I often wonder about a sort of “Canadian model” of soft authoritarianism. A system in which government gains increasing power over freedom of speech and the media, and democratic institutions become extremely weak, but the broad middle class remains comfy, so no one really cares.
Imagine a Canada where all media has to be registered with the government—and is often directly funded by them. An ability to engage in political activism is severely restrained by financing and advertising rules, and candidates are subject to extreme vetting before they can run.
None of those seem like extreme extrapolations from where we are now. And I doubt tightening these screws will ever create much controversy among middle class Canadians so long as their material circumstances stay decent, and anti-Americanism is used to rationalize everything.
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