Long before the election of a corrupt, autocratic US president, Canadian unity and democracy has been in decline. Our economic and national security has steadily weakened in an increasingly fractious and dysfunctional federation, a federation lacking both a strong, internal Canadian economy, and the ability to defend our own expansive territory.

Canada entered 2026 more divided than ever, with a tangled labyrinth of governments at odds with one another, resting on weak democratic foundations.

Our federal incoherence feeds suspicions and accusations of unfairness across our sub-national governments, and raises questions about who speaks for Canada. It fatally weakens our position in negotiations with the US and elsewhere. We, the Canadian people, have lost our sense of working together fairly for one Canada.

Federal and provincial leadership and political elites are consumed with strengthening their individual power bases in their hollowed-out political parties though ad hoc deals and MOUs, and building a faux-democracy that relies on discouraging citizen engagement and weakening civic unity. As a result, Canadians have become accustomed to staying on the sidelines, feeling powerless to change the course of politics which seems predetermined for us by said political elites. But this can change.

What is needed are effective voices calling on Canadians to step off the sidelines, set aside partisan and sub-national concerns, and recognize that we are stronger pulling together in our disordered world as a sovereign Canadian people forming a single unified democratic community of Canada.

This Canada will never be dissolved by the decision of a single province.

But this Canada will endure a death of a thousand cuts if its citizens do not take national action and immediately demand a positive alternative to our dysfunctional federation, and the end to democratic decline and faux-democracy.

Why are federal renewal and democratic reform so important?

Federal renewal is required to increase all Canadians’ confidence in the fairness and integrity of our federation. We need a functional intergovernmental structure designed to facilitate collaboration and harmonization across all levels of Canadian governments, so Canadians come together to build and sustain a united sovereign Canada.

Democratic reform is required to encourage citizen involvement and entrench transparency and accountability in all our governance structures to strengthen national civic unity and trust. We need engaged citizens and authentic voices in our national politics to strengthen our shared values and ideals of dignity, democracy, and kindness, and end debilitating faux-democracy once and for all.

The time is overdue for a courageous prime minister or national leader to provide vigorous leadership on behalf of all Canadians and take the initiative away from those who perpetuate faux-democracy and undermine Canada.

This starts with establishing an independent non-partisan parliamentary forum to draft a citizens’ platform for federal renewal and democratic reform (see a draft platform in Addendum 1).

This forum would reach out to ordinary citizens and citizen-based organizations to expeditiously develop the components of federal renewal and democratic reform for a sovereign Canada, and present the citizens’ platform to Parliament after a consultation period not exceeding a year.

A national referendum would then be called to ask Canadians whether they approve specific components of the platform such as those involving constitutional or quasi-constitutional change (in separate questions), notably, with respect to the future of the Senate, electoral reform, a Canadian head of state, and the constitutional amending formula.

A national referendum directly engages citizens across the country, and encourages connections and our collective commitment to shared values and democratic ideals, while building a stronger, more functional Canadian federation. A national referendum loosens the grip of faux-democrats and sidelines the self-absorbed political elites that too often do not act in the national interest.

For Canadians in Alberta or Quebec or in any province experiencing contrived provincial referenda manipulated by groups intent on undermining Canada, a national referendum provides the opportunity to ensure all citizens have full and fair information and balanced debate within the Canadian national context. (See Addendum 2 for points to guide the use of consultative referenda in Canada).

For example, during a national referendum, unlike what occurred during the 1995 Quebec provincial referendum initiated by separatists, Quebecers will be able to hear voices that review more broadly their history and experiences in building a secure, vibrant, French-speaking entity within North America and within Canada over almost 300 years, and how in fact the 1982 Constitution and Charter of Rights and Freedoms did not exclude Quebec, and has indeed supported, not hindered, Quebec’s distinctive evolution.

Canadians should remember that we have already successfully held a national referendum that mobilized significant numbers of Canadians to decide matters of constitutional reform. And arguably this established the constitutional convention that a national referendum is required for constitutional change.

The Charlottetown Referendum in 1992 mobilized a significant number of Canadians (72% turnout) to vote on a constitutional agreement drafted by the political establishment and supported by every official political party. The successful No vote was a powerful grass-roots message to Canada’s political elites that the people of Canada must be heard, and that restructuring the federation to accommodate Quebec or for any other reason, was something that engaged all Canadians, not just first ministers.

Despite vicious fear-mongering by then prime minister Brian Mulroney calling opponents of the Charlottetown Accord ‘enemies of Canada’, Canadians withstood the pressure, and the Accord was soundly defeated. Canada did not end, and Quebec is still part of Canada, and thriving, thirty-four years later.

