That finding is more alarming than surprising. Trust in the federal government dipped below 30 per cent among Americans at the beginning of this century and has only declined since then.
Canadians, meanwhile, have much more trust in their governments and public institutions. So what explains the difference?
Political scientists on both sides of the border say the current U.S. crisis of trust is partly the consequence of a system that permits partisanship to run wild in the name of unfettered democracy.
An independent election authority, a non-politicized judiciary and a non-partisan media might all be pillars Americans could cling to to keep from being sucked deeper into a vortex of mistrust and dysfunction.
But there are no such handholds, say experts — since the bodies that administer elections, the media that report on them and even the judges that may ultimately decide them are now all associated with one party or the other. So are the prosecutors who might bring charges in cases of malfeasance or fraud.
“The solution to the problems of democracy is more democracy,” said American philosopher John Dewey. But a lack of institutions that all Americans can agree to trust is showing the limits of that notion.
Constitutional experts say Canada has always had a lot less raw democracy than the United States — but may do a better job of actually implementing voters’ wishes.
Top-down or bottom-up
“Authority flows in two diametrically opposed directions” in the two countries, said constitutional expert Philippe Lagasse of Carleton University’s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs.
“In the United States, since its founding, sovereignty, authority, politics have very much flowed from the bottom up. That seemed to be a far more democratic system, and it’s seen as one where people have more influence over certain decisions and you’re able to have referenda, binding term limits, election of different office-holders.
“Whereas our system is much more top-down. We have, federally, one body that’s elected, the House of Commons, and every other office effectively is appointed or contractual.”
Americans can vote for everyone from the president to local sheriffs and dog-catchers. Canadians can only vote for their local representative.
Consequently, says Lagasse, “in the United States, large numbers of offices that would be neutral — or should be neutral — are elected offices. We rely on apolitical office-holders to make these decisions.”
A supporter of President Donald Trump holds a sign during a rally in front of City Hall in Dallas, Saturday, Nov. 14, 2020. (LM Otero / Associated Press)
3,000 systems
No one personifies that apolitical role in Canada more than the chief electoral officer, who is empowered to spend whatever it takes to conduct elections and only has to account for the budget afterwards.
Jean-Pierre Kingsley served as Canada’s chief electoral officer for 17 years.
“Their system was set up by their Founding Fathers, whom they revere, and it’s very difficult for Americans to change this system,” said Kingsley. “They thought that by diffusing authority throughout the land, they would be able to prevent any kind of fooling around with the system.
“The effect of that is that you get 50 different laws, but you also get 3,000 different election authorities, because the elections are run at the county level.”
Kingsley said the system provided more opportunities for politicians and parties to put their fingers on the scale during elections — as southern states did through a century of Jim Crow voter suppression tactics following the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment that gave African-Americans the vote.
“The appointment of the officials that are responsible is done through the political network, and we see this being used by the president right now,” he said. “If the electoral authorities were appointed by Democrats, he’s making comments about that.”
Awash in money
The nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics estimates that candidates and outside groups spent $18.4 billion Cdn on this U.S. election cycle.
The total spent by parties on Canada’s election last November was somewhere in the range of $75 million. So the U.S., with nine times Canada’s population, has nearly 250 times as much election money sloshing around.
The decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in the 2009 case of Citizens United v. the Federal Elections Commission gutted a 2002 law that sought to reform campaign finance, using the argument that campaign money is protected political speech.
In his dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens warned that the decision “threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation … A democracy cannot function effectively when its constituent members believe laws are being bought and sold.”
“If the system doesn’t control the money, then the money controls the system,” said Kingsley.
Supporters of President Donald Trump cheer as his motorcade drives past a rally of supporters near the White House, Saturday, Nov. 14, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) (Evan Vucci/The Associated Press)
Billions for ads, peanuts for elections
Spending limits for parties and candidates in Canada are imposed by the bureaucrats at Elections Canada, based on a standard mathematical formula.
