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By Andrew MacDougall By Andrew MacDougall April 26

Andrew MacDougall is a columnist for the Ottawa Citizen and a contributor to the Globe and Mail, CBC.ca and Macleans Magazine. He was formerly director of communications forthen-Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

From a Canadian perspective, the most striking thing about J.J. McCulloughs take on Canadas democracy was its uncharitability.

It was uncharitable to Canada, uncharitable to apples-to-apples comparisons, and, most of all, uncharitable to the thousands of Turkish democrats currently clogging President Recep Tayyip Erdogans jails.

Underpinning McCulloughs lack of charity is a lack of clarity about what, exactly, makes up a democracy. A democracy is much more than its legislature; it is its voters, activists, journalists and the freedom for these groups and others to criticize and oppose elected power.

Want proof?

Why else has Erdogan spent so much capital in the wake of last summers aborted coup jailing journalists, judges and activists? In Erdogans parallel fight to crush the Kurds and supporters of Fethullah Gulen, his former comrade in bringing Islam into Turkish public life, Erdogan has also purged much of the military leadership.

The recent referendum in Turkey was meant to draw the ladder up after Erdogan reached the summit of power so that no one could threaten or replace him. This might please the soft Islamist masses Erdogan brought into democratic politics, but it terrifies those who have watched warily as hehas dismantled the secular state built by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. It wasnt, as McCullough suggests, to make government more effective, at least not in any way a Western democrat would understand.

No Canadian prime minister could or would mimic Erdogans self-serving power grab, although McCulloughs essay would lead its readers to think Canadas prime minister is already there.

Yes, the prime minister of a majority government in a Westminster parliament is a powerful figure, too powerful for some. Yes, the prime minister appoints senators to Canadas unelected upper house. But heres the thing, he or she doesnt appoint all of them in one go, they are appointed when vacancies arise, which ensures a polyglot Senate, barring, of course, a particularly long run for a prime minister in the elected lower house, itself the most important metric of democracy.

The same goes for Canadas judiciary. A prime minister appoints judges, usually on the recommendation of the relevant advisory committees, to a number of important benches, including the Supreme Court. Here, the judges will bump into colleagues of different political persuasions, put into function by the prime ministers predecessors in office.

Barking at the prime minister each and every step of the way on these and other appointments is an army of journalists, pressure groups and opposition politicians. This is the oversight McCullough overlooks. If a particularly egregious appointment is made, the Canadian people will certainly hear about it, even if the prime minister, as McCullough notes, has a hand in appointing the higher-ups at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Of course, the ultimate guarantor of Canadian democracy is its people, who vote in wonderful things called free and fair elections every four years (or so). If the voters dont like the actions taken by a prime minister or his or her government including its appointments (just ask former prime minister Stephen Harper aboutMike Duffy) they can show that government the door. Indeed, this is what brought Justin Trudeau and his Liberal Party to power after nearly 10 years of Harper and his Conservatives.

And it will be what replaces Trudeau when the time comes.

While the fact that a Canadian prime minister can govern a majority of the legislature with a minority of the popular vote is a curse to some, its a blessing for me. It gives a strong mandate to those in power, and clear accountability when those in power fail to deliver. There is none of the finger-pointing of messy coalition governments like those in Israel, say, or any of the blame-shifting routinely visited upon the U.S. Congress by its occupants. A pox by voters put on both the House of Representatives and the Senate is a large reason why an outsider such as Donald Trump was elected president of the United States.

Put simply, the civil society that a legislature sits atop matters, as much as it matters the intention of the man or the woman at the pinnacle of power.

A country such asCanada, a federation with no history of military insurrection or populist coups, a country not riven with strict religious divides, can tolerate a highly centralized federal government elected freely and fairly through first-past-the-post pluralities that fall short of an overall majority vote.

Turkey, a country with a vastly different history and civil society, cannot. That is why Western democrats are worried. And why Canadas democracy is worth celebrating.

