Behind closed doors

Published September 22, 2004

A fundamental way in which Canada differs from almost all other countries is that the government here established itself before there were any people here. Or almost any people.

Although we have all its trappings, such as elections, legislatures, polls, parties, a free media, we're not really so much a democracy as a guided, top-down democracy. Unlike America's wild, wild West, the Royal Canadian Mounted...