Kingsley points to the billions of dollars spent by candidates, Super PACs and outside groups in the U.S. and contrasts it with the often miserly budgets given to local authorities who have to administer an election during a pandemic.
“They’re caught having to go and ask for additional money and so on,” he said. “If the lines are long, the lines are long. They can’t afford to open more polls. People just have to wait in line for five, six or 10 hours.”
All that inconvenience has an effect. The turnout in the recent U.S. election was 66 per cent — the highest turnout in a century but still below the average turnout for federal elections in Canada.
Lines on a map
Jonathan Rodden, a political scientist at Stanford University in California, is an expert on gerrymandering — the practice of drawing election maps to favour one side over another.
“I draw a lot on comparisons with Canada in my work,” said Rodden, “to think about what might we get if we had a Canadian-style commission, as opposed to what we get when we have districts drawn up by self-interested incumbent politicians.”
He notes that in both Canada and the U.S., urban voters skew progressive and rural voters skew conservative. But in the U.S., political parties use redistricting as a wedge to drive those two solitudes even further apart and give themselves an advantage.
He said Pennsylvania — ground zero for the recent post-election chaos — is a classic example of a GOP gerrymander, in which the goal is “to stuff as many Democrats as possible into as few districts as possible.”
The Democrats have played similar games in states like Maryland and Illinois (though less effectively).
Strange bedfellows
Rodden said Cincinnati is an example of a city where gerrymandering has combined with racial politics to produce an outcome that appears intended to deprive African-American voters of electoral clout. Ohio Republicans split the city in two and attached each part to a suburban hinterland, he said, producing two GOP-leaning districts and effectively nullifying Cincinnati’s heavily black Democratic majority.
And Republicans have sometimes found allies among incumbent Democrats who want to create districts they can’t lose, Rodden said.
“There can be strange incumbent bedfellows in that process,” he said.
Rodden said U.S. voters tend to dislike seeing state legislators draw up federal election boundaries and have voted to replace the partisan system with bipartisan or citizen commissions on several occasions when the topic has come up through ballot initiatives.
Canada already has an independent body drawing electoral boundaries.
“Our system is less susceptible to partisan influence in the drawing of those boundaries,” said Lagasse, “and this is in keeping with the Canadian tradition of neutrality of the civil service.”
Powers that aren’t separate enough
The confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court again revealed the all-too-narrow wall that separates the American judiciary from the other two branches of government.
Like many nominees, Barrett — widely seen as arch-conservative — spent much of her confirmation hearing sidestepping questions about her political views. The 6-3 partisan split on the U.S. Supreme Court is hardly a state secret.
In a recent speech to the Federalist Society, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito waded even further into politics while discussing his dissent in the ruling that legalized gay marriage.
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, shown with other justices at the White House on July 23, 2019. (Carolyn Kaster/The Associated Press)
Nowadays, he claimed, “you can’t say that marriage is a union between one man and one woman. Until very recently, that’s what the vast majority of Americans thought. Now it’s considered bigotry.”
(Of course, the First Amendment protects Americans’ rights to say anything they want about marriage.)
Alito also used his speech to attack five senators, all Democrats.
So it’s not hard to see why many Democrats doubt that a Justice Alito would rule impartially on the outcome of the 2020 election, should he be called on to do so.
Meanwhile, the attorneys-general who run the justice system in individual states are even deeper in the political fray. For proof, just take a look at the “Lawless Liberals” ads run by the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA).
“If hurricanes Kamala and Joseph make landfall, the Republican attorneys general, as the nation’s ‘insurance policy,’ will defend America from complete annihilation,” said RAGA executive director Adam Piper.
Canadian judicial appointments are much less controversial — but this is one area where some experts say Canada is slipping toward a more partisan approach.
The federal government is currently defending its nomination process in court from allegations that it gives politicians too much discretion — a concern voiced just two weeks ago by the Canadian Bar Association.
