There is one word — one very important word — that any Canadian conversation about Donald Trump must not only include, but scream: democracy.

When things happen in America that are odd or upsetting to the class of Canadians who write our newspaper columns and administer our state, the immediate instinct is to dismiss the phenomena as a manifestation of inherent American sin, usually followed by a treatise on contrasting Canadian virtue. Thus, most Canadian Trump-analysis to date has condescendingly portrayed the man's rise as a reflection of some deep American failure, either economic — pity the poor out of work slobs in Pennsylvania — or more likely moral, with endless harangues over the shocking resilience of racism, misogyny, Islamophobia, etc, in the modern United States.

In response, Canadians on the right will brag about our nation's economically sounder footing, repeating arguments they honed from years of compare-and-contrast with Obama and Harper. Those on the left, meanwhile, will describe Justin Trudeau in soaring terms as the impeccable embodiment of the welcoming multicultural ideal. Lately, Canadians of the left have even started hauling out opportunistic words of "newfound respect" for Prime Minister Harper in the context of Trump, while those on the right spout exaggerated distain for the supposedly "Trump-like" rhetoric of Dr. Leitch and her immigrant "values" test.

It would be naïve to suggest there's no truth to such assertions, yet what unifies them is their conspicuous absence of arguments about democratic institutions and structures — the sort of arguments professional Canadians generally dislike making in US-Canadian comparisons because we usually come out looking worse.

Over 13 million ordinary Americans appointed Donald Trump the Republican candidate for president. They were able to do this because they chose to register — which is to say, voluntarily self-identify — as Republicans. Other Americans who self-identify as Republicans — powerful, rich, important Americans like Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush — told the commoners they shouldn't elect a guy who thinks and says what Trump does, but he still became the nominee anyway. On Tuesday over 59 million Americans voted to install Trump in the White House in defiance of an elite chorus that had only become louder in its condemnation and clowinshly cocksure in its dismissiveness (the expert "predictors" at The Huffington Post, for instance, gave him 98% odds of losing).

Nothing comparable to the Trump triumph has ever happened in Canada. Indeed, it quite explicitly could not happen in Canada. And I mean this in the most literal sense, stripping away all of the ideology and sociology and whatever else from the situation. Canadians simply cannot elect whoever they want to be their candidates for prime minister. These days, we're barely trusted to elect the prime minister at all.

In the best of times, only a couple thousand, fee-paying party members elect the leaders of Canada's political parties, and people like Michael Chong, backed by enormous elite approval, view even this as an affront, and would much prefer party bosses be installed by the couple dozen politicians who make up that party's parliamentary caucus. If we wind up changing Canada's electoral system, which many in this country seem to believe is the moral calling of our age, coalition governments will become the norm and the prime ministership will become, as one of those unseated prime ministers of Australia put it, "a prize or plaything to be demanded" in parliamentary backrooms.

Canadian politicians who say or do even the most mildly controversial things routinely have their election campaigns aborted in-progress by their anxious party bosses. The chill percolates in both directions, and by the time someone has the guts to run for prime minister, they've become experts at saying nothing remotely unorthodox. This can be spun as an inspiring display of calmness on the part of the Canadian political class, but it also retards their ability to offer anything resembling accurate representation of the popular mood.

Over the course of this election, Canadians have been endlessly lectured by their betters that there exists absolutely no appetite for Trumpism in our perfectly placated country. Yet converse outside Canada's progressive urban bubble — or even within it and you'll encounter Canadian Trump supporters with little difficulty, for his appeal is born from an identity of anxiety present across this continent.

A vast majority of Canadians believe political incorrectness has gone way too far as a governing code of daily life, and an equally solid majority want to see immigration capped or lowered. Trade is viewed suspiciously by many; alienation from our hated political class runs rampant. The Ipsos people found 76% of Canadians would vote for a Trump-like platform if given the chance, which guarantees our political parties will conspire to deny us exactly that.

Because America is a uncensored democracy that allows its citizens to select whoever they want to lead them, American elections can be vivid, distressing illustrations of a people messily working through deep and difficult issues. Trump's election was the messiest in generations, and the wounds it leaves are deep and real. But as another flamboyant president once said, there is something worth admiring about those who succeed and fail in awesome, public fashion, as opposed to "cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

Because fate has given Canada a leader so woefully miscast for the relationship he must now maintain, our country seems poised to enter an unavoidable era of isolation from Washington. Our elites, meanwhile, will do their best to preserve the strong antidemocratic barriers that isolate Canadian voters from effectively expressing their concerns, lest this nation of cold and timid souls become as fiery and demanding as the one to our south.

