In effect, this would amount to making each local Member of Parliament the chief operating officer of the government in his or her community. Government and Cabinet would still make policy, but it would be administered locally and overseen by elected constituency politicians. In short, the goal here would be to focus less on the inward influence of representatives in Parliament and more on the outward influence they wield with voters in their ridings.

Concepts such as putting politicians and voters in closer and more constant contact with one another, granting voters greater and more direct access to the political system, and giving representatives access to government resources to be deployed against local needs are neither innovative nor new. Citizen contact and debate was the cornerstone of Athenian democracy. Empowering voters was essential to such populist movements as the Grange and the United Farmers of Alberta. Another powerful example is Tammany Hall, which was fuelled by local networks of bossism and patronage.

For some, revisiting these ideas may smack of sentimental nostalgia or even taking up the cudgel of a now disgraced past. But the fact is, compared to today, many aspects of democracy were healthier in an earlier time. Past civilizations and societies atrophied, not because these concepts were faulty, but because they were applied to an uneducated, ill-informed, and acquiescent population. Because we have progressed – because we now have a citizenry that has the tools and wherewithal to chart a new collective destiny – we also now have it in our grasp to use the best of the old and the new to save democracy.