Our referendums are not direct democracy.

• Author: Rowat, Don

Don Rowat is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Carleton Unviersity, Ottawa. He is former president of the Canadian Study of Parliament Group. This is a revised version of his remarks at the 1998 CSPG Spring Conference.

Though the referendum as used in Canada is often said to be a device of direct democracy, this is not true, because of our confused use of the word referendum. As used in the United States, the word means the reference of a legislative proposition, initiated by the citizens, to a popular vote, the result of which is binding. In other words, the voters pass laws directly, without reference to the legislature, and this is why it is called direct democracy.

Referendums were an extension for large populations of the practice of direct democracy in the Swiss canton meeting or the New England town meeting of voters, where legislation is still passed, and taxes are levied, directly by the voters. This type of referendum is direct democracy in the sense that the voters are actually passing legislation if they approve the proposition presented to them.

The other meaning of the word, and the one now meant in Canada, is the reference of a question to a popular vote, which is not binding on the government or legislature that referred it. A government or legislature may ignore the result and they have often done so. Thus the non-binding referendum is merely a kind of expensive public opinion poll. One can argue that polls are better because they are a scientific sample of the whole adult population, while in a Canadian referendum few may vote, so it can easily happen that a majority vote is not the majority view of the whole electorate. This type of referendum is more properly called a plebiscite. But often these terms are used interchangeably in Canada. For instance, Patrick Boyer entitled his book of 1992, "Direct Democracy in Canada: The History and Future of Referendums," yet was mainly concerned with this type of referendum. I would argue that his title is misleading because most of the direct votes in Canada have been of the non-binding type, whether called referendums or plebiscites, and so are not really a form of direct democracy.

Unfortunately, it really muddies the water to use the same term for binding and non-binding referendums, and to call both "direct democracy," because they are basically so different. In discussions we should be careful to specify which one we are talking about, by using a qualifying word such...