Managed Or 'real' Democracy In Canada?

1: Thesis: Canadians are told, and seem to generally believe, that they live in a 'democracy', that is to say, (1) they elect their government through regular and fair elections, (2) that government is responsible to the Canadian people and to them alone for the way the country is run, and (3) therefore the Canadian people, as a whole, control their country - there may be different opinions between various groups of Canadians concerning any particular policy, but in the end, the majority rules, as in any modern democracy. Actually, although the above statement does indeed reflect the theory of government in Canada as taught in school and promoted through the media, the reality is somewhat different - as two of the statements are completely false in practice, and the third leaves out considerable important information that renders it, while not actually false on the surface, conveys a meaning that is false in practice. In brief, although Canadians do have regular and more or less fairly administrated elections, the pool of people they choose from is compromised and restricted in various ways and the different candidates not presented equally, rendering the actual decision of the voters something less than 'fair and free'; following the election, the people they elect are not under their control, but under the control of 'the party', which in turn is much more subject to the wishes of the wealthy elite in Canada who fund them than to the people who 'elect' them, and who in return set the policies of the Canadian government for the benefit of that elite, policies which are in virtually all such cases contrary to the best interests or wishes of Canadians. Thus Canada is not actually a 'real' democracy, run by the people, but more correctly something more like a 'managed' democracy, with the managers presenting the illusion of 'we the people' democracy whilst actually controlling the country from behind the scenes for their own best interests, rather than the interests of the people of Canada. The 'prima facie' case for the assertion is pretty much unassailable, if one agrees that the single central tenet of 'democracy' is that 'the majority rules'. Consider a simple example: 60-70% of Canadians have consistently indicated in polls for decades that marijuana should not be illegal, yet government after government refuses to remove the often serious criminal sanctions for growing or smoking it (sanctions which were never implemented through any sort of 'democratic' demand in the first place, one might note). Quite obviously, the 'representatives' being elected by Canadians in their 'representative' democracy, election after election after election, are not representing the wishes of a solid majority of Canadians concerning the legal status of this widely used (or accepted) drug. This is a serious matter, not something trivial, as it involves the jailing of and/or saddling with criminal records tens of thousands of people yearly, with huge financial costs to them as well, and also provides a basis for much of the organised crime in Canada, which causes many related problems and also absorbs huge amounts of taxpayer money. This matter not being addressed by one government or even a couple might be explainable by various excuses, but continually over many years and governments, with the wishes of Canadians not changing and being well known to the 'representatives' in various ways, with such serious consequences, is clearly systematic and must make it evident that some other force is directing the Canadian parliament to over-ride and/or ignore the wishes of a majority of Canadians. It is thus quite obvious that those 60-70% of Canadians who disagree with the drug laws in regard to marijuana, a consistent and solid majority, have no input into what happens in Canada - so it becomes equally obvious that someone behind the scenes is managing the 'democracy' for their own personal interests and priorities, whatever they might be, overriding the will of the majority - the 'rule by majority' being normally the benchmark of a democratic system. - and more (much more, not for the soundbite gang) here - http://www.rudemacedon.ca/lgi/can-managed-dem.html [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on October 16, 2006]

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