COLLABORATION
Democracy after COVID
Summary —
“Balancing Civil Liberties and Public Safety during the Pandemic” explores how governments in Canada, at the federal and provincal level, managed these dilemmas and sought to justify their decisions.
The COVID-19 pandemic raised genuine dilemmas regarding the proper balance between civil liberties and public safety. Democratic governments around the world imposed many restrictions on civil liberties, which in many countries were the biggest peacetime rollback of fundamental rights seen in modern history. At the same time, the precautionary principle demanded public health officials take these steps to minimize death and serious illness. Measures from compulsory mask wearing and social distancing, to curfews and lockdowns and border closures and travel bans greatly limited freedom of movement and assembly in virtually every democracy. Contact tracing raised serious concerns regarding individual privacy. The rollout of vaccine passports and mandatory vaccination restricts a range of freedoms for individuals who oppose vaccination. And the uneven implementation and enforcement of such measures, which disproportionately affected particular individuals, groups and communities, raised significant questions about the right to equality. The majority of citizens in Western democracies supported temporary limits on basic freedoms at the outset of the pandemic. Yet government policies and public attitudes differed across countries and fluctuated over time. The necessity and desirability of mandatory vaccination in many democracies have stoked varying degrees of political debate and social resistance.
“COVID-19 responses were always going to be inequitable”
Responses to H1N1 in Canada exposed our inequalities in health care. There’s little evidence that lessons were learned by levels of government.
COVID-19 was always going to be inequitable as many Canadian health-care systems failed to learn from previous pandemics. As a result, they didn’t implement equitable practices, which helped ensure inequities would occur in this pandemic.
“Post-mortem needed on problems with COVID Alert app”
Without better procedures going forward, public deployment of technologies in response to future emergencies will just be one disaster after another.
On June 17, 2022, Health Canada decommissioned the COVID Alert exposure notification app, nearly two years after it was launched in the summer of 2020.
“La liberté universitaire est plus exigeante que la liberté d’expression”
Les contre-discours venant des scientifiques sont essentiels. Mais ils doivent être assujettis aux mêmes standards que le discours qu’ils réfutent.
La suspension temporaire cet été de deux professeurs de l’Université Laval, Patrick Provost et Nicolas Derome, pour avoir exprimé publiquement des doutes à propos des vaccins contre la Covid-19, a relancé le nécessaire débat sur le sens et la portée du droit à la liberté académique.
“The unexamined implications of Canada’s pandemic-related interprovincal barriers”
Blocking travel raised tricky constitutional and legal concerns. In future, working groups or advisory committees could help craft a better strategy.
It would be hard to overstate COVID-19’s impact on Canadian society. The diverse state responses to the pandemic included decisions that previously would have been unthinkable: vaccine mandates, nightly curfews, international border closures, and the shuttering of schools and businesses.
“Democratic life and the generational implications of pandemic school closures”
Learning loss not only damages achievement, prosperity and well-being for students; it also compromises civic learning and future engagement.
Much of the discussion about rights in the pandemic has been about negative rights – areas where governments should refrain from taking action that causes harm, such as freedom from interference, or freedom of expression, assembly and choice. However, Canada also places importance on positive rights – things that must be provided to Canadians, such as education. This right is codified in provincial legislation, but it is also largely informed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees equality before and under the law.
Summary —
“Democracy after COVID19: What Lessons Can Canada Offer and Learn?” addresses the ramifications of the pandemic upon governance in Canada through practically-oriented and policy-relevant comparative research.
Our project has two overarching aims: (a) to examine whether, how and why the politics of the pandemic has affected how democracy works in Canada vis-à-vis comparable political regimes; and (b) to learn, share and translate what strategies, innovations and practices can improve its quality, effectiveness and resilience.
The COVID19 pandemic has instigated the most severe international health crisis since the Spanish influenza in 1917-1918 and the worst global recession since the Great Depression in the 1930s. Yet the pandemic also poses a historic political test. In particular, it risks exacerbating processes of “democratic backsliding” that have grown in the twenty-first century: a deterioration in the norms, institutions and practices we associate with modern democratic governance.
In general, governments across the world concentrated executive power after the pandemic erupted, passing emergency legislation, limiting parliamentary scrutiny and expediting public procurement processes. Despite the popular goodwill shown to most incumbent leaders at the start of the pandemic, however, the rapid concentration of executive power failed to guarantee effective governance in many countries was neither necessary nor sufficient to control its spread or tackle the rapid economic crisis that it has triggered. In addition, passing emergency legislation and centralizing residual powers has limited parliamentary debate and judicial scrutiny, raising serious questions about representation and accountability. Finally, the impact of the pandemic upon civic participation and political rights has varied significantly across democratic regimes.
Has the pandemic affected the fundamental norms, institutions and practices of democracies? Why have specific liberal democracies responded to these challenges differently?Finally, what theoretical insights and practical lessons can we gain and learn, respectively, by studying these questions comparatively?
“How Can We Improve the Elections Process?”
A series of essays published in Policy Options, the digital magazine of the Institute for Research on Public Policy, Montreal (September 2021).
The digital age is transforming the electoral process. It’s brought us online voting and opened up communication between citizens and politicians. But access to voting remains unequal, and social polarization and civic disengagement are on the rise. Toxicity in digital political spaces is only growing, with women and racialized politicians and candidates in particular bearing the brunt of abuse. In an era when “democratic backsliding” has gathered steam around the world…
Webinar – Election 44 and the Erosion of Democracy
The 2021 federal election campaign has seen unusual disruptions to campaign events and attacks on leaders, often connected to extreme-right and anti-vaccine movements, and opposition to COVID-19 public health measures. The erosion of democratic norms is a trend around the world, with the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol as the starkest example nearest to home.
What does all of this mean for Canada? Do events in the current election campaign hold any warning signs for the state of democracy here?