We are very fortunate to live in Canada. 
Our elections are free and fair. We all accept the results.
Candidates can sleep in their beds at night safe in the knowledge they are not going to disappear in the early hours. As happens in some countries.
If they lose, they pick themselves up, dust themselves down and live to fight another day.
Regular Maintenance
That said, our system is not perfect and it requires regular maintenance if it is to stay in tip-top condition, just like the car in the garage.
Churchill is often quoted as saying:
“Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”
This is an an elliptical version of his statement in the House of Commons in 1947:
“It has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…”
Either way, the meaning is clear.
Kept in the dark
Voters will never have perfect information when they cast their ballot. But sometimes they are kept completely in the dark or, worst still, deliberately misinformed.
When people in Newmarket-Aurora voted in the Federal Election on 28 April 2025, only a tiny handful (maybe not even that) knew that the Liberal candidate was carrying a mountain of debt arising from a failed business venture. If the voters had known about this would it have shifted a few votes? Probably.
In the 2016 referendum on Brexit, many voters were swayed by Boris Johnson’s bogus claim that
“We send the EU £350m a week: let’s fund our NHS instead”
Britain narrowly voted to leave the European Union committing the greatest self-inflicted economic harm to the country in a generation.
Many UK voters who voted to leave now have buyer’s remorse.
Deformed democracy
So, elections – and referendums – have consequences. We need look no further than the deformed democracy that is reshaping Trump’s America.
Not long after I posted my blog (on election day) about the Liberal candidate here in Newmarket-Aurora I got this email from one of my readers:
“Too bad you needed to release this today.”
To which I replied:
“Too bad she didn’t tell us before when she could have woven it into her story."
But, to reassure you, my post won’t make a blind bit of difference. Tiny readership.”
We are lucky to have Newmarket Today with its splendid young journalist Joseph Quigley reporting on the issues that matter.
And, thankfully, we have the CBC, authoritatively sifting the wheat from the chaff, allowing voters to make an informed decision. Imagine the furore if the CBC withheld information from the public because it had unearthed an inconvenient truth?
Unavailable
Sometimes the information voters need is simply unavailable.
Scandalously, all three Party Platforms were published after the start in voting in the advance polls.
And election debates involving local candidates are going the way of the Dodo.
When I ran for election as the Town’s Deputy Mayor in 2022 (and was comprehensively defeated) my opponent resolutely refused to debate with me.
And now he says of Monday’s result:
“The people have spoken, and in a democracy, the people are never wrong. Congratulations to Sandra Cobena on her decisive win in Newmarket-Aurora.”
Next year, if he has the nerve to run again for Deputy Mayor I hope he will tell people he has historically been bankrolled by developers. He is their friend.
Shallow pool
The people can be wrong if they are not given the information they need to make an informed choice. I don’t blame the voters. I blame the system.
Not enough people are engaged in our politics. They have other things to do with their time. So the candidate pool for the Federal and Provincial Parliaments is incredibly shallow.
On the Liberal side in Newmarket-Aurora, Jennifer McLachlan was acclaimed. Before her Tony Van Bynen was acclaimed. Before him Kyle Peterson was acclaimed. And this for a job with a base salary of $210,000.
On the Conservative side, Dawn Gallagher Murphy was appointed as candidate by the Party leader. Before her, Christine Elliott was shoehorned in to replace a candidate found cheating.
Soft underbelly
The report on Foreign Interference by the Honourable Marie-Josée Hogue, shows us that nominations – totally unregulated by Elections Canada – are the soft underbelly of Canadian democracy. The new Parliament has got to tighten things up.
Politics is a rough old trade and it is not for the faint-hearted.
But it should be clean.
Is that asking too much?
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