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By Andrew MacDougall By Andrew MacDougall April 26

Andrew MacDougall is a columnist for the Ottawa Citizen and a contributor to the Globe and Mail, CBC.ca and Macleans Magazine. He was formerly director of communications forthen-Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

From a Canadian perspective, the most striking thing about J.J. McCulloughs take on Canadas democracy was its uncharitability.

It was uncharitable to Canada, uncharitable to apples-to-apples comparisons, and, most of all, uncharitable to the thousands of Turkish democrats currently clogging President Recep Tayyip Erdogans jails.

Underpinning McCulloughs lack of charity is a lack of clarity about what, exactly, makes up a democracy. A democracy is much more than its legislature; it is its voters, activists, journalists and the freedom for these groups and others to criticize and oppose elected power.

Want proof?

Why else has Erdogan spent so much capital in the wake of last summers aborted coup jailing journalists, judges and activists? In Erdogans parallel fight to crush the Kurds and supporters of Fethullah Gulen, his former comrade in bringing Islam into Turkish public life, Erdogan has also purged much of the military leadership.

The recent referendum in Turkey was meant to draw the ladder up after Erdogan reached the summit of power so that no one could threaten or replace him. This might please the soft Islamist masses Erdogan brought into democratic politics, but it terrifies those who have watched warily as hehas dismantled the secular state built by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. It wasnt, as McCullough suggests, to make government more effective, at least not in any way a Western democrat would understand.

No Canadian prime minister could or would mimic Erdogans self-serving power grab, although McCulloughs essay would lead its readers to think Canadas prime minister is already there.

Yes, the prime minister of a majority government in a Westminster parliament is a powerful figure, too powerful for some. Yes, the prime minister appoints senators to Canadas unelected upper house. But heres the thing, he or she doesnt appoint all of them in one go, they are appointed when vacancies arise, which ensures a polyglot Senate, barring, of course, a particularly long run for a prime minister in the elected lower house, itself the most important metric of democracy.

The same goes for Canadas judiciary. A prime minister appoints judges, usually on the recommendation of the relevant advisory committees, to a number of important benches, including the Supreme Court. Here, the judges will bump into colleagues of different political persuasions, put into function by the prime ministers predecessors in office.

Barking at the prime minister each and every step of the way on these and other appointments is an army of journalists, pressure groups and opposition politicians. This is the oversight McCullough overlooks. If a particularly egregious appointment is made, the Canadian people will certainly hear about it, even if the prime minister, as McCullough notes, has a hand in appointing the higher-ups at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Of course, the ultimate guarantor of Canadian democracy is its people, who vote in wonderful things called free and fair elections every four years (or so). If the voters dont like the actions taken by a prime minister or his or her government including its appointments (just ask former prime minister Stephen Harper aboutMike Duffy) they can show that government the door. Indeed, this is what brought Justin Trudeau and his Liberal Party to power after nearly 10 years of Harper and his Conservatives.

And it will be what replaces Trudeau when the time comes.

While the fact that a Canadian prime minister can govern a majority of the legislature with a minority of the popular vote is a curse to some, its a blessing for me. It gives a strong mandate to those in power, and clear accountability when those in power fail to deliver. There is none of the finger-pointing of messy coalition governments like those in Israel, say, or any of the blame-shifting routinely visited upon the U.S. Congress by its occupants. A pox by voters put on both the House of Representatives and the Senate is a large reason why an outsider such as Donald Trump was elected president of the United States.

Put simply, the civil society that a legislature sits atop matters, as much as it matters the intention of the man or the woman at the pinnacle of power.

A country such asCanada, a federation with no history of military insurrection or populist coups, a country not riven with strict religious divides, can tolerate a highly centralized federal government elected freely and fairly through first-past-the-post pluralities that fall short of an overall majority vote.

Turkey, a country with a vastly different history and civil society, cannot. That is why Western democrats are worried. And why Canadas democracy is worth celebrating.

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Canada's democracy is the worst, except for all others - The ... - Washington Post