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The question we need to ask as we consider the state of Canadian democracy, is whether our politicians, and our political parties, have also got too good at playing the game — whether they have developed strategies that, despite helping them to win, undermine the point of the competition.

We often forget that democracy is a staged competition, designed to achieve a narrow purpose, which is to produce good government. Yet many fail to see it this way. Part of this is due to the close conceptual connection between “democracy” and “freedom,” which leads them to think of democracy as nothing but the expression of individual freedom — as though you could take a bunch of “free” people, put them in a room, and expect a democracy to emerge spontaneously.

The mistake comes from a failure to recognize that democracy, like sport, is not an expression of our freedom. It is a carefully managed competition, one that has been crafted over time to produce certain outcomes we want.

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Because of this, democracy is also breakable. It is possible, just by exercising our freedom and without even violating any of the rules, to undermine the point of the competition — to make it so that it no longer serves the purposes for which it was instituted.

Democracy is starting to show the signs of a competition run amok. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the emergence of “the forever campaign.”

Every two years, the U.S. Congress welcomes a new batch of members. They attend at least two weeks of orientation activities that provide advice on how to handle every aspect of their new job.