Canadian Democracy Is Broken — And We Need to Face It

A look at Andrew Coyne’s The Crisis of Canadian Democracy

Andrew Coyne doesn’t sugar-coat it: Canada’s democracy is in serious trouble. In his book The Crisis of Canadian Democracy, he says what many Canadians feel but few say out loud — that our political system isn’t working the way it’s supposed to. It looks like a democracy on the outside, but inside, it’s falling apart.

Coyne explains how power has shifted away from elected officials and into the hands of a small group around the Prime Minister. Parliament doesn’t really make decisions anymore — it just goes through the motions. Cabinet ministers don’t debate or push back. MPs mostly follow orders. And voters? We’re left watching from the sidelines.

Michael Harris backs this up in Party of One:

“The Prime Minister’s Office has become what amounts to an unaccountable center of power unto itself, overriding Parliament and reducing MPs to marionettes.”

That’s not democracy. That’s control.

Mel Hurtig, in The Truth About Canada, points out how we fool ourselves:

“We Canadians like to believe we have the best system of government. The truth is we have one of the least democratic among the world’s major democracies.”

We’re proud of our country — and we should be. But pride shouldn’t blind us. Our elections don’t reflect the will of the people. Big money and party insiders have too much say. And most Canadians don’t even vote anymore because they feel it doesn’t matter.

John Ralston Saul, in Reflections of a Siamese Twin, says it clearly:

“We have a technocratic government, almost a managerial class… even public debate has become theater.”

Coyne’s message is simple: this isn’t just a rough patch. The system is broken. And it won’t fix itself. The people in power benefit from how things are — so they won’t change it unless we demand it.

This book isn’t just a warning. It’s a wake-up call. If we want real democracy — where our voices matter, where our votes count, and where leaders answer to us — we need to stop pretending everything’s fine. We need to speak up, get involved, and push for deep change. Revolutionary change.

Because if we don’t, we’ll keep living in a country that calls itself a democracy… but isn’t one anymore.

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