Canadian democracy is in decline.
To even suggest that a few short years ago would have been shocking, but the signs of weakening institutions and fraying checks and balances are now unmistakable.
Critics of the “democratic decline” thesis are quick to point out that Canada is not Russia, Yemen, or China. This is obviously true but these critics are also missing a key point – democracy is not an all-or-nothing proposition.
The state of democracy is measured by the relative performance of a political system on a range of variables over time. There is a lot of space between “perfect democracy” and “complete autocracy.”
