Democracy in Canada

So you think the Canadian constitution is a bit strange because it omits a number of key features (like the existence of a Cabinet)? It turns out that you are not alone, the Supreme Court of Canada in the Secession Reference has noted similar omissions, in particular any specific reference to the fact that Canada was to be a democracy. On the other hand, they do suggest that

the democracy principle can best be understood as a sort of baseline against which the framers of our Constitution, and subsequently, our elected representatives under it, have always operated. It is perhaps for this reason that the principle was not explicitly identified in the text of the Constitution Act, 1867 itself. To have done so might have appeared redundant, even silly, to the framers.

It is comforting to know that so much of a country's constitution is just assumed. There is no way that such a practice could ever go wrong.