Written by J.J McCullough

By the time you read this, the countdown to the 2016 presidential election will have entered the low single digits, and yet for many the wait still feels unjustifiably long. How delightful then that there exists such a thriving cottage industry of foolproof election "predictors" all boasting impeccable records of accuracy in exposing the outcome ages before voting day. I'm not talking about stat-crunching eggheads like FiveThirtyEight and TheUpshot, but rather fortune-tellers closer to the… shall we say, chicken entrails end of the methodological spectrum.

Headlines were made last week with news that what the New York Post dubbed a "reliable AI system" from India had predicted Donald would take the White House. Trump voters should be ecstatic, we were told, because the electronic brain, which is named "MogIA," and presumably has big spinning tape canisters that look like eyes, correctly predicted the last three elections. Talk about impressive! I mean, the odds of getting something like that right by random chance alone are a staggering… one in eight.

Trump fans can also take solace in the fact that their candidate ran away with the Halloween mask sales, a variable that, although difficult to measure, is said to have predicted every winning president since at least the 1970s. Of course, this could easily be reduced to an even simpler potent that "the more interesting candidate always wins," or maybe even "the winner is whoever has the more entertaining SNL portrayal." Successful presidential candidates are often larger-than-life characters, which makes sense given a colourful personality is usually a proxy for charisma, charm, and other political talents. Trump's viability as a rubber mask, however, could prove more reflective of the man's liabilities — the first candidate to be regarded by millions as a literal ghoul.

Hillary supporters, meanwhile, are supposed to have their spirits lifted by the fact that the Iowa Electronic Markets — a "real-money futures market" run by the University of Iowa College of Business — places her in a healthy lead over The Donald. The IEM has predicted every presidential winner since 1988 (though the 2012 numbers were so close it was basically a tie). The fact that Clinton is currently leading the polls in Nevada is similarly supposed to be a positive omen for Democrats that transcends mathematical strategy — since 1976 Nevada has always voted for the winning team. On the other hand, one could say the fact she is presently down in Ohio should ring massive alarms: that state has voted for every presidential winner since 1964.

If all this seems frustratingly ambiguous, that's probably because it is. Election-predicting folk wisdom is only right until it's wrong, and every election cycle countless rock-solid predictors are tossed into the basket of forgotten political trivia along with the name of Bob Dole's vice president (Jack Kemp).

From 1936 to 2004 it was an iron law of the universe that whenever the Washington Redskins won their last home game before the election, the incumbent president's party would win. But then in 2004 they lost and Bush won a second term anyway. A Democrat had not been elected president without West Virginia since World War I — until Obama was in 2008.

Even many of today's nominally impressive records have notable asterisks. Yale economist Ray Fair has predicted every presidential winner since 1996, though he's actually been predicting since 1980 — he got 1992 wrong. There's a popular legend that American schoolchildren have an impeccable track record of picking presidents in mock classroom elections stretching back generations, but even this breathless USA Today article concedes that the gradeschool hivemind still got two of the last 18 wrong.

Boring old polls have mainstream credibility on their side, but certainly Canadians will have little difficulty conjuring times when the professionals have been wildly off. Even the great Nate Silver has taken to reminding that a poll boasting 99% confidence would by definition fail if it didn't occasionally yield the 1% outcome — a fact which though mathematically true makes one long for the certainty of Halloween masks.

Elections can be haunting things in what the reveal about our fellow man. (This one's clearly been more haunting than most.) But in an age of immediate gratification and easy answers, they also remain one of the few phenomena of life that are genuinely mysterious and unknowable, a self-contained story whose ending cannot be spoiled with bootlegging or cheat codes.

Amid all the self-righteousness and virtue posturing that has enveloped this long, shrill contest, there's something properly fitting that it concludes with everyone, voter and candidate alike, humbled by unavoidable uncertainty.

Written by J.J McCullough

As Justin Trudeau finishes his first year in office with a comically huge approval rating and no end to his honeymoon in sight, all is mostly well in Liberal land.

True, every week or so the PM finds himself in an awkward situation, be it a spat with the provinces over a unilaterally imposed carbon tax or a yelling match with unionists at the Canadian Labour Congress, but it is well understood that these deplorables are not fit to tug on his kingly robes.

In Ontario, only the fact that it is impossible to have a less-than-zero approval rating prevents Kathleen Wynne's score on that score from sinking any lower.

