Editor’s Letter

About this time last year, when The Walrus Magazine first turned to the fact of an upcoming federal election, our editors anticipated an issue filled with profiles of party leaders and their platforms — the traditional terrain of any general-interest magazine. At the time, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also looked poised for a fairly straightforward reelection. As one long-time political spectator told me, “It’s his to lose.”

Then the Snc-lavalin scandal broke this past February. Over the following weeks, a cloud of uncertainty about what had happened dominated the news, culminating with the eviction from caucus of ex–attorney general Jody Wilson-raybould and Jane Philpott, ex-president of the Treasury Board. Questions about the transparency of our political process and the stability of the status quo hung in the air. The future of Liberal leadership seemed less assured.

At this point, we could have merely changed tack — chased the fortunes of prospective winners and losers until election day. The current journalistic climate — in which mainstream media outlets, independent websites, and social-media platforms compete for audience share — tends to reward news organizations for being first, not most accurate. Our passion for breaking news is antithetical to the kind of in- depth, fact-checked reporting The Walrus prioritizes, and it obscures a much bigger question, one that refuses to go away. In recent years, political developments such as 2017’s Cambridge Analytica scandal, which revealed that the firm had collected millions of Facebook users’ data to potentially sway people’s votes,

have left people worried and wondering: Is our political system compromised? It’s increasingly difficult to know whether the responsibility to fix it lies with social-media giants, politicians, or journalists. The biggest story of this election year is the state of democracy itself.

In this issue of The Walrus, our contributors have taken a step back to look at why we vote the way we do — and how that’s changing. In her cover story, “Is Canada Broken?” Sarmishta Subramanian — a former editor at this magazine as well as at the Literary Review of Canada — takes on an ambitious question. Drawing on some of the latest academic research and analysis from political experts, her wide-ranging essay considers such factors as the decline of liberal democracy in Europe and the extreme partisanship of the United States, concluding that Canadians shouldn’t necessarily view this country through the filter of what is happening elsewhere.

In “Margin of Error,” Max Fawcett explores the rise of algorithms and social-media data as alternatives to traditional polling methods. Fawcett’s feature illustrates why an election in 2019 isn’t the same as the elections of a generation ago, or even the most recent federal election in 2015: technology, in particular the use of smartphones and social media, has greatly disrupted our relationship with the electoral process and changed the rules of the game.

For “Independent Streak,” an in- depth profile, Jason Mcbride spoke with Jane Philpott, MP for Markham– Stouffville, who is running in the next election as an independent candidate. Philpott became a familiar name to many Canadians this past year, in part because of her association with Wilson-raybould in the Snc-lavalin saga. Mcbride follows Philpott as she gears up for her campaign, showing a candid side of the MP few have had a chance to see, and talks to her about why she decided to run for office without the support of a political party .

The Walrus is nonpartisan by nature — as a charitable nonprofit with an educational mandate, our organization will never endorse a particular party or candidate. However, we are deeply invested in political discussion and engagement. Throughout this election period, we’re continuing our examination of democracy through a new partnership with the Samara Centre for Democracy, a non-profit research agency. Our collaboration on an original survey explores Canadians’ attitudes toward the democratic process, political polarization, and the ways we broach complex issues such as income inequality, immigration, and pipelines.

Read more about the findings, and find our extended online series on democracy, at thewalrus.ca/democracy. We hope that, as always, you’ll add your voice.

— Jessica Johnson