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Canada's democracy is the worst, except for all others - The ... - Washington Post

Across the world, experts say democratic states are facing their biggest test in years as they attempt to cope with a loss of trust in public institutions and growing disenchantment with the political elite.

From Brexit to the US election and beyond, recent exercises in democracy have been driven by divisive political rhetoric, delivered razor-thin margins of victory, and led to the results being contested not only in the courts but in the streets.

Perhaps the biggest cause of the political turmoil of recent years is the growing contempt that millions of people have for the version of democracy offered up to them by establishment leaders in the West.

Ignored by mainstream political parties and fed up with economic stagnation -- and in some cases fearful of the impact of immigration -- voters in Europe and beyond are lashing out at the polls.

The first big shock to the system came last June, when Britons voted to leave the European Union. Five months later, Americans stunned the world by electing Donald Trump to be President.

But if Brexit and Trump shifted the political landscape towards a more populist future, Puddington believes the roots of the issue go back to the financial crisis of 2008.

The EU's inability to pull the bloc out of its economic slump -- and its failure to deal with the migration crisis -- contributed to the rise of anti-establishment parties across the continent.

"I would say that democracies have had to confront a number of important crises," Puddington said. "And for some of them there is no single answer."

The answer, in many countries, has been a lurch towards far right politicians.

In France, Marine Le Pen, the National Front leader, is aiming to capitalize on the anti-Europe, anti-immigrant vote as she pursues the French presidency on a platform that she hopes will appeal to those who believe they have been left behind by globalization.

If elected, Le Pen has promised to curtail immigration, hold a referendum on whether France should leave the EU, and protect France from the twin evils of "Anglo-Saxon multiculturalism" and politically correct liberalism, although she would face major parliamentary and constitutional hurdles to do so.

The result of the first round amounted to a comprehensive rejection of traditional politics in France. It was the first time since the establishment of the fifth French Republic in 1958 that no candidate from the two main political parties of the left and right has made it into the second round of the presidential vote.

"It is true that the insecurities are on a few different levels," she said. "Politicians have been terrible at managing that change."

The winds of change may be sweeping through France, but the political landscape of many European countries have already been transformed.

Voters in Poland, Hungary and Turkey have thrown their support behind populist governments who have become increasingly authoritarian in recent years.

"Autocrats claim to have solutions -- they may not do, it may all be a fantasy, but they portray themselves as people of action and people with plans," Puddington said. "They present themselves as people who will make their country great, and some [voters] are convinced."

Brexit, like the US election and the Turkish referendum, ended with a result that left the country bitterly divided.

The vote, won by the Leave campaign with a slim margin of 52%-48%, led to protests, a long period of national introspection, and the end of David Cameron's tenure as Prime Minister.

Cameron's successor Theresa May was charged with leading the UK through the aftermath of the referendum and invoking Article 50, the trigger for divorce proceedings with the EU.

But the fallout from the result has continued, with court cases, mass protests and hours of debate in both the House of Commons and House of Lords.

The conduct of the vote was criticized by international monitors, who said that "the legal framework remained inadequate for the holding of a genuinely democratic referendum."

All three results were met with angry demonstrations, calls for the authorities to invalidate the results, and cries of dishonesty, "fake news" and foul play.

"The thing about populist leaders and campaigns is that they can run fast and free with the truth because their rule is to be outside of the establishment," said Gaston. "They don't necessarily need complex policies in the way mainstream parties do. What they need to offer is a feeling of safety.

"They campaign on control and exclusion," she added. "We saw this in the Brexit campaign. It was not a fluke that the campaign message was 'take back control.'"

Taking back control is what Theresa May is attempting to do -- not just in Europe but at home too.

Observers believe the move was designed to allow her party -- currently enjoying a healthy lead in the polls -- to crush the opposition at the ballot box and silence dissenting voices in Parliament as Brexit negotiations pick up speed.

May was outspoken in her criticism of opposition parties in Westminster, claiming they had jeopardized her government's task of negotiating the best deal for Britain with the EU.

