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Tom Monto

CPAC panel discussion Threat to Civility and Fight for Liberal Democracy Aug. 23, 2024

Rosalie Silberman Abella formerly of the Can. Supreme Court

Luis Roberto Barroso

Vikas Swarup author of Slumdog Millionaires


hosted by CBC's Nahlah Ayed


Abella put it (to general agreement) that liberal democracy is faith-based system where legislatures represent the majority, and courts defend rights of minorties, women, ethnic groups that are not part of the majority.


This system falls apart where

-people find their vote is not important, that no elected representative represents them

-democracy does not produce equality of opportunity or prosperity for all.

-where people seem to prefer authoritarian government because it promises to give them economic prosperity or return power to those that they have lost it under modernizations, diverse society and democracy (white males have lost the power they formlery held in the time when others were disempowered)

or

-peole desire simplicity (democracy is complicated).


Democracy depends on free speech but with limits.

bullying actually limits free speech of others so is not free speech at all.



Abella's basic premise that Canada has liberal democracy and the world should look to us for an example (of multicultural, open, rights-loving culture). Her statement although with considerable merit, is blighted by fact that the Canadian electoral system does not produce what she said.

more often than not in last hundred years, we have had government by a party that did not have majority support.

Most of the MPs elected since 1920 (or 1867 for that matter) have been elected in single-member districts where often only a minority of votes are used to elect the member. This system can result in only 18 percent of votes cast in the district being used to elect the member. Admittedly when this happend they were extreme cases but it is common for the member to be elected with less than a third of the votes, some times as few as a quarter of votes cast in the district.


and overall seats received by a party vary considerably from the party's vote share.


In recent elections Conservative have taken more votes than Liberal but won fewer seats. Neither won majority of votes so that alone did not grant Liberals government against what could be seen as the will of the people. (There was no clear will of the people - no party took majority of votes; a working majority had to be organized by multi-party co-operation. If parties had received their due share of seats, the Liberal and he NDP would likely have formed up the same CSA that they did under the skewed election results of 2021.)


Our electoral system does not ensure that a high proportion of votes cast are used to elect someone. Many voters are correct that their vote amounts to nothing. Overall often about half the vors cast are not used to elect anyone.


A basic question after an election is to ask did your vote count? and for about the half the voters the answer is no. Their choice was not elected and their vote was not used to elect anyone.


That is where liberal democrcy does not produce, and that is one place where Canada is failing.


An appeal of an adverse ruling on A Court Challenge of our election system is to occur in the Ontario Supreme Court later this year. Hopefully Abella, as a liberal democrat, will do what she can in this matter.


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