The limits of reform

Robert Asselin considers what institutional democratic reform can’t do.

Members of Parliament won’t be less partisan because we have fixed elections dates and politicians won’t stop lying because they suddenly have to be evaluated by a group of citizens.  The situation will only improve if voters start demanding a higher level of political debate and discourse, if more politicians start saying what they really think and if politics ceases to be a reckless partisan confrontation and spectacle inflated by the media’s appetite for controversies to feed its ravenous 24 hours news cycle.