Lost in Translation or Just Lost? Canadians' priorities in the House of Commons

Parliament is more accessible to Canadians than at any time in history. In the past, only the most devoted had access to the House of Commons transcripts, which were delivered by mail. Democracy has gone digital: the TV cameras introduced in the House in 1977 now stream live online, and citizen-generated web tools like OpenParliament.ca help make parliamentary transcripts searchable and user-friendly. Members of Parliament, too, have more tools available to them in order to communicate with citizens—from Twitter to telephone town halls—than at any time in the past.

But this hasn’t made Canadians feel any more connected to politicians or political institutions; instead they feel increasingly disconnected. In fact, as 2012 public opinion survey data from Samara shows, only 55% of citizens are satisfied with Canada’s democracy—an all-time low. 

That same research produced another unfortunate finding: Only 27% of Canadians think Ottawa deals with the issues they feel are most important in a satisfactory way. These statistics echo comments from Canadians who are disengaged from politics: “Politicians are concerned for their own interests.” “They don’t really care what people want.”

Canada’s system of democratic representation is faltering if a majority of Canadians do not believe their interests are well represented by their elected representatives. 

But is this a problem of perception or is it reality? Most Canadians don’t see the full range of discussion in the House of Commons, so their opinions are likely formed by Question Period and the headlines of the day. This Samara Democracy Report, “Lost in Translation or Just Lost?,” analyzes almost half a year’s worth of parliamentary transcripts to discover what subjects are discussed in the House of Commons and compares them to the issues Canadians say they care about. This research gives Canadians a chance to go beyond the headlines, to eliminate the theatrics of Members speechifying, and to take a closer look at what is discussed, or not discussed, in the heart of Canada’s democratic life: the House of Commons.

*This PDF was created in 2013, and may contain inactive links and/or outdated references.