“Some might see that as less grassroots, but there’s wider public trust [in Canada] that these office-holders view their jobs in terms of the public interest, as opposed to advancing the perspectives of a particular subset of the population,” said Lagasse.
“This effort to constantly devolve decisions down to the grassroots seems more democratic, but it ultimately ends up having nefarious effects on your politics. It allows smaller groups of people to take hold of nominations of candidates. And similarly, this decision to replace the vast majority of the executive branch with every change of chief executive does not bring stability to the system.
“But primarily — and paradoxically — this constant effort to devolve power has actually left people dissatisfied. Strangely enough, in our system, we centralize power but we end up with governments that can do things, that can provide for people, and it creates more public trust.”
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston says it’s “disgraceful and demeaning” that a Halifax-area school would request that service members not wear military uniforms to its Remembrance Day ceremony.
Houston’s comments were part of a chorus of criticism levelled at the school — Sackville Heights Elementary — whose administration decided to back away from the plan after the outcry.
A November newsletter from the school in Middle Sackville, N.S., invited Armed Forces members to attend its ceremony but asked that all attendees arrive in civilian attire to “maintain a welcoming environment for all.”
Houston, who is currently running for re-election, accused the school’s leaders of “disgracing themselves while demeaning the people who protect our country” in a post on the social media platform X Thursday night.
“If the people behind this decision had a shred of the courage that our veterans have, this cowardly and insulting idea would have been rejected immediately,” Houston’s post read. There were also several calls for resignations within the school’s administration attached to Houston’s post.
In an email to families Thursday night, the school’s principal, Rachael Webster, apologized and welcomed military family members to attend “in the attire that makes them most comfortable.”
“I recognize this request has caused harm and I am deeply sorry,” Webster’s email read, adding later that the school has the “utmost respect for what the uniform represents.”
Webster said the initial request was out of concern for some students who come from countries experiencing conflict and who she said expressed discomfort with images of war, including military uniforms.
Her email said any students who have concerns about seeing Armed Forces members in uniform can be accommodated in a way that makes them feel safe, but she provided no further details in the message.
Webster did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At a news conference Friday, Houston said he’s glad the initial request was reversed but said he is still concerned.
“I can’t actually fathom how a decision like that was made,” Houston told reporters Friday, adding that he grew up moving between military bases around the country while his father was in the Armed Forces.
“My story of growing up in a military family is not unique in our province. The tradition of service is something so many of us share,” he said.
“Saying ‘lest we forget’ is a solemn promise to the fallen. It’s our commitment to those that continue to serve and our commitment that we will pass on our respects to the next generation.”
Liberal Leader Zach Churchill also said he’s happy with the school’s decision to allow uniformed Armed Forces members to attend the ceremony, but he said he didn’t think it was fair to question the intentions of those behind the original decision.
“We need to have them (uniforms) on display at Remembrance Day,” he said. “Not only are we celebrating (veterans) … we’re also commemorating our dead who gave the greatest sacrifice for our country and for the freedoms we have.”
NDP Leader Claudia Chender said that while Remembrance Day is an important occasion to honour veterans and current service members’ sacrifices, she said she hopes Houston wasn’t taking advantage of the decision to “play politics with this solemn occasion for his own political gain.”
“I hope Tim Houston reached out to the principal of the school before making a public statement,” she said in a statement.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
REGINA – Saskatchewan Opposition NDP Leader Carla Beck says she wants to prove to residents her party is the government in waiting as she heads into the incoming legislative session.
Beck held her first caucus meeting with 27 members, nearly double than what she had before the Oct. 28 election but short of the 31 required to form a majority in the 61-seat legislature.
She says her priorities will be health care and cost-of-living issues.
Beck says people need affordability help right now and will press Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government to cut the gas tax and the provincial sales tax on children’s clothing and some grocery items.
