The state of democracy in Canada
CANADA VOTES While the U.N. rates us highly and we pride ourselves on being one of the world’s leading countries, statistics reveal deep and disturbing societal problems, says Allan C. Hutchinson
Now that the election bandwagon is about to hit the political road, it seems worthwhile to take stock of Canada’s democratic condition.
Notwithstanding the shenanigans of the sponsorship scandal, there is so much more to be concerned about in Canadian society and polity. The problems are deep and disturbing. Canada prides itself on being one of the world’s leading countries. And there is much to celebrate. In the United Nations’ annual Human Development Index, Canadians are confirmed to be living a long and healthy life, being educated and having a decent standard of living. Canada presently stands in 4th place, behind only Norway, Sweden, and Australia. Yet, upon closer inspection, Canadian democracy is in trouble. What now passes for “ democracy” is a very narrow, elite and shallow fulfilment of its ample promise. Canadians are less involved in governing themselves than they have been for many a decade. There is a sizeable and increasing “ democratic deficit.” And this gap between ordinary Canadians and those who govern them is actually getting bigger.
“ Democracy” is one of the most contested ideas in the political lexicon: its malleability is a part of its appeal. Yet almost all commentators accept that democracy has a “ formal” and a “ substantive” element. The most heated debate occurs over the importance and weight given to the balance between the two. Whereas some place emphasis on the processes by which people can participate in government and hold it accountable, others look as much to the substantive conditions in which people live. On both counts, there is “ trouble in paradise.”
For many, democracy is about elections. It is axiomatic that citizens receive a regular opportunity to select their representatives in fair and open elections.
Although there are other important features ( responsible government, entrenched rights, separation of powers, etc.), “ universal suffrage” is the legitimating bedrock of Canadian democracy. Yet there is little to celebrate in the reality of Canada’s democratic process:
In the 2004 election, fewer Canadians than ever voted. Of the 22,295,670 people registered to vote in the last federal election, 13,489,559 votes were cast — a 60.5 per cent turnout rate. The Liberals received 4,951,107 votes or 36.71 per cent of those who actually voted, but won 43.8 per cent ( 135 of 308) of the seats in the Commons and formed a minority government.
This means only 22.2 per cent of registered voters supported the governing Liberals. Indeed, due to the first- past-the-post system, the Liberals would have had exactly the same number of seats ( and thus power) if they had not received any votes in any of the ridings that they did not win. This means, in effect 2,813,762 — or 8.8 per cent of Canadians — elected the Prime Minister.
In the 2000 federal election, the Liberals received 41 per cent of the popular vote, but obtained 172 seats, or 57 per cent of the 301 seats in the Commons. More remarkably, the 1998 Quebec provincial election saw the Parti Québécois win the majority of seats ( 60.5 per cent) with the minority of votes ( 42.7 per cent) and the Liberal party win a minority of seats ( 38.7 per cent) with the majority of votes ( 43.7 per cent).
On the basis of the 1996 census, visible minorities comprised about 11.2 per cent of the Canadian population. In contrast, as McGill University political scientist and voter turnout specialist Jerome Black reports, visible minorities held only 6.3 per cent of the seats in the Commons after the 1997 election. Proportionality would have required the election of approximately 34 visible minority MPs rather than the 19 elected.
Although women comprise slightly more than half the population, there are only slightly more than 20 per cent of female parliamentarians. This compares poorly to other similarly placed countries, like Sweden, where the figure is more than 40 per cent.
Also, although the turnout for voters in the 18to 30- year age group increased by 55 per cent in the 2004 federal election, it still only accounted for 38.7 per cent of registered voters in that group. Judged by these facts, Canadians have little faith in the democratic process and represent a massive vote of no- confidence in the political system itself. Of course, electoral participation is not the only, or truest, indicator of democratic health.
While the formal element of the democratic process is important, a wide range of substantive measures are also significant.
At its starkest, a country that extended the vote to all citizens, but in which the bulk of the population lived in miserable conditions with
little education, employment prospects or
life expectancy, would hardly warrant
democratic praise.
Accordingly, Canadians rightly argue that
the substantive quality of daily life is a vital
indicator of democratic health.
In many respects, Canadians do very well in terms of the average conditions: There is a relatively high level of accessibility to health care, education, employment, and housing.