"Our opponents believe, because the government's majority is so small, that our resolve will weaken and that they can force us to change course," she said. "They are wrong."

Britain's populist, pro-Brexit press rode in to support May the morning after the announcement. The Daily Mail hailed her call to "Crush the saboteurs," as the paper put it. The Sun declared that the snap poll would "kill off Labour" and "smash rebel Tories too."

Some critics said the election made little sense given the public's apathy for another vote, less than a year after the pain of the Brexit referendum. Others noted May's seeming anger at the fact there was any opposition to her Brexit plans at all, despite the narrow margin of victory for the Leave campaign.

"May talks indefinitely about the country being unified over Brexit now but it's not really the case. It is pretty much the same as it was on the day of the referendum. There was a split down the middle -- some people think it's a good thing, some people think it's a bad thing.

"She's taking this imagined will of the people and acting if she has a monopoly over it and that's a very common tactic used by dictators across the world. Any opposition to her is an opposition to the country. She's doing a very watered down version of that."

In its 2017 report, the group singled out countries like Poland and Hungary, who have used democratic means to achieve undemocratic aims in recent years.

Poland's right wing Law and Justice party has only been in power since 2015, but its leaders have already managed to restrict the right to protest, grant extra surveillance powers to security services, and curtail the powers of the country's constitutional court. It has also proposed tough new legislation on NGOs while cracking down on media.

The developments in Poland have been similar to those in Hungary, where the ruling Fidesz party under Prime Minister Viktor Orban has created what Freedom House has labeled an "illiberal democracy."

Earlier this month Orban caused outrage by attempting to force the Central European University in Budapest -- founded by Hungarian-American billionaire and democracy advocate George Soros -- to move out of the country, which led to mass protests on the streets of the capital.

The university flap heaped more tension onto Hungary's already fractious relationship with its neighbors. The EU and Budapest are currently locked in a dispute over migration quotas and the treatment of refugees inside camps on the Hungarian border.

Orban, in power since 2010, has sailed upon on a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment in Hungary in recent years. He has justified his hardline stance on migrants by labeling them "a Trojan Horse of terrorism."

But Orban is not the only authoritarian leader to have a frosty relationship with the EU.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has clashed with Europe over a number of issues, including a contentious deal designed to prevent Syrian migrants from reaching the continent. More worrying to some, however, is the increasingly autocratic tone emanating from the presidential palace in Ankara.

Erdogan's victory in this month's referendum, which will allow him to assume sweeping new powers, has been fiercely criticized by those who believe he has exploited democratic processes to tighten his authoritarian grip on the country.

Under the revised constitution, Erdogan will be able to abolish the post of Prime Minister and assume broad new powers to rule by decree. The new arrangements give him the power to appoint a cabinet and some senior judges. The power of Parliament to scrutinize legislation is curbed.

Erdogan has already transformed a largely ceremonial office into a strong powerbase, instituting a widespread crackdown on dissent that intensified after a failed coup last year. More than 47,000 people have been arrested since the foiled coup, and nearly 200 journalists are behind bars.

While 49% of voters mourned the loss of the referendum Sunday as the death of democracy in Turkey, one Erdogan supporter had a piece of advice for the President's critics.

"This is a message to the world to shut up," she said. "Turkey is getting stronger."

Graphics by CNN's Henrik Pettersson.

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Has democracy reached a breaking point? - CNN

France (and many of the worlds governments) has figured out that the only way to secure democracy is to require an electoral majority.

What Other Countries Know: Fairer [...]

Founder and leader of the political movement 'En Marche!' Emmanuel Macron speaks after winning the lead percentage of votes in the first round of the French presidential elections at Parc des Expositions Porte de Versailles on April 23, 2017 in Paris. (Photo by Aurelien Meunier/Getty Images)

This post originally appeared at Yes Magazine.

The remarkable Robert Maynard Hutchins, a law professor, chancellor of the University of Chicago and founder of the Center for Democratic Institutions, once proposed a working definition of democracy. A democratic community is a self-governing community, Hutchins said. Every member of the community must have a part in his government. The real test of democracy is the extent to which everybody in society is involved in effective political discussion.

