Not only did this produce little progress on health-care reform, but increasing numbers of Canadians have become convinced that their No. 1 public-policy concern cannot be resolved by political processes and institutions, and that politics is part of the health-care problem, not part of the solution.

If the political debate over Canadian environmental concerns now proceeds along the same well-trodden path, the net effects will be even worse: no progress on the issue itself, and a further dangerous deepening of the disillusionment of Canadians with politicians, parties, political debate, elections, Parliament, and democracy itself.(...)