At no point in the last several decades has any Canadian government come close to being totalitarian, authoritarian, or otherwise. The most recent example in living memory (which I don't intend to downplay) would've been residential schools, which were run by churches with supportive policies coming from the federal (and lower) governments. The last residential school closed in 1997.
Canada is absolutely, beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt, a representative democracy falling under the broad umbrella of "Western (Neo)liberal democracies". There are legitimate criticisms of neoliberalism just as there are of neoconservativism, but totalitarian aspirations are exceptionally rarely a valid accusation.
If anything, the biggest threat to Canadian democracy might be a decline in political literacy. We don't have an election where we vote for PMs, but many people still do. We don't have a two-party system; in practice, we have a multi-party system to the extent that minority governments are possible (we have one now!), but many people vote as though we're in a two-party system with a handful of "joke parties" that amount to wasting your vote. We have a bicameral parliament, but one of our chambers is made up purely of elected members who have so far mostly stayed level-headed through more or less sheer force of good will (which I don't consider a good enough protection in the long term, but that's another topic).
How laws are introduced into parliament and passed is something most Canadians probably couldn't answer off the top of their heads in more detail than saying that there there are a few readings, and most of us aren't following what our MP or MPP is doing for your riding, because in real terms, most of us vote based on a party leader and their at-large actions in office.
At no point in the last several decades has any Canadian government come close to being totalitarian, authoritarian, or otherwise. The most recent example in living memory (which I don't intend to downplay) would've been residential schools, which were run by churches with supportive policies coming from the federal (and lower) governments. The last residential school closed in 1997.
Canada is absolutely, beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt, a representative democracy falling under the broad umbrella of "Western (Neo)liberal democracies". There are legitimate criticisms of neoliberalism just as there are of neoconservativism, but totalitarian aspirations are exceptionally rarely a valid accusation.
If anything, the biggest threat to Canadian democracy might be a decline in political literacy. We don't have an election where we vote for PMs, but many people still do. We don't have a two-party system; in practice, we have a multi-party system to the extent that minority governments are possible (we have one now!), but many people vote as though we're in a two-party system with a handful of "joke parties" that amount to wasting your vote. We have a bicameral parliament, but one of our chambers is made up purely of elected members who have so far mostly stayed level-headed through more or less sheer force of good will (which I don't consider a good enough protection in the long term, but that's another topic).
How laws are introduced into parliament and passed is something most Canadians probably couldn't answer off the top of their heads in more detail than saying that there there are a few readings, and most of us aren't following what our MP or MPP is doing for your riding, because in real terms, most of us vote based on a party leader and their at-large actions in office.