Beck’s NDP is Saskatchewan’s largest Opposition in nearly two decades after sweeping Regina and winning all but one seat in Saskatoon.
The Saskatchewan Party won 34 seats, retaining its hold on all of the rural ridings and smaller cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia‘s growing population was the subject of debate on Day 12 of the provincial election campaign, with Liberal Leader Zach Churchill arguing immigration levels must be reduced until the province can provide enough housing and health-care services.
Churchill said Thursday a plan by the incumbent Progressive Conservatives to double the province’s population to two million people by the year 2060 is unrealistic and unsustainable.
“That’s a big leap and it’s making life harder for people who live here, (including ) young people looking for a place to live and seniors looking to downsize,” he told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
Anticipating that his call for less immigration might provoke protests from the immigrant community, Churchill was careful to note that he is among the third generation of a family that moved to Nova Scotia from Lebanon.
“I know the value of immigration, the importance of it to our province. We have been built on the backs of an immigrant population. But we just need to do it in a responsible way.”
The Liberal leader said Tim Houston’s Tories, who are seeking a second term in office, have made a mistake by exceeding immigration targets set by the province’s Department of Labour and Immigration. Churchill said a Liberal government would abide by the department’s targets.
In the most recent fiscal year, the government welcomed almost 12,000 immigrants through its nominee program, exceeding the department’s limit by more than 4,000, he said. The numbers aren’t huge, but the increase won’t help ease the province’s shortages in housing and doctors, and the increased strain on its infrastructure, including roads, schools and cellphone networks, Churchill said.
“(The Immigration Department) has done the hard work on this,” he said. “They know where the labour gaps are, and they know what growth is sustainable.”
In response, Houston said his commitment to double the population was a “stretch goal.” And he said the province had long struggled with a declining population before that trend was recently reversed.
“The only immigration that can come into this province at this time is if they are a skilled trade worker or a health-care worker,” Houston said. “The population has grown by two per cent a year, actually quite similar growth to what we experienced under the Liberal government before us.”
Still, Houston said he’s heard Nova Scotians’ concerns about population growth, and he then pivoted to criticize Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for trying to send 6,000 asylum seekers to Nova Scotia, an assertion the federal government has denied.
Churchill said Houston’s claim about asylum seekers was shameful.
“It’s smoke and mirrors,” the Liberal leader said. “He is overshooting his own department’s numbers for sustainable population growth and yet he is trying to blame this on asylum seekers … who aren’t even here.”
In September, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said there is no plan to send any asylum seekers to the province without compensation or the consent of the premier. He said the 6,000 number was an “aspirational” figure based on models that reflect each province’s population.
In Halifax, NDP Leader Claudia Chender said it’s clear Nova Scotia needs more doctors, nurses and skilled trades people.
“Immigration has been and always will be a part of the Nova Scotia story, but we need to build as we grow,” Chender said. “This is why we have been pushing the Houston government to build more affordable housing.”
Chender was in a Halifax cafe on Thursday when she promised her party would remove the province’s portion of the harmonized sales tax from all grocery, cellphone and internet bills if elected to govern on Nov. 26. The tax would also be removed from the sale and installation of heat pumps.
“Our focus is on helping people to afford their lives,” Chender told reporters. “We know there are certain things that you can’t live without: food, internet and a phone …. So we know this will have the single biggest impact.”
The party estimates the measure would save the average Nova Scotia family about $1,300 a year.
“That’s a lot more than a one or two per cent HST cut,” Chender said, referring to the Progressive Conservative pledge to reduce the tax by one percentage point and the Liberal promise to trim it by two percentage points.
Elsewhere on the campaign trail, Houston announced that a Progressive Conservative government would make parking free at all Nova Scotia hospitals and health-care centres. The promise was also made by the Liberals in their election platform released Monday.
“Free parking may not seem like a big deal to some, but … the parking, especially for people working at the facilities, can add up to hundreds of dollars,” the premier told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