Nevertheless, the thing about statistics is that what they might reveal is interesting, but what they hide is crucial. As with much else, “ mean” calculations can be misleading. For instance, a nation’s absolute level of prosperity or its average level of wealth per citizen is not a reliable predictor of that society’s quality of life if there are still considerable numbers of people living in poverty and fear. A telling test of a country’s overall well- being is the median or, even better, the relative condition of its members — the extent of the gap in terms of the quality of life between the top 10 per cent and bottom 10 per cent of the population. A genuine commitment to democracy suggests that everyone should share in the good and bad fortune of that society.
Indeed, most Canadians and politicians regularly and proudly commit to such an idea. However, building on the initial work of Steve Kerstetter and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the reality belies the rhetoric:
The wealthiest 10 per cent of family units held 55.7 per cent of the wealth in 1999. The wealthiest 50 per cent of family units controlled more than 96.2 per cent of the wealth, leaving only 4.8 per cent for the bottom 50 per cent.
The poorest 10 per cent of family units have negative average wealth, or more debts than assets.
The poorest 20 per cent of families had financial assets of $ 1,974 on average in 1999 and their average income in 1998 was less than $ 18,920. If their current income suddenly disappeared, their financial assets would only be enough to keep the family afloat for about five weeks.
The richest 20 per cent of family units had average financial assets of $ 262,186 in 1999 and an average income of $ 100,587 in 1998. Financial assets were enough to replace normal income for more than two years.
The richest 20 per cent of family units owned 73.1 per cent of all personal wealth in 1999.
In 1999, 72 per cent of the $420 billion in RRSPs and other registered savings plans was held by the richest 20 per cent of family units. The richest 20 per cent also owned 94 per cent of the $92 billion in stocks outside RRSPs, and 81 per cent of the $80 billion in mutual and investment funds outside RRSPs.
This chastening picture might be less troubling if the most recent trends were toward reducing or modifying this state of affairs.
If that were so, debate could be joined on whether policies or initiatives for “ closing the gap” were proceeding quickly or successfully enough.
But, over the past decade or so, the trend has been in the opposite direction — the extent of inequality in wealth and income is getting worse and the gap between the haves and the have- nots is also getting worse.
Between 1984 and 1999, the richest 10 per cent of Canadians had more than a 7 per cent increase in their own net wealth. Over the same period, the poorest 10 per cent, whose debts had already exceeded their assets in 1984, suffered a further 20 per cent increase in debt.
In 1984, the gap between the number of families making less than $ 10,000 and those making more than $ 75,000 was only 1.2 per cent. In 2000, this gap had increased to 25.7 per cent, which means that those making more than $ 75,000 represented almost 30 per cent of the population, while those making under $ 10,000 had stayed roughly the same.
In 1984, while those making the most money ( more than $ 75,000) and those making the least ( under $ 10,000) represented just more than 5 per cent of the population each, 69.2 per cent of the population made between $ 10,000 and $ 49,999. In 2000, 20 per cent more families were making more than $ 50,000, while those under $ 10,000 remained around 5 per cent of the families.
Between 1984 and 2000, the average after- tax income of the poorest 20 per cent of families only increased by less than $ 1,000. Over the same period, the richest 20 per cent realized an increase of average after- tax income of more than $ 16,000. By any sort of democratic standard, all this is profoundly troubling. Celebrations about Canada being a wonderful place to live will ring hollow for those in its lower socio- economic reaches. The plain fact is that today’s poorer Canadians are poorer than their recent predecessors and are relatively poorer than richer Canadians.
As this were not disturbing enough, these
poorer Canadians are proportionately
likely to be female, older, non- white or recently immigrated than the population at
large.
In 1997, female one- parent families had
a poverty rate of 56 per cent, which was 42
per cent higher than all families combined.
In 1991, the poorest 20 per cent of workers of aboriginal identity made more than $ 2,500 less on average than the poorest 20 per cent of all workers combined.
The low-income rate for recent immigrants from Africa more than doubled between 1980 and 2000, increasing from 20.7 per cent to 45.8 per cent respectively, which is the greatest increase of all recent immigrant groups.
If you are part of the middle class or upper class, Canada might well be one of the best places to live in the world.
For others though, the situation is not reassuring and the prospects are not rosy. As we enter another election, complacency is the last stance that influential Canadian politicians and power- brokers should be adopting about the deeper structure and shape of Canadian society.
Without some recognition of this precipitous position, Canada is assured to relinquish its envied standing in the world community. More pertinently, it is destined to fail to meet its own historical standards and ambitions. Canadians deserve and should expect better from themselves and their politicians.