court nominees.

The Kochs one-page document on the rule urged attendees, who included many important Republicans, to press the issue with the Senates GOP leadership and other Republican senators they know. Tell them not to allow needless delay tactics and obstruction of the process, the document read.

The stakes are high. Trump arrived in office with more than 100 vacancies to fill on the federal bench, partly because Senate Republicans blocked many of President Barack Obamas nominees.

Nine of the countrys 13 federal appeals courts currently have a majority of Democratic presidents nominees. Among the 179 appeals court seats there are 21 vacancies. Trump has announced nine nominees for those courts and 22 for 107 lower court openings.

Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is pushing back. She says ending the practice would allow nominees to be hand-picked by right-wing groups, and accused the White House, the Koch brothers, and the conservative Judicial Crisis Network of falsely suggesting Democrats are trying to obstruct presidential nominees.

Democratic senators are considering nominees fairly, and many have long judicial records home-state senators must review carefully, Feinstein says. Scrutiny is most important when home-state senators were not consulted before nominees were chosen, she says, adding, and that goes for Democrats and Republicans.

Congressional rules that aim to keep the branches of government operating within the two-party system must be carefully preserved. If they work for both Democrats and Republicans, the party in the majority shouldnt opt to exercise their authority because it will come back to bite them.

Witness Democratic senators response to the Republican blockade of Obamas nominees in 2013. They changed the rules to allow simple-majority approval of judicial or executive branch nominations, enabling them to win swift victories for the presidents picks. That backfired when Democrats lost the majority and Republicans could approve Trumps Cabinet nominees with the lower, 51-vote threshold.

Americas federal court system is not perfect, but its not rigged, as Trump asserted. Efforts by billionaires to undermine judicial independence threaten our democracy.

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Maintaining an independent judiciary is critical for democracy - Manhattan Mercury (subscription)

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Update: On Monday morning, Polish President Andrzej Duda surprised virtually everyone by announcing he would veto the proposed legislation, a move likely in reaction to widespread mass protests against the ruling party's efforts to overhaul the judiciary.

The right-wing government in Poland is on a collision course with the European Union.

Over the weekend, a bill overhauling the countrys judiciary passed both chambers of the parliament. If it gets adopted, the ruling Law and Justice Party will be able to fill Poland's Supreme Court with its hand-picked allies. Critics warn it would be a profound step toward authoritarianism.

The measure has led to the biggest street protests since the populist conservative party came to power in 2015. Lech Walesa, the 73-year-old former president, joined demonstrators in the city of Gdansk, where he led landmark strikes in the 1980s that helped topple communism. He warned that the freedoms won by the anti-communist struggle are now under risk.

Our generation managed, in the most improbable situation, to lead Poland to freedom, he said to the crowd in the city'sSolidarity Square. You cannot let anyone interrupt this victory, especially you young people You must use all means to take back what we achieved for you.

Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council and a former Polish prime minister, described the legislation as anegation of European values and standards that would move us back in time and space backward and to the East. The East was less a geographic signifier than a marker for a different, darker era of Polish politics, when Warsaw was subject to the whims of Moscow and isolatedfrom Europe's liberal democracies.

A statement from the U.S. State Department urged the government to reconsider the bill, which it declared would undermine judicial independence and weaken the rule of law in Poland. Yet the White House seems to have sent a different message.

After all, it was in Warsaw earlier this monththat President Trump championed his vision of the West to a crowd of supporters bused in by the ruling party. Trump said nothing then about the importance of rule of law or the preservation of democratic institutions. Instead, he delivered a paean to blood-and-soil nationalism, anchored in antipathy to Islam and airy appeals to Christian values and the sacrifices of patriots.

Michal Kobosko, the director of the Atlantic Councils Warsaw Global Forum, told The Post that Trump's rhetoric clearly encouraged to move forward with their offensive against the courts.

In giving such a speech in such a place, Trump has confirmed Polands nationalist government in its isolationist and anti-democratic course,wrote Post columnist Anne Applebaum.

Polish President Andrzej Duda vetoed two out of three bills aimed at reforming Poland's judiciary July 24, after five days of protests, with tens of thousands of people on the streets. (Reuters)

That course has been charted by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the Law and Justice Party's co-founder and boss and the de facto leader of Poland. Both the country's prime minister and president are seen as loyal accomplices to Kaczynski's agenda. Protesters were staking their hopes on the latter PresidentAndrzej Duda to veto the widely unpopular legislation, but he is expected to sign it into law aftera few amendments.

Its implications are staggering.Heres the crowning blow in ending judiciary independence in Poland, wrote Monika Nalepa of the University of Chicago.Since the Minister of Justice already simultaneously holds the position of Prosecutor General, the ruling majority may now choose both the prosecutor AND the judge in every single court case.

