The astonishing rise of a corrupt, authoritarian government in the United States has put new urgency into the calls to “save our democracy.” Not just there, but here. Both the US and Canada, with their largely two-party systems, boast some of the most unrepresentative legislative bodies and disenfranchised voters of advanced democracies around the world. And both are sliding in global democracy rankings; if the States more quickly, Canada is not far behind. 

For Globe and Mail columnist and political commentator Andrew Coyne, who spoke before a packed audience last month at the PEC Authors Festival, the failure of our first-past-the-post voting system to offer electors real, proportionate representation, alongside an unprecedented concentration of power in the Prime Minister’s Office — “Chretien was a tyrant, Harper was even worse, and Trudeau worse still” —are bellwethers of crisis. 

“We don’t live in the democracy we think we do,” he warns. 

Mr. Coyne’s 2025 book, The Crisis of Canadian Democracy, argues not only that “none of the institutions of Canadian democracy are working the way they should,” but that this is no accident. To give just one recent example, Justin Trudeau campaigned in 2015 on reforming the first past the post electoral system. Once in office, nothing was in place to hold him to account: our elected representatives in parliament do not act for voters.

First-past-the-post rewards a two-party system, which means neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives have any real desire to get rid of it. That it wastes most votes just doesn’t matter at the highest reaches of power. 

It should. 

The conflict of our times is that between those who believe in our institutions — NATO, Canada, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the 1st amendment, voting, a free press — and those who don’t. Whittling away at the balance of powers might afford temporary gains, like suppressing dissent, or aggrandizing the power of the PM, or of the Liberals, the party FPTP has benefitted most in Canada, but over the long term, the failure of the checks and balances of democratic governance erodes consensus politics. And that opens the door to extremists. 

While our eyes are glued on the US — decrying the failure of its congress to act against its President King, its ridiculous 800- or 900-page omnibus bills forced through in midnight sessions; and entire party caucuses whipped into voting as one — we fail to notice, as Coyne points out, that all the same things are happening here. 

Coyne notes Parliament meets less and less — in 2025, it was in session for just 72 days; it was prorogued for five months for PM Trudeau’s leadership crisis. Historically, the average is about 120 days a year, but during the 2000s it has met far less often than that. At the same time, we don’t notice, because what happens in Parliament matters less and less: votes are conducted on party lines 99 percent of the time anyway. 

Even on committees, notes Coyne, real collaboration across party lines, a key marker of democratic governance, “never happens.”

Question Period, debates, even tweets, are “under the control of party command,” leaving Individual MPs with no autonomy. Cabinet ministers might enjoy a car and driver but not clout. Only a few select insiders close to the PM have that. “None of these institutions are working the way we thought they should — or think they do.”

A non-functioning parliament means government is unaccountable; not only this, but the deterioration is cultural: “nobody expects parliament to do much anymore; the historical reference points which inform our sense of how things ought to work have disappeared. It has become irrelevant.” 

That is a disaster for democratic governance and culture. 

For Coyne, the remedy is reform of the FPTP voting system. A system of proportional representation would offer each voter, and riding, fair representation in elected government.

“The place where reform has to start is with votes: every vote has to count equally. From this one place, there will be a domino effect. It is the single best thing we can do to improve the system.”

In first past the post, seats are awarded based on which candidate wins the most votes in each riding. Just 30% of the votes is enough. “It is an institutionalized system of minority rule, one that rests on wasted votes, and wildly unequal representation. In some ridings, every vote counts. In many, the majority are thrown away.” 

It leads to “strategic voting,” which means, “vote for a party you dislike to prevent the party you detest from getting elected.”

Proportional representation, on the other hand, awards seats based on each party’s share of the popular vote. 

Close to 90 percent of contemporary democracies use a proportional system that involves multi-member ridings and a run-off, where votes are transferred from one candidate to another rather than wasted. It rewards cooperation, consensus, and compromise: voters are unlikely to transfer their votes from a favoured candidate to one unable to establish common ground with other parties. It also means minority parties win seats based on the proportion of votes they receive. Proportional representation would give the NDP and the Greens a much stronger presence in Parliament. 

Advocating for multi-member rather than single-member ridings, Mr. Coyne notes, “having more parties does not divide the vote so much as expand it.” On that score, he also advocates for mandatory voting. Not that the police will arrest those who fail to vote, but voting would become, like putting on a seatbelt when you get into the car, automatic. 

Democratic governance rests on both accountability and consent. If we are going to vote, our votes give us a say. 

Mr. Coyne’s highly readable book backs up its assertions and arguments with copious historical evidence and a lifetime’s worth of observations and anecdotes. It tells us how governance happens, from the inside. Nor is he the only advocate for proportional representation: it is the system now used by the majority of democracies, including those where we see women become Prime Minister. It represents all of the people doing the voting. 

Our only question ought to be when.