This is a question facing the United States like never before. This weekend, for example, we witnessed democracy in action in France. And it was a democracy where every member played a part.

France (and many of the worlds governments) has figured out that the only way to secure democracy is to require an electoral majority, 50 percent plus 1. That means there are two elections: one that allows every party and every member to have a voice, then a second round that forces voters to elect a leader with a majority.

Electoral democracy in the United States is both unfair and weak.

Its because of this process that I didnt think Marine Le Pen and her far-right party would ever run France. She earned enough votes to get through the first round she could have even won then. But getting to a majority? I think not.

This same scenario played out in The Netherlands. Before the election there were many news stories about the potential impact of far-right candidate Geert Wilders and his anti-Europe and anti-immigrant views. Indeed, his Freedom Party did gain seats in the Parliament. But it was always unlikely that Wilders would ever form a government. Yes, he could win seats. Even the most seats. But a governing majority? No.

This is where electoral democracy in the United States is both unfair and weak.

Beyond the Electoral College failings, pull back and look at the bigger picture. President Donald Trump was elected with 46.1 percent of the vote, even though Hillary Clinton earned 48.2 percent. Minor-party candidates including Jill Stein and Gary Johnson picked up 5.7 percent.

But what if that was merely round one? Then Trump and Clinton would have campaigned again, one on one, and one of the candidates would have reached the magic mark of 50 percent plus 1.

Consider past elections. President Barack Obama won both of his elections with a majority in 2012 and 2008. And President George W. Bush would have been re-elected in 2004. But George Bush and Al Gore would have needed a runoff because neither had a majority. Same goes for Bill Clinton, who never did win a majority (43 percent in 1992 and 49.3 percent in 1996).

The point here is that US electoral politics has a structural problem, and structural problems can be fixed.

There are more democratic ways for the people to be represented in their government.

Many states have already done so. Republicans in Congress are giddy because there will be a runoff election in Georgia, where Democrat Jon Ossoff fell short last week in his bid to replace Tom Price. He only earned 48.1 percent of the vote and will now face Republican Karen Handel. This is likely to be a close race. But whoever wins will have done it with a majority. There will be no question about the legitimacy of the peoples message.

Yes, the Electoral College is a problem. So is the structure of the US Senate, where a vote from Wyoming is worth 15 times more than a vote from California. And the House has its own version of structure that is terrible for democracy: Gerrymandering and geography meant Republicans,in 2016, received just under 50 percent of the votes yet earned 55.2 percent of the seats.

There are more democratic ways for the people to be represented in their government.

States and cities have experimented with proportional representation, which gives every citizen a voice. In a liberal Western city, that means conservative voters could count on at least a percentage of the seats. Or vice versa.

One way to make a proportional system work is an instant runoff election. This process involves voters choosing a favorite candidate, then a second pick and a third. In each round the candidates with the lowest number of votes are eliminated mathematically. The winner earns a majority. Bernie Sanders favors such a system because it allows people to vote for what they really want without worrying about the possibility of them getting what they really dont want.

How do we make election reform happen? As a start, without the drawn-out process of a constitutional amendment, Congress could require a second round of presidential voting before the Electoral College meets. That still might not result in a majority, but at least it would be a step in the right direction.

A democratic country or community ought to be self-governing in a way that allows every member a fair part in effective political discussion. We must get there if we claim to be a democracy.

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Fairer Representation Makes a Stronger Democracy - BillMoyers.com

From a Canadian perspective, the most striking thing about the supposed anti-democratic political reforms approved by Turkish voters last week was their familiarity.

The majority of powers the Turkish president gained the freedom to appoint cabinet ministers and senior judges without parliamentary approval, the power to unilaterally dismiss parliament, the power to decree certain sorts of laws without parliament at all are all powers the Canadian prime minister already has. Yet no one would claim Canada is less than a full democracy, and its worth pondering why.

