The State of Democracy in Canada

The leadership has confirmed these changes by initiating reforms on the campaign spending, electoral process and on cyber attacks. The journalism sector has been greatly affected in this new age of digital marketing and therefore the role of media as a democracy watchdog has been reduced. This paper will attempt to expound on the state of democracy in Canada, showing how the system is broken and in dire need of quick and forward reforms. Although (Stewart and Prest 1) admits that there has been progress towards reforms in various democratic areas, a lot needs to get done in terms of public education since most Canadians are stifling the reform process. In this case, I want to believe that Canada is a state which does not practice democracy as it should do and much is needed to improve the citizens’ democratic rights.

(Tanguay 11)states that this exposes the significant flaws of the democratic system. Since the voting system is the central part of any democratic system, it follows that we should analyze the Canadian voting system. In Canada, the place of residence and what political party you ascribe to determine whether one will be represented in parliament (Couture 3). Critics of this system state that it fails to give majority representation. It also eliminates any sense of accountability for the leaders and therefore citizens are left at a loss. With very few parliamentary seats allocated towards these groups. There is evidence showing improved outcomes that stem from countries adapting to proportional representation (Couture 10). Some of the benefits include; fairer elections, increased voter participation, a diverse and representative parliament and the citizenship is more satisfied since their voices and views are heard.

There are other voter system proposals that have been suggested by scholars to replace the current obsolete one. Canada's law commission suggests employing the mixed-member proportional system. Although the present government has made promises to solve the water problem, all the plans initially put in place have been put on hold due to poor regulations. The people of Grassy Narrows and Wabaseemoong are still being affected by mercury poisoning despite being one of the first communities to settle in Northwestern Ontario. Most of these reports are yet to be addressed as politicians continue to shift blame and responsibility (Human Rights Watch). The report also indicates that young girls and women from these indigenous communities face the most abuse and violence despite being a small proportion of the population.

This group is characterized by high rates of homicides and cases of kidnapping. With this many human violations examples, a lot of reforms need to be put in place to make Canada an effective democracy. The enactment of the Bill C-51 (anti-terrorism Act) in 2015 has caused an uproar because of its capacity to infringe of people's human rights thereby undermining Canada's democracy. (MacDonald) state that is poisonous to democracy because proposed criminal code of offense includes personal conversations and blameless remarks. The scope of the offenses covered is very broad. Critics say that this proposal limits the freedom of expression since it disallows counseling someone in regards to terrorist attacks. A properly selected senate that is not influenced by external powers but allocates time to review policy will improve the undemocratic political climate in Canada.

Reforms are urgently needed in order to allow the senate to curb the powers of the prime minister (Sotiropoulos 33) Following a talk by Edward Snowden at McGill University on the actions of Montreal police who were attacking the Canadian press, the world was shown how undemocratic measures are taken to tame the press in the country (Wong 7). The snowden 2013 leaks had exposed police spying antics on 6 journalists, three from Radio-Canada. This led to a public outrage as tracking was seen as violation of the freedom of expression (Wong 7). This monitoring on press officers indicates an abuse of power by authorities. " Where you see wrong or inequality or injustice, speak out, because this is your country. This is your democracy. Make it.