Politics & Power Quote by Stockwell Day

Stockwell Day is doing something sly here: he borrows the wide-eyed innocence of "Americans" to make a very Canadian point about power without sounding parochial or self-interested. The move flatters the listener (we are more democratic than that, surely) while quietly indicting a system where party leaders can treat local candidacies like chess pieces. By outsourcing disbelief to the U.S. audience, Day frames his critique as common sense rather than partisan grievance: if even Americans would balk, the practice must be extreme.

The intent is less about constitutional mechanics than about legitimacy. "Simply impose" and "so efficiently move" are loaded phrases; efficiency becomes the villain, suggesting a political machine that prizes control over consent. The line about "virtually no resort to the electorate" taps a persistent anxiety in Westminster systems: that executive power can be built inside the party before voters ever get a meaningful say. In Canadian politics, nomination contests, leader's offices, and party discipline often decide outcomes long before election day. Day is spotlighting that pre-democratic layer.

Context matters: this reads like a reformist jab at centralized leadership, likely aimed at the Prime Minister's Office and the choreography of cabinet-making. The subtext is a warning about political careers being manufactured rather than earned, and about ridings being treated as administrative units instead of communities with agency. It's populism in a suit: not anti-government, but anti-gatekeeper.