Justin Trudeau, a Contender for Prime Minister of Canada, Wants to Change the Way People Vote

Canada's democracy is in danger, but it can be saved, says a leading opposition party leader. And he intends to campaign on it in the upcoming federal election.

With four months to go before election day, it's a clear shot across the bow at Canada's governing party, the Stephen Harper Conservatives, which was slammed in an independent report for limiting Canada's democratic institutions.

A litany of criticisms have dogged the current Canadian government, and each of its predecessors: abuses of the parliamentary process, attacks on whistleblowers, a decline in citizens' right to access, an increasingly unfair electoral system, a campaign against outspoken charity groups, surveillance of activists, and other criticisms.

Now, Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau thinks he has the solution — and it centers around changing the very way in which Canadians vote.

Ottawa is Broken

The mantra of "Ottawa is broken" has been chanted for elections.

When Stephen Harper, then leader of the newly-formed Conservative Party, was elected as Prime Minister in 2006, he won on the back of a suite of promises on how to fix Canadian governance.

He would force government departments to report salaries, hospitality expenses, and contracts. He would slap strict rules on how lobbyists could operate through the halls of power. He put hard caps on political contributions. He expanded the reach of the country's Access to Information (ATI) regime.

But despite the improvements, Prime Minister Harper did little to stop the slide. His office gained extraordinary new powers to control access to his government. The ATI system is in disrepair. Whistleblowers and critical agents inside the government are frequently fired or mistreated.

Dismantling Democracy, a report released Tuesday by activist think-tank the Voices-Voix Coalition, catalogs many of those problem spots in detail.

It chronicles dozens of watchdogs and whistleblowers who have been turfed in recent years. It further lists dozens of independent advocacy groups who have their government funding cut or removed altogether.

"The Canadian government is failing. It is not only failing to enhance democratic participation and the flourishing of Canadian democracy, its undermining of democracy is much more fundamental," the report concludes. "The knowledge that Canadians need to properly assess government policies, and participate meaningfully in democracy is vanishing."

An Attempt to Fix the Problem

At an event in Ottawa on Tuesday, Trudeau offered a package of solutions, chief among them scrapping the so-called "first past the post" system, which is common in many electoral systems and is based on a winner takes all philosophy. In this system, candidates do not need more than 50 percent of the votes to claim victory, but merely the highest number.

Trudeau's proposed reforms are broken down into five sections — openness and transparency, parliamentary reform, electoral reform, improved policy-making, and improved government services.

If Trudeau is elected, the big change will be to how Canadians vote.

"Within 18 months of forming government, we will bring forward legislation to enact electoral reform," Trudeau's plan promises. While he says he wants to consult with the other parties, and the rest of the country, before he decides on exactly what that reform looks like, the plan says it could include ranked ballots, proportional representation, mandatory voting, and online voting.

"We are committed to ensuring that the 2015 federal election will be the last election using first-past-the-post," he told journalists during his announcement.

Trudeau would also ban a loophole that allows parties to spend as much as they like outside of an election period. Currently, this summer is shaping up to be an unfettered deluge of advertising and campaigning, with virtually no restrictions on how the money is spent.

For open government, Trudeau would reform the ATI system to make government documents "open by default," require they be in digital formats, eliminate the processing fees, and tighten the ability for departments to delay requests. At the moment, as VICE has learned, fighting to get documents through the ATI system can be a lengthy, arduous, expensive, and ultimately fruitless process.

Trudeau would also expand the government's open data initiatives, force parliamentarians to disclose more of their expenses, and make it easier for individuals to request their own data from the government.

When it comes to fixing Parliament, Trudeau says he will beef up the parliamentary committee system and remove influence from the Prime Minister's Office, by removing its ability to select the chairs of the committee, and to stack them with ministers. He says he would work with the other parties to find a better system to appoint justices to the Supreme Court, give more leeway to watchdogs, and improve the machinations of Question Period.

At the announcement, he swore that he would fix the "partisan swamp" that Ottawa has become. He says one step will be to allow his members of parliament to vote however they like on most issues. However, his party has remained painfully in lock-step, with his MPs opting to vote against their conscience on controversial bills they don't actually support, like the Conservatives' much-derided anti-terrorism bill.

Trudeau has also committed to introducing more oversight for Canada's spy agencies, by creating an all-party parliamentary oversight committee.

Trudeau's plan also involves changes to the Senate, but nothing to the extent of the proposals of his two main opponents. Harper wants the Senate elected, whereas NDP leader Thomas Mulcair wants it abolished.

Trudeau would leave the Senate as-is, but has committed to appointing better senators, not forcing them to become a partisan caucus once appointed, and to keep better track of their expenses, so as to avoid the mess the current group finds itself in.

Beyond that, Trudeau is vowing to adopt a gender-based analysis of all government policies, a new youth advisory committee, and, as yet undefined, ways to get the public more involved in government decision-making.

While this is the biggest jump yet for the Liberals, both the NDP and Greens have committed to electoral reform and transparency initiatives in the past.

The NDP have come out in favor of some kind of mixed-member proportional representation. They've also proposed many of the things listed in Trudeau's announcement.

Follow Justin Ling on Twitter: @justin_ling