Rumours continue to fly about whether she'll step down by the end of the year.  Riding after riding slips through her fingers.

And yet, federally and provincially (and municipally too, it must be said), whatever passes for opposition remains beset by internal strife, spending as much time scoring points off of each other as they do fighting the establishment.

The NDP is mostly moribund.  Embattled in Alberta and a long way from power everywhere else, with no one stepping forward at the federal level to claim the crown after the unceremonious dumping of Thomas Mulcair, they seem to be resigned to their marginality.

The Conservatives are certainly far busier and livelier, with impending by-elections in two ridings in Ontario and a bumptious federal leadership race providing opportunities for new alliances to be forged and new ideas to come to the forefront.

But even with all these entertaining diversions, the fact that the blue team is plagued by an existential anxiety is clear.

When a nomination candidate is announced for the PCPO, anxious rumblings rather than joyful exultations are heard.  Sam Oosterhoff is too young!  Joe Oliver is too old!  Andre Marin is too aggressive!  Parm Gill is too much of a CPC retread!

As for the CPC, the leadership race does seem to be either a (bloody) feast or a famine with nothing in between.  Federal leadership candidates float burqa bans and values tests for immigrants.

Maxime Bernier, allegedly a happy warrior and a fount of positivity and ideas, sends out fundraising emails telling people how angry and worried he is that the Liberals are spending money like drunken sailors and how they will confiscate your guns.

The more centrist candidates- the Michael Chongs, the Lisa Raitts- run on their personal qualities and tell inspiring stories, but struggle to define themselves from the pack.

They have good reason to worry when longtime party stalwart Tony Clement chooses to tap out early, citing a shortage of funds.

Tony the Tiger is famed for his resiliency.  He's survived political disasters that would kill lesser politicians.  He boasts an enviable network of contacts and has managed a dizzying array of ministerial portfolios.

And yet, when confronted with the present urgency, the angst-driven need for a quick fix that torments the right, he made the decision to withdraw.

Potential saviours such as John Baird and Peter MacKay have stayed above the fray.  Kevin O'Leary inspires, and he is burnishing his political brand, but he is unwilling to make his run totally official as of yet- and why should he, when he could be leader tomorrow at a word, on the strength of his star power alone?

And there's the heart of the problem.

Seeing Trudeau razzle-dazzle his way to the highest office in the land has caused conservatives in Canada to choose style over substance, art over matter, emotion over stability.

Perhaps it has always been that way, and paying lip service to principles and ideology served as a distraction from the truth.

But now the Liberals under Trudeau and Wynne have proven themselves so effective at occupying all points on the political spectrum- being able to broker anything from tax cuts to increases in the minimum wage, seemingly unlimited increases in public spending to relief on hydro bills, and anything in between- that at times, it is difficult for the opposition to justify their own existence.

So now the Conservatives cannot rely on practical solutions or personal qualities to beat the Liberals, leaving only one option open to them- the one place where the Liberals will not go.  Their last hope and strong suit.

Anger.

Written by Josh Lieblein

Last week I contacted three of the organizers of an upcoming Liberal Party of Canada fundraiser, which has Finance Minister Bill Morneau as the star attendee, in the interest of buying a $500 ticket to the event.  Despite emails and follow-up phone calls to secretaries (assuring me my message has been received) I have not heard back from any of the organizers.

This LPC fundraiser and other top-level fundraisers are not advertised on the LPC "events" website page, which has many other LPC fundraisers listed.  The discreet planning and invitations of some of these LPC fundraisers—where selected federal cabinet ministers attend as "special guests"—and my being stonewalled by organizers of one of these exclusive events suggests that the PMO's statement to The Globe and Mail that "fundraisers are not exclusive because they are open to all…" is patently false.  Morneau reiterated this false claim, saying to The Globe the events "are in fact open" to every Canadian.

In a press release from last week entitled "In Canadian Politics, People Come Before Special Inerests And Strong Federal Rules Guarantee It" LPC President Anna Gainey defended the Liberals' fundraising as having "the utmost integrity and transparency."  Gainey also claims "we can be grateful that our fundraising hasn't been pushed to the backrooms…"  Yet, in my attempts to attend a fundraiser it appears that there is indeed "backroom" fundraising still alive and well.

