we saw a good example of how fixed election laws undermine democracy in the tpp negotiations in 2015.

the sitting government should have realized that this was a ballot issue, and either scheduled the election before the final signing or after the released text, to allow for a referendum on it. instead, it subverted democracy by signing a secret agreement at the last minute, preventing anybody from reading it in time for the vote.

i know that this sounds crazy to the political establishment & media elites, but the fact is that these people don't believe in democracy at all.

a ruling party and sitting prime minister with a strong commitment to democracy would recognize the canadian people's right to self-determination and both purposefully schedule the election around amendments to nafta as a ballot issue and go out of it's way to educate voters on it's contents, not try to find a way to schedule nafta negotiations around an arbitrarily fixed election date.

i was actually hoping that trudeau would be quite aggressive in undoing the legacy of stephen harper. the fact is that he's largely upheld it.