Maxwell A. Cameron

The province is fairly polarized.

UBC political scientist Max Cameron suspects the NDP believed the electorate was tilting more in their favor than it actually was.

My hunch is that the chaos on the center right and right has maybe lulled the government and the premier into a fool's paradise so thinking that they are safer than in fact they are.

But if it's a fool's paradise it's a well-known one.

I'm Carol Taylor.

On this edition of Journal, I would like you to meet a man I've known for a long time, Max Cameron.

As a professor of political science and public policy at UBC, he also co-founded the Institute for Future Legislators.

You know, we often end up on the same panel, but not always with the same point of view.

While showing remarkable, if not perfect, restraint, Canada has its own internal problems, with two of our provinces talking openly about leaving Canada and all of our provinces maintaining interprovincial trade barriers, despite promises to take down those walls.

Canada also gets very low marks for the abrasive partisanship that rears its ugly head during elections, especially on social media.

And so Max Cameron has just written a new book on democracy, Divided We Fall.

How can we resist polarizing pressures and strengthen our identity as citizens? Is there any hope of pulling ourselves out of this negative spiral? Max joins us after this break with his thoughts.