In the LPC press release Gainey also stressed that the other parties do the same types of fundraising: "The Conservatives were in power under the same strict fundraising rules as well.  Conservatives like Joe Oliver, Lisa Raitt, Jason Kenney, Kellie Leitch and Chris Alexander all joined their party for an extensive series of fundraising events ranging up to $1500 per person and those events have continued with Rona Ambrose as their Interim Leader.  The NDP has also accepted hundreds of donations at the same level."

However, the federal Liberals ran an election campaign stressing a more open and transparent government, not more of the status quo, and as The Globe pointed out in its extensive coverage of the LPC's "cash-for-access" fundraising, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberals put forth new ethics rules outlining that "there should be no preferential access, or appearance of preferential access, accorded to individuals or organizations because they have made financial contributions to politicians and political parties."

Exclusive fundraisers like the one with Finance Minister Morneau on Nov. 7 run directly counter to the Liberal government-enacted rule of there being "no preferential access … to individuals or organizations".  Furthermore, these exclusive events break the Liberal rule of "no singling out … of individuals or organizations as targets of political fundraising" because only high-profile people like business executives are invited to these private events.  This also puts pressure on these individuals to attend and donate to the LPC fundraisers because it would likely put them at a disadvantage to their competitors to decline an intimate dinner with the federal Finance Minister.

There were several reasons I decided to try and pay $500 to attend one of these high-level LPC fundraisers.  First, I wanted to test the PMO's and Morneau's apparently disingenuous claim that these events are open to the public at large.  Second, if I had been allowed to attend I would have had time with the Finance Minister to ask him questions regarding his recent comments saying Canadians should get accustomed to short-term employment, what he plans to do to help millennials get good-paying jobs, and if he really thinks events that cost $500 to $1,500 are really open to all Canadians.  Third, a chance for access to the Finance Minister at $500 was a great bargain compared to other fundraisers he was a star guest at that cost $1,500 a ticket.  Fifth and finally, it would have been great to report on one of these discreet events and see actually what they entail since there has been such a pronounced response and interest from the public to The Globe's coverage on these cash-for-access or pay-to-play events.

This morning the LPC, Prime Minister's Office, and Office of the Minister of Finance were all contacted for comment on the discrepancies between their claims that the fundraisers are open to all compared to what is being done by the LPC and Liberal government in practice.

Morneau's press secretary declined to give comment as of now, suggesting the LPC is the event organizer and would be best suited to answer my questions.  I did pose a follow-up question asking if Morneau still stands by his previous statement that LPC fundraisers are open to all Canadians.

LPC Senior Director of Communications Braeden Caley in an email said, "The event is not open for press coverage and it is being hosted in the home of a volunteer, but it is open for anyone who wishes to purchase a ticket."

This doesn't seem exactly true when the event is not advertised to the public, and is only solicited to select individuals.  And it appears fundraisers are open to the public, excluding journalists.

In the rest of the email, posted below, Caley defended the LPC's fundraisers:

"It's important to note that federal political donations are governed by some of the most strict political financing rules in Canada and all of North America and rightly so. No donations can be accepted from corporations, trade unions or associations; individual contributions are strictly limited; and all contributions over $200 are publicly and proactively disclosed on the Elections Canada website both quarterly and annually. These are the rules that every Canadian political party must abide by, and the same rules that govern other parties' events as well.

Mr. Trudeau and all Liberal MPs have also been the guest speakers at hundreds of free outreach events across Canada this year, with just a few of Mr. Trudeau's examples including a 4,000-person Community BBQ with MP Sean Fraser this summer, a large summer community event with MPs Paul Lefebvre and Marc Serre in Sudbury, this month's 2,500-person meet-and-greet in Medicine Hat, and last Friday evening's address in Niagara Falls. He also met tens of thousands of Canadians when he became the first-ever sitting Prime Minister to march in Pride Parades in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal.

In addition, the Liberal Party of Canada is the first and only federal political party that has made it completely free for Canadians to join, get involved, and participate in party affairs, regardless of their background.

On the government side, there are 83 consultations currently open to the public at no cost, and Liberal Ministers have already hosted more open consultations, town hall, and Facebook live discussions with Canadians in one year than Conservative Ministers hosted in ten years. Liberal MPs all across Canada have also hosted hundreds of free and open town halls and roundtables with Canadians over the course of this year, and constantly working to engage with Canadians directly is a fundamental commitment of the Liberal team."

The Liberals' defense that they do lots of free and open consultations and events doesn't negate the fact that these small intimate cash-for-access gatherings give much better one-on-one access to federal cabinet ministers than these large public events could ever provide an individual.

Written by Graeme C. Gordon