There are no primaries in Canada at all.
Parties select their representatives who run in the election.
The system basically guarantees that insiders cannot be removed.
There are no primaries in Canada at all.
Parties select their representatives who run in the election.
The system basically guarantees that insiders cannot be removed.
That actually sounds crazy to me. At least for the House of Commons. I'm amenable to upper chambers of bicameral legislatures being indirectly elected. That's how the US Senate used to be before the constitution was amended.
I think you're misreading. MPs are directly elected. Anyone can run to be an MP (You have to collect 50 to 100 signatures from supporters and fill out some paperwork). Whoever wins the most votes in a riding becomes MP.
It's the property of a candidate being affiliated with a party - an indirect part of the election - that is run by the parties rules that are generally less than entirely democratic in nature.
The British system which Canada basically copied is entirely designed to prevent real democracy.
The only thing that takes the Westminster system away from enabling real democracy is political parties, and they hadn't been invented when the system was designed. It took around 400 years before someone finally found the hack to break it. The original designers would have never envisioned the possibility that it could be hacked like that.
Do you have several parties or just two?
Liberals NDP Greens Conservative
Liberals NDP and Greens would never form a government with the Conservatives so the liberals are effectively always in power.
Which means insiders in the liberal party are in charge and voting is partly irrelevant unless you're voting for the conservatives, but they would need an actual straight majority.
The Green party is not a force in Canadian politics,they have one seat and barring radical events will never have another.
Th Bloc has 21 seats, and has had as many as 54. They would certainly ally with the conservatives. (Not the modern maple maga variety, but old school PC).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premiership_of_Stephen_Harper
Except for my entire 20s the conservatives were in power, so...
Except with the minority, the NDP got a few of their platform issues through.