A BOOK ABOUT HOPE
How Canada can defeat threats to its democracy
The following excerpt is from the new book Restoring Democracy in an Age of Populists and Pestilence (Cormorant Books), a tome that author Jonathan Manthorpe describes as “a fast gallop over heavy ground” as he sets out what he thinks has gone wrong with liberal democracy in the last 40 years.
But, says Manthorpe, “This is not a book about failure. It is a book about hope. The threats to democracy can be beaten off and reversed.”
Viewed from the jet stream above the mid-atlantic, Canada looks like a bastion of democratic calm and stability in a turbulent neighbourhood. That picture is not wrong, but it is not complete. Even though Canada has avoided much of the social upheaval and fearmongering politics that have plagued much of Europe and the United States for over a decade, there are clear indications of voter exasperation, weakness before the temptations of populism and a willingness to be caught up in the politics of hate. This public antipathy stems from structural fatigue in some aspects of the Canadian political system and the divide that has grown between the country’s establishment and its voters. These weaknesses require addressing with some urgency, as the balance of global power is shifting with the relative decline of the U.S. and the growing economic, political and military influence of China, India and others. Very soon, Canada is going to be on its own in the world as it has not been before.
For the first half of its life as an independent nation, Canada was the eldest lion cub of the British Empire, a role that demanded huge sacrifices without expectation of recompense. For the second half of its life, Canada has been drawn into the U.S. national cordon of economic and strategic security. Neither of these relationships has been even-handed. In both, more was expected and taken from Canada than was given. But one of the benefits of that imbalance is that Canadian diplomacy, as it evolved after the Second World War, included the development of essential survival skills to surreptitiously promote and achieve Canadian objectives. Canadian diplomats tend to be masters of proceeding by indirection. And, to be fair, both London and Washington have often recognized Canada’s contribution to joint security by giving support for Ottawa’s particular foreign policy objectives. However, neither of those old allies now see Canada as an essential strategic partner, and both are entering periods where old alliances and friendships count for little. The vision for the U.K. of Boris Johnson and the Brexiteers appears to be a European version of Singapore or Hong Kong, a financial and trading centre with elements of Taiwan’s supremacy as a hub of technical innovation. It is a bold venture, but it is self-absorbed. The quest for self-sufficiency is even more pronounced in the U.S., a country that has regularly gone through periods of isolationist introspection.
A potent example of the changing times is the Huawei affair. On Dec. 1, 2018, Canadian border officials at Vancouver International Airport arrested Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of the Chinese communications technology giant Huawei Technologies. The previous August, the U.S. Department of Justice had issued an international warrant for her arrest and deportation to the U.S. on charges of fraud and circumventing Washington’s sanctions against Iran. On Dec. 10, 2018, Chinese officials took into custody two Canadians in China, former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor. It is hard not to interpret these subsequent arrests as retaliation and to consider the “two Michaels,” as they have come to be known in the popular press, as hostages of the regime in Beijing. At the time of writing in May 2020, the two Michaels face charges of threatening the security of the People’s Republic of China; they have been denied access to Canadian diplomats since January, ostensibly because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Meng is living in one of her two Vancouver mansions and is still waiting for her day in court, which has been delayed, also because of the coronavirus. The Huawei affair has become a subplot in the growing contest for power, authority and economic supremacy between Washington and Beijing. For Canada, which was only abiding by its commitment to the rule of law and respect for the international treaties it has signed, this affair has shown how impotent Ottawa is in this fast-changing international order. The Trump regime has done nothing to help Canada secure the release of the two Michaels or resolve the impasse, and Beijing has responded to Ottawa’s attempts to find a diplomatic solution with scorn and contempt.
This is a vision of the future. Canada could be sent no clearer message that it needs to find a new circle of friends and allies among middle powers with shared civic, strategic, and international values and interests. For that purpose, Canada’s democratic institutions must be fit for a rough passage in the coming decades. It is not at all certain that in the challenging years ahead, the way Canadian democracy currently works will be able to achieve a consensus view of the country’s national interests, keep voter confidence in the political system, and sustain good and equitable government in a vastly diverse country. And building a circle of dependable friends among middle-power democracies will not be a breeze. Despite what many Canadians like to think, this country is not universally envied or admired, even by friends and allies. Canadians often display an unattractive propensity for self-satisfaction and an irritating refusal to admit there are flaws in their own national culture, let alone a willingness to address those flaws with energy and urgency. The word that comes most persistently to foreign critics’ lips when describing Canada’s most unattractive characteristics is “supercilious.” Canadians can often be haughty and scornful, with an air of superiority.
As in other North Atlantic nations, a serious democratic deficit has metastasized through the Canadian body politic in recent decades. At the core of the disease are defects that were built into Canada as its creation was negotiated in the 1860s and brought to fruition in 1867. Canada is still hobbled by political and administrative institutions that were imported from Britain — a small, unitary state — and applied, largely unaltered, to the huge new confederation of geographically and culturally diverse regions that make up this country. Managing federal-provincial relations is a massive bureaucratic industry of muddle and compromise, conducted largely away from public view because efforts at reformation have usually brought national crises of confidence.