For Kaczynski and his allies, though, the takeover is part of their project to renationalize Poland. Kaczynskisees the judiciary as infested with crypto-communists and liberals subordinated to foreign forces. He peddles various conspiracy theories, including his belief that Tusk and his liberal colleagues hatcheda plot that led to a 2010 plane crash in which Kaczynski'stwin brother died.

When the incident came up during a parliamentary debate about the judicial reforms last week, Kaczynski exploded. Don't wipe your treacherous mugs with the name of my late brother, he saidto his liberal adversaries.You destroyed him, you murdered him!This sort of polarizingrhetoric has become the stock-in-trade of politicians in nearby Hungary or Turkey, where illiberal conservatives have also set about subverting and transforming democracies in their image.

Kaczynski'spopulist platform built on Catholic piety, anti-cosmopolitannationalismand generous cash handouts won his party the support of close to 40 percent of Polish voters, and he may seek to consolidate that position through elections later this year. The liberal opposition, meanwhile, is floundering, asDer Spiegel observed.

The bedrock of [the liberal] political platform has always been the E.U.," noted the German magazine. Its vision is basically that so long as Poland is a reliable European partner, aid from Brussels will ensure prosperity for all. The trouble is that few people believe in this vision in the remote east of the country, in villages and small towns.

The protests against the new judicial reforms may present a galvanizing moment for the opposition. Last year, the government was forced to back down from an abortion ban after mass protests hit the streets.

We will show that we refuse to live without freedom, said Radomir Szumelda, a 45-year-old liberal activist, to my colleague Isaac Stanley-Becker. Young people who didnt live under communism may not know what that was like, but they are also joining us, and together we are saying that we cant go back.

But they may not get much assistance from the European Union. Despite the scolding statements coming from various corners, real punitive measures can only be slapped on Warsaw by a unanimous vote within the bloc. Hungary's illiberal prime minister, Viktor Orban, has already made clear that he would veto such censure.

And, looking further west, it's unlikely the American president another politician at war with liberalism and convinced of judicial plots against his rule will lift a finger toprevent Warsaw's slide away from Europe.

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Poland's war on democracy was aided by Trump - Washington Post

Following protests by thousands of Poles and threats from the European Union, Polish President Andrzej Duda unexpectedly vetoed two laws that would have dealt a serious blow to Polands increasingly-fragile democracy.

On Monday, Duda announced he would veto two of the three controversial bills passed by the Polish parliament last week that would have significantly reduced the judiciarys independence and essentially made the Supreme Court irrelevant.

"As president I don't feel this law would strengthen a sense of justice," Duda said in a statement on national TV, according to the BBC. "These laws must be amended."

Criticized as attacks on Polands democratic system of checks and balances, the bills called for the immediate dismissal of the high courts current judges, except those who had been chosen by Duda. It also would have given the ruling party the power to control who sits on the National Judiciary Council, which nominates Supreme Court judges.

The one bill that Duda did not veto gives the justice minister the right to select and dismiss judges in lower courts, according to the BBC.

Dudas decision came as a bit of a surprise given his leadership of the party that submitted the bills in the first place the right-wing, EU-skeptic, and nationalist Law and Justice Party (PiS). Since gaining control of the upper and lower parliamentary houses following the 2015 election, the party has worked to dismantle Polands checks and balances.

The presidents veto has at least temporarily put the brakes on the Law and Justice Partys efforts.

The two laws will now be sent back to the parliament to be rewritten. Even though the parliament has the power to override the presidents vetoes, it requires the agreement of 60 percent of lawmakers. The ruling Law and Justice Party only has a thin majority in parliament, and its unlikely that it could get enough support.

The presidents veto came just three weeks after President Donald Trump visited Warsaw, hailed the countrys democratic values, and praised it as a defender of the West. Critics questioned the wisdom of Trumps visit given the Polish governments increasingly anti-democratic practices, which include clamping down on state media and moving to restrict the right to democratic assembly.

It also comes as thousands of demonstrators protested against the governments attempt to control the Supreme Court and undermine the countrys democracy. After the bills were passed in the parliament early Saturday morning, there were mass protests in Warsaw, Polands capital, and more than 100 cities across the country, according to CNN.

The European Union, which Poland joined in 2004, also joined the opposition. It warned that the Polish government could be sanctioned and have its voting rights suspended if it passed the Supreme Court law.

Frans Timmermans, the European Commissions first vice president, said last week that the EU was very close to triggering Article 7, a never-before-used rule that allows the EU to suspend a member countrys voting rights. It was established to ensure that all EU countries respect the common values of the EU, according to Politico.

The US State Department also criticized the bills.

We urge all sides to ensure that any judicial reform does not violate Polands constitution or international legal obligations and respects the principles of judicial independence and separation of powers, the State Department said in a statement on Friday.

Protestors have celebrated the veto as a success, but they are now pushing for the president to also veto the third reform giving the justice minister control over the lower courts.

See more here:
Poland's president may have just saved its democracy for now - Vox