Canada's Democracy Has Been Troubled for Years

Here was Paul Martin speaking in 2002 about the erosion of Canadian democracy: “We have allowed power to become too centralized – too concentrated in the hands of a few and too remote from the influence of many. We have permitted a culture to arise that has been 30 years in the making.”

In Ottawa, he lamented, power came down to one question – “Who do you know in the PMO?” The democratic deficit had to be attacked the same way the Liberals had attacked the huge fiscal deficit, he said. It was that serious.