The lack of a clear-cut relationship between the provinces and Ottawa has often made the Supreme Court the arbiter of disputes. This has added to the political function of the court inherent in the 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms. There is a perception among a majority of the Canadian public that it is the Supreme Court that makes the rules on many questions about the values and mores that govern daily life in Canada. There are a few examples to support this view, but when push comes to shove, Parliament remains supreme. The problem is that many Canadians do not see Parliament as leading on social issues. They see the court as the place where liberal and progressive interpretations of the Charter are made. There is a vocal minority of social conservatives, of course, who see the same thing and find it absolutely abhorrent.
Despite what many Canadians like to think, this country is not universally envied or admired, even by friends and allies.
The influence of Members of Parliament and cabinet ministers has also been diminished by the effects of popular culture and the belief among campaign managers and party officials that pollsters know more about voters’ attitudes than their elected representatives.
The dominance of screen culture as the dictator of public perception has turned politics into a game of branding. The winner in Canadian politics is no longer the party whose policies the voters find most convincing and desirable but the party whose leader the screen audience finds most compelling.
As a result, Canada’s Parliament and its 10 provincial and three territorial legislatures have become little more than backdrops for the stage on which the government leaders perform.
Under the constant assault of cultural demands to conform to the dictates of screen culture, the media too has largely abandoned its traditional role as the Fourth Estate or has taken up that duty only as an afterthought. The responsibility of holding government to account is no longer the central driving force of media. Newspapers, magazines, radio and TV have become an amorphous hybrid of news and entertainment that gives what amounts to never-ending reviews of the performances of government leaders. Too often, the media no longer sees its duty as telling its audience what happened, when, why, how and by whom. Its drive has become to amass an online following by appealing to the preconceptions of particular audiences. The mission is no longer to broaden people’s knowledge and understanding but to present them with a narrow vision of the world that panders to their prejudices. This trend is not as pronounced in Canada as elsewhere, especially the U.S. and the U.K., but Canadian media is running mindlessly into that looming storm.
It is hard to find anyone, especially among those directly involved, who is happy with the way the Canadian political system is working today. And there is no shortage of politicians, partisans, academics and others who have written books, essays and reports brimming with ideas for remedies. The problem is the simple and perennial one in these kinds of circumstances: Who has the political will to rise to the occasion and confront the challenges the country faces?
To this end, there may prove to be a lasting benefit from the COVID-19 pandemic. The enormity of its assault on all aspects of Canadian life has provoked a readiness to examine national values, constraints and balances of power. It is possible that the coronavirus will inspire action on some fundamental rethinking on political, democratic, economic and cultural priorities.
Until then, government leaders have little interest in promoting the authority and influence of Parliament over legislative affairs. After all, a reinvigoration of Parliament and the legislatures would only make life more difficult for the prime minister or premier in a world already kept constantly off-balance by the 24-hour news cycle and the increasingly potent vexations of social media.
The danger for Canada is that its democratic deficit will get worse and potentially become fatal unless it is addressed and remedied. The politics of fear and hatred are already well-established in several parts of the country, most notably Ontario, Quebec and the West, and those infections are being fed by unscrupulous partisans. Meanwhile, there is the proliferation of social media as the medium that brings most Canadians their news and which for commercial purposes tries to ensure the news they are sent reinforces what they already believe. This is a recipe for polarization of society, as is all too evident in the U.S. Left unreformed, large segments of the Canadian voting public will soon be fixed in extreme views and beyond the reach of centrist political influence.
Throughout the process of putting this book together, I have been struck by the failure of political parties across the North Atlantic region to recognize and adjust to what has actually concerned mainstream voters in the last four decades. I found this failure even more striking because I lived through and reported for newspapers on many of the events dealt with in this book. I didn’t see the broader context at the time any better than anyone else.
Yet looking back over the lessons of the last 40 years, it is obvious that far too many political parties are totally out of touch with their constituents. More than that, they have been hijacked by a culture of political gamesmanship in which the voters are almost an afterthought. When asked about their responsibilities to democracy, far too many political operatives say their only duty is to win an election. The nurturing of democratic culture in their home countries is nothing to do with them.
It is this virulent “winners and losers” attitude that has polarized and poisoned party politics; this is especially true in the U.S., but the symptoms are visible in other North Atlantic democracies, including Canada. For decades there has been an affinity between how politics and sports are played. Just as sports have largely abandoned sportsmanship and tipped into a culture where it is not enough to win a game, one must humiliate the opponent, so it is with politics.
As they scan the state of democracy in Europe and North America, political parties should recognize that they need to go through a serious process of self-examination. Central to that should be consideration of their relationships with voters, the degree to which they listen and are driven by voters’ concerns and what they do — or neglect to do — to provide political solutions to what ails their constituents.
I have also come to believe that political parties have a responsibility to promote voter participation in the democratic process as a whole. Where parties do approach voters, it is usually in the hunt for committed members, though even this is far less common than it used to be. That is not enough. If parties don’t seek to promote democracy as well as their own platforms, voters will continue to do what they are doing now, and with greater fervour. They will run to increasingly politicized courts, or they will gather around the first glib anti-establishment salesman who climbs on a soapbox and beguiles them with a simple remedy for their problems. Build a wall. Expel foreigners. Regain sovereignty. Lock up the opposition. Blame the media.
Jonathan Manthorpe is the author of three books on international relations, politics and history, including the national bestseller Claws of the Panda: Beijing’s Campaign of Influence and Intimidation in Canada. Over his 50-year career as a journalist, he has been the foreign correspondent in Asia, Africa and Europe for Southam News, the European bureau chief for The Toronto Star and the national reporter for The Globe and Mail. For the last few years he has been based in Victoria.