We can certainly question the Turkish governments intentions. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has clear authoritarian tendencies and exists in a country with an authoritarian political culture. Turkey experienced multiple military coups throughout the past century including an attempted one inJuly and governments have routinely used state power and violence to trample the liberties of their critics.

Yet the Erdogan administrations official justification for the referendum (and presumably the motive of the 51percent of Turks who voted for it), that is, the need to make government more efficient and effective, is a common justification for the more authoritarian aspects of the Canadian political system as well. Any Canadian loudly worrying about the replacement of Turkish democracy with what amounts to a dictatorship in the words of the Globe and Mail editorial board should take a moment to consider how Canadas political system would look if a third world tinpot proposed adopting it.

Canadian prime ministers come to power by winning control of the lower house of Parliament, an achievement which almost never requires winning a majority of the popular vote. PMs then appoint members of the upper house directly, which means it can be taken for granted that any legislation they propose will quickly sail into law. The ruling party is run as a rigid hierarchy, and the notion of a free vote in Parliament, where MPs can vote their conscience rather than the prime ministers, are rare enough to require a distinctive term. Virtually every figure of importance in Ottawa, from cabinet members to judges to senior bureaucrats to committee chairs to military leaders to the head of the state broadcaster, are appointed by the prime minister with no oversight or veto by anyone.

Analysis of Canadian prime ministers revolves mostly around their competence in implementing an agenda, given theres little question the office has all the power it needs. Right-wing critics of former Tory prime minister Stephen Harper, for instance, almost exclusively criticize the last four years of his administration in which he held a solid majority of seats in Parliament for its lack of ambition, and such criticisms stick because unlike, say, an American president, there are no formal political checks to blame. Harper faced no legislative chamber controlled by the opposition party, nor a rebellious Freedom Caucus within his own. The Canadian Supreme Court did repeatedly overturn a number of his legislative initiatives, but by the end of his term Harper had appointed seven of the courts nine justices, so whose fault was that?

The realities of the Canadian system are controversial, but not universally so. Many Canadians occupying elite positions in the media or politics actually spend a fair amountof time defending the status quo or arguing for things to get even more regressive. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, for instance, has been a long-time defender of an appointed Senate, and Michael Chong, a would-be leader of the Conservatives, successfully pushed for a new law allowing elected prime ministers to be deposed and replaced mid-term by their parliamentary caucus, similar to what is done in Australia.

The justification is always efficiency. The United States, with its feuds between the White House and Congress, and contentious Supreme Court nomination hearings, is often explicitly cited as an example to avoid, a system in which nothing gets done because there are too many competing poles of democratic authority. The central premise of the Canadian system, in which a prime minister is elected once every four years and given more or less free rein to do as he wishes, is considered basically correct, with talk of reform occurring mostly at the margins (i.e., who should prepare the list of Senate nominees for the prime minister to consider?).

It would be nice if Canadians and progressive Canada-admirers abroad could ditch the disingenuousness when judging the constitutional shenanigans of leaders such as Erdogan, Russian President Vladimir Putin or Venezuelan President Nicols Maduro. Whats feared is not a political system, but the particular ideologue running it. Whats feared is chauvinistic strongmen, not strongmen per se.

To a certain faction, after all, subjecting a leader such asTrudeau to the restraints of the U.S. Constitution making his dreams of legalized marijuana, a perfectly gender-balanced cabinet, or a generous intake of Syrian refugees that much harder to implement would be seen as no less a global tragedy than anything going on in Turkey.

Link:
Canada is not a great democracy, but do we care? - Washington Post

The Peace Tower is seen on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on November 5, 2013. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

Evaluating democracies is tricky work. There are competing conceptions of how a state should be organized and of which rules are bestindeed, weve disagreed with one another over this for thousands of years. Some prefer a participatory state, where individual citizens play an active role in self-government; others prefer an arrangement where very little is asked of citizens and in which governments are left to their own devices (between elections). Some want there to be as many elected positions in the country as possible, including, for instance, judges, so that popular control of who governs extends widely across the state; others argue that too much democracy leads to populist excesses and poor outcomes. There are many models of democracy that reflect a variety of values, priorities, and conceptions of how we ought to live together.