The Charlottetown referendum was a unifying event for the country, contrary to the claims of faux-democrat political elites who were startled and bruised by the result. For years since, faux-democrats in Canada have claimed referenda are divisive and something to be feared (See, for example, Justin Trudeau’s comments when he abruptly cancelled an important electoral reform initiative in 2016). But, in fact, it is only the faux-democrats who fear more direct citizen involvement in public affairs because it undermines their ability to control power on their own terms. This ability of faux-democrats to undermine our democracy must end.

Ironically, a decade before Charlottetown, both René Lévesque and Pierre Trudeau agreed to include a national referendum mechanism in the 1982 Constitution as the best device to determine the support for the patriated Constitution. The referendum mechanism was regrettably rejected by the cabal of the nine nervous English-speaking premiers who opposed (some more than others) the Charter’s constraint on the exercise of their provincial powers. These premiers colluded to replace the referendum option with a thoroughly convoluted constitutional amending process requiring only votes in the legislatures that the premiers could more easily control than a referendum. They also extracted a final anti-democratic concession: the controversial “notwithstanding clause” that permits governments to legislate notwithstanding certain fundamental rights and freedoms.

This unprincipled alliance of premiers outside Quebec (“the night of the long knives”) is what gave rise to the false narrative cultivated by Quebec separatists to this day: that Quebec was excluded from the 1982 Canadian constitution. And sadly, the concept of “we the premiers” prevailed over “we the people” in our constitution.

The time is now overdue for Canadians to stand up for Canada and demand strong, clear avenues for direct democracy in our federation, more transparency and accountability throughout all our democratic institutions and practices, and a constitutional order more genuinely of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Addendum 1: Discussion points for a citizens’ platform on federal renewal and democratic reform

Federal Renewal

• A restructured elected Senate that better accommodates the varied provincial/sub-national perspectives in the legislative process in Parliament, or the abolition of the Senate and the creation of a non-constitutional Council of Canadian Governments chaired by the prime minister.
• A robust barrier-free internal economic market within Canada for exchanging goods, services, people, and investments through immediate reciprocal recognition by all provinces of each other’s pertinent rules and regulations. Comprehensive tax and regulatory reforms that ensure fairness, transparency and efficiency.
• A new mechanism to replace the incomprehensible, inequitable, equalization program that has done so much to fuel distrust and promote friction and resentment across sub-governments. The new mechanism must operate transparently and accountably at all times, to support a productive national economy with equal opportunities for all, access to essential public services of reasonable quality, and our national commitment to reduce economic disparities.
• Other constitutional reforms include: a new amending formula with a referendum mechanism that gives the people of Canada, not the premiers, the last word; a Canadian head of state, ending the antiquated connection to the House of Windsor; the repeal of the notwithstanding clause.

Democratic Reform

• Electoral reform with proportional voting that better reflects voters’ preferences, diminishes polarization and encourages greater consensus among elected representatives. Mandatory voting. More independent candidates to break down partisan divides.
• Consultative referenda, more citizens’ assemblies and forums, and other devices like citizen legislative initiatives, to strengthen civic unity, expand direct engagement between elections, and ensure full respect for a democratic and sovereign people.
• Mandatory civic education classes and social media and AI training at every level of school, every year.
• Privacy, freedom of information, lobbying, and conflict of interest legislation overhauled.
• Stronger oversight and regulation of political parties. No more public subsidies for the Bloc Québécois – a party dedicated to the break-up of the country.
• Parliamentary reforms to encourage meaningful, collaborative work on parliamentary committees, and reduce the control of the PMO (Prime Minister’s Office).

Addendum 2: Points to guide the use of consultative referenda in Canada:

• First, we need an independent referendum commission to establish and administer rules fairly. Referenda are not partisan tools to be manipulated by the government. Indeed, the opposite is true: they are appropriate when a government needs to consult the public to assist the executive and legislative branches in formulating policy and action on a particularly difficult or controversial issue.
• Referenda should not be rushed. The referendum commission must determine the length of the official campaign after considering how thoroughly the issue has been subjected to previous public debate. Citizens need time to be well informed.
• The independent commission should be responsible for the final draft of the question or questions put to voters. Undertaking multiple constitutional reforms at the same time, in a single document, may be confusing. Combining too many different reforms can deprive citizens of the opportunity to consider each on its own merits. Discussions can of course proceed simultaneously on different issues, but there should be separate referendum questions to resolve each, as appropriate.
• Careful thought must go into the size of majority vote required for an option or question to be approved or rejected. Serious consideration should be given to incorporating a mandatory voting requirement, since low voter turnout can have grave repercussions.
• The referendum commission must establish strict controls on spending by the Yes and No sides. It is arguable that a certain amount of public funds should be allocated for administration by the independent referendum commission, according to objective criteria.

For more details on topics and issues addressed in this blog, see discussion in Deborah Coyne, Canada on the Edge: Canadians must end our faux-democracy now, and urgently rebuild a stronger, united federation (2025).