The Limits of Institutional Reform in an Age of Populist Anger

Canadians tend to hold relatively sanguine views about the health of their democratic system. In poll after poll, when asked whether they are satisfied with the way democracy works in their country, a solid majority will answer yes. This immoderate pride in our democracy stands in stark contrast to the corrosive distrust these same citizens display toward many of the institutional actors that work within our democratic system – political parties, most obviously, but also the media, Parliament, and the Prime Minister. My talk will examine whether two fairly common reform proposals – of ballot laws, to make the electoral system more proportional, and of the Senate, to make the upper chamber more representative and effective – might increase trust in some of our basic representative institutions and improve the overall democratic legitimacy of our polity. I will concentrate most closely on the issue of electoral reform, since I have had personal involvement in that dossier for more than three decades now (beginning with the Lortie Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Finance in 1989). The experience of the past three decades underscores the considerable obstacles that advocates of reform must overcome, but I will nonetheless try to make a case for the modest benefits of electoral and Senate reform. In a brief conclusion I will consider the possibility that institutional reforms are no longer sufficient to quell the roiling populist anger directed at the political elites, or “gatekeepers,” that is becoming such a prominent phenomenon in the liberal democracies, even the peaceable kingdom of Canada, as the recent experience of the so-called “Freedom Convoy” attests.