Canada is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy. Roughly, this means that our government is formed by the party or group of parties that can obtain and maintain the confidence of the legislature, and that our sovereign (and head of state) is bound by the Constitution. We also have regular free and fair elections, a legitimate judiciary, and a robust set of rights and freedoms. I hope youll pardon the quick civics lesson, but a recent piece by J.J. McCullough in the Washington Post has me concerned that one is necessary.

In a column initiallyheadlined Is Canada really a truedemocracy? and now titled Canada is not a great democracy, but do we care?, McCullough argues that Canada is not a great or full democracy because of excessive executive powers wielded by the prime minster and the Cabinet, especially wide-ranging appointment authority; strict party discipline; and a lack of American-style checks and balances. He caricatures defenders of the system by suggesting all they care about is efficiency and suggests that those who support Canadian democracy and criticize authoritarian or quasi-authoritarian leaders such as Recep Tayyip Erdoan, Vladimir Putin, or Nicols Maduro are being disingenuous. In doing this, McCullough sneaks in a false equivalency between Canada, one of the worlds top-ranked democracies, and Turkey, Russia, and Venezuela (which, spoiler, dont rank so highly) while caricaturing the Canadian system.

Here are some of the many reasons McCullough is confused and wrong. For one, while efficiency is one of the goods produced by the Canadian democratic system, accountability is central to how things operate here. When a single government with broad powers (which are constrained by ordinary law and by the Constitution, which is hard to alter) acts, it must answer to both the House of Commons (in which individual members of Parliament are, admittedly, underpowered) and to the electorate come election time. In Canada, theres a long, proud tradition of turfing governments that have become unpopular.

Over time, governments in Canada have also provento be responsive to the populationindeed, far more so than in the United States, a country for which McCullough betrays a bizarre endearment coupled with a shallow understanding of it. Despite how things may seem, folks here tend to get the policies and laws they prefer on most matters, at least eventually. So, not only are governments accountable to the House of Commons (day-to-day) and to the people (during elections), the work they do delivers what the people want. And when you take a broader view of Canadian democracy, things look even better. We enjoy a robust and active civil society and a free press, which act as further checks on the government and the state.

So, thus far, we have an efficient government that is constrained by ordinary and constitutional law, accountable to the Commons and the people, responsive to the population, and further checked by civil society and the press. The same cannot be said quite the same way of Turkey, Russia, Venezuela or, when it comes to responsiveness, of the United States.

Our country is marked by extensive civil liberties, a vibrant political culture, moderate political participation rates (on this we could do much better), a well-functioning government, vibrant pluralism, and regular, legitimate elections. These goods correspond to The Economists Democracy Indexan imperfect index, as all are, but a reliable one. Its no surprise that in 2016 Canada ranked 6th in the world (as a full democracy, compared to the United States, which sits at 21st and is classified as a flawed democracy).

What McCullough is expressing is not that Canada isnt a great or full democracy, but rather thathe doesnt like how our democracy works.Fair enough. Some dont. But when arguing about whether a country is a democracy or not, its cowardly, foolish, disingenuous, or some combination of the three, to smuggle in ones own definition of democracy, especially the unsophisticated and incomplete model offered by McCullough, to set up a straw-man attack against a system you find distasteful.

McCullough would have been better off arguingwhy he believes that a more populist, further-constrained, and legislature-dominant model would be more appropriate and democratic than the current model, which has served Canada well and made us one of the most robust and resilient democracies on the planet. Of course, shadowboxing is easier than battling a proper opponent, just as caricaturing Canadian democracy while lumping our country in with authoritarian regimes is easier than engaging with the layered and complex nature of how things work here. Sadly, though, facile hot-takes enjoy a marketand theyre certainly permitted in our democracy. Lucky us.

Read more:
Canada is a great democracy. But you need to understand it. - Macleans.ca