“When I speak of representation by population, the house will of course understand that universal suffrage is not in any way sanctioned,” said John A. Macdonald during a debate about Canadian confederation. The danger of mob rule, of open democracy, should of course be discouraged. The rabble are to be kept out. Founding American fathers Thomas Jefferson and James Madison likewise believed that power should be in the hands of the “natural aristocracy.” This slight of hand, of trumpeting democracy while excluding the people, has remained largely unchanged since confederation, and what happens in years to come is largely up to us.

The jury is still out on participatory democracy in Canada. Even before questions of participatory government can be breached, however, there is a long way to go. The common refrain is that a functioning democracy requires an informed population. Instead, we have a population with parcels of information, often distorted and just as often outright falsified for political gain.

To cite a few recent examples, the Department of National Defence fell back on reasons of national security recently to deny an access to information request filed by the NDP this summer. The NDP requested that the full financial cost of the war in Afghanistan be disclosed. The DND reversed its decision and finally provided figures after sharp coverage from the national daily press.

Earlier, in February, Canwest News Service reported that the Foreign Affairs Department “systematically prevented the release of hundreds of thousands of pages of government records on everything from the mission in Afghanistan to the NATO briefing materials Maxime Bernier left at his girlfriend’s home, and did so by applying its own interpretation of regulations governing fees.” This retention of public information is fairly widespread, and partisan researchers occasionally go through the Pentagon to obtain details on Canadian military joint operations. The reasons for withholding public information are fairly clear. “We have arrived at that stage when there is some public security,” said Louis Riel in 1870, shortly after the Red River Rebellion. “Let us, then, see to it that the public are no more allowed to rush together, on one side or the other, in such a manner as they have gathered of late.” Disclosing information on Afghanistan or NATO could very well lead the public to “rush together,” and therefore must be discouraged. Lacking verifiable information, the public are kept away from substantial policy issues, freeing decision makers from the “risk of contaminating ‘rational’ policy-making with the uninformed prejudices of interest groups and the public,” in the words of Canadian political scientist Leslie A. Pal.

The press is not alone in being denied access to the public domain. Among his 1968 reelection promises, Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau signaled his intent to reassess Canada’s participation in NATO. Serious demands for withdrawal from NATO were made in cabinet, and there was a genuine interest for an independent Canadian policy. The mere thought of holding a similar debate today is a laughable, distant dream. While the country’s NATO commitments were under discussion, journalist Dalton Camp stressed the importance of “thoughtful discussion” and “careful examination” of Canada’s priorities. Yet, Camp wrote,

One cannot have such a dialog unless the policy makers will listen to the policy critics. There is an abundance of evidence they do not. Almost everyone I know who performed in the ritual of review staged by the parliamentary committee this spring came away convinced they had been talking to the deaf; the rare exceptions were those whose opinions were agreeable to the committee. In the end, the government paid lip service to the academic performers and paid no attention at all to the committee. The ‘intellectuals’ – a pejorative word for impractical thinkers – had their moment on stage.

It is remarkable how firmly this holds true today, the only difference being that policy critics know very well they will go ignored. Thirty-eight years after Camp’s statement, Afghanistan Canada Research Group intellectual Michael Skinner was repeating Camp’s sentiments virtually word for word. Having visited Afghanistan for five weeks in 2007, interviewing dozens of Afghanis on whether or not foreign troops should continue their occupation, Skinner’s first-hand accounts provided a useful balance against “scientific,” “rational” reports filed by think-tanks and federal researchers. His work went completely ignored, as his findings were not agreeable to the committee.

There are innumerable cases of equal gravity, all of which go ignored when the opinions expressed therein do not conform with those in power. Canadian legal and political scholarship points toward a further tightening of control over information and power-sharing in a post-9/11 world, and prime minister Steven Harper has twice been named by the Canadian Association of Journalists as the “Code of Silence Award” winner. “The Prime Minister’s remarkably secretive communications apparatus was the hands-down winner in 2008 and journalists from all over the country have nominated him again this year,” said CAJ President Mary Agnes Welch this past May. The playful spirit of the award has its own set of grave consequences, but Harper is acting in a consistent manner with the fathers of the confederation. And not surprisingly, when asked to describe Harper in one word, 49 per cent of respondents to an Angus-Reid poll this July used the word “secretive.”

As for why affairs continue to be conducted in such a closed manner, T.L. Wood gives an eloquent answer in 1870: “Opinions may be divided in many other matters, the votes of a party may be split on many points, but in the hands of the masses the substantial class will be heavily and unmeasurably taxed to suit the views of those who have nothing to lose and all to gain by any contemplated movement.” This sentiment is expressed with remarkable consistency in both the actions and subtle rhetoric of Canada’s elite.

It follows that the best course of action is developing a contemplated movement with nothing to lose and everything to gain from a far more open democracy. With a deliberately fragmented population and increasingly marginalized social movements, the challenge is immense; but Harper, like Macdonald, is well aware that calls to transfer power from the “substantial class” to “the hands of the masses” are unceasing. History has proven this much.