A few months back, I confessed to what is, for a parliamentary wonk, an almost unforgiveable weakness; namely, a shameful but implacable envy of the United States congressional committee system.

However, when it comes time to watch our southern neighbours head to the polls to choose the representatives who may eventually fill the seats around those committee tables, those pangs of disloyalty don’t just fade away but are forcibly evicted by an all-encompassing glow of smugness shared, I suspect, by more than a few Canadians, at the obvious, indisputable and almost cartoon-like superiority of our electoral process.

In Canada, it starts with the ballots, of course — made of paper, not pixels, and dropped into real, non-virtual boxes to be counted — and, if necessary, recounted — by human beings. But it goes so much deeper than that.