This article originally appeared in Canadian Affairs.
By Jerome Gessaroli, July 18, 2025
Canadian officials readily condemn democratic erosion elsewhere, yet they remain curiously silent about a quieter version of this trend playing out at home. Here, the threat is cabinet ruling by fiat in the name of efficiency.
There is no shortage of current and former cabinet ministers and prime ministers willing to lend their voices to criticizing democratic backsliding abroad.
In 2018, during her time as foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland — now transport minister — warned of rising authoritarianism around the globe. Former prime minister Jean Chrétien pointed to several European countries drifting away from democratic principles in a 2023 interview. Even Prime Minister Mark Carney, during his tenure as governor of the Bank of England, raised concerns in 2019 about the future of democratic accountability.
Yet these leaders never grapple with the issue of Canada’s institutions sliding into illiberal governance — not through coups but through convenience.
Across the country, governments are turning to emergency-style powers to accelerate infrastructure projects. These measures are not being used to respond to natural disasters or insurrections. Instead, they are framed as a reaction to U.S. tariffs and long-standing regulatory bottlenecks. The language used is of urgency, but the outcome is the same: democratic norms are sidelined in favour of executive overreach.
More troubling is that these tendencies are becoming structurally entrenched. Over recent decades, Canadian prime ministers, premiers and their advisers have centralized decision-making and tightened party discipline. This shift to “governing from the centre” has weakened other democratic institutions such as cabinet, the public service, party caucuses, and legislative committees. The result is an erosion of internal checks and balances, replaced by more unilateral executive action.
With power concentrated, governments have found it easier to use more sweeping measures.
During the pandemic, governments imposed broad restrictions, sometimes inconsistently, such as closing places of worship while allowing bars and restaurants to operate.
In 2022, the federal government invoked the Emergencies Act to end the trucker convoy protest, assuming broad powers unseen in peacetime for over 50 years to manage what was a disruptive but civil demonstration.
The trend is quite clear. Governments are not averse to limiting fundamental freedoms when it suits political or bureaucratic convenience.
Now, a different form of executive overreach — focused on economic governance — is being formalized. Federal Bill C‑5 allows cabinet to fast-track projects “in the national interest” with a single sweeping permit, bypassing many individual federal approvals and parliamentary review.
British Columbia’s Bill 15 gives provincial cabinet the authority to exempt designated projects from environmental reviews and municipal approvals.
Ontario’s Bill 5 establishes Special Economic Zones where the provincial cabinet can sidestep long-standing municipal planning rules and broader regulatory requirements.
All are justified as responses to trade pressures. But they work by systematically weakening public accountability.
To be clear, the economic challenge is real. U.S. tariffs could seriously affect Canadian exports and industrial competitiveness. Governments must respond. And yes, Canada’s current permitting and regulatory systems are too slow and cumbersome. Major projects can take 10 to 15 years or more to get off the ground. Something has to change.
But here’s the critical point: these very bills implicitly acknowledge that existing laws and procedures are not up to the task. Governments admit that our regulatory systems need revision. But not one of the governments behind these bills has committed to fixing the broken frameworks they now bypass. Instead of reform, they are choosing to work around it, by concentrating authority in the cabinet.
That’s the danger.
I can accept, reluctantly, the use of extraordinary tools in response to extraordinary economic risks. But that acceptance must be conditional: governments must commit to reforming the policy and regulatory environment so that such measures are no longer needed. If these bills are truly emergency responses, then reform must follow.
Without that commitment, we are normalizing provisional executive control. And that risks shifting Canada further into what political scientists call “executive aggrandizement,” where elected leaders expand power legally — but illegitimately — by eroding the role of legislatures, committees and public scrutiny.
These shortcuts could also bring economic costs. They distort market signals by giving some projects preferential treatment, create uncertainty for investors, and erode public trust in fairness. Moreover, small and medium-sized enterprises are disadvantaged, lacking lobbying power to obtain fast-track exemptions. Consultation becomes symbolic rather than substantive.
While Freeland and Chretien are right to call out democratic backsliding abroad, their warning rings hollow when they ignore democratic erosion at home.
Canada is not immune to the democratic recession gripping other advanced democracies. In fact, we may be particularly susceptible to erosion by legalism and inertia. Democratic backsliding doesn’t always come through force. Sometimes, it is packaged as regulatory reform and justified as progress.
If governments believe exceptional powers are needed, even on a temporary basis, they must commit to reforming the policies they are overriding, so that such powers do not become the default.
An effective government requires not just acting quickly but ensuring the institutions that support democracy remain strong.
Jerome Gessaroli is a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and leads the Sound Economic Policy Project at the British Columbia Institute of Technology.
