Economist Intelligence Unit’s new updated Democracy Index scored Canada a 10 out 10 for civil liberties. Canada was also ranked 6th in the list including all the world’s democracies. This index provides data of a total of 167 democratic counties and scores them on the basis of electoral process, civil liberties, running of government, political activities and political culture.

If we look into Canada, the overall score remained unchanged when compared to 2017 that is 9.15. The Index further mentioned Canada as a “full democracy” which makes Canada one of only 20 countries to achieve the title. Full Democracy can be defined as the one which is not only basic political freedom and liberties are protected. According to the study, “A functioning government, independent media, an effective system of checks and balances and an independent judiciary are also hallmarks of a full democracy.”
Ahead of Canada were Norway, Iceland, Sweden, New Zealand, and Denmark. Canada was featured as it was one of the four countries that earned full marks for civil liberties joined by only Australia, New Zealand and Ireland.

Canada has been a consistent high scorer in the Democracy Index list with the help of a rich history consisting of a well known democratic government with stable legislature and system. This is the reason why The Economist Intelligence Unit (EUI) specially mentioned Canada as one of the top scoring countries on the list. Civil Liberties like freedom of expression, cultural tolerance, freedom to follow any religion and equality under the law has been a major characteristic of Canada even as it consists of a French-Canadian and native minorities.
EIU is basically a research unit and an analysis contributing part of The Economist Group who are responsible for publishing Economist magazine. They point out the good and bad points in the Democracy Index List of countries, despite all the credibility in favor of Canada, The EIU also pointed out some faults in the Canadian political system like low memberships in political parties, political participation, engagement in political events and poor voting turnout, which is the reason why Canada scored the lowest points, that is, 7.78 in the political participation category. A little improvement will sort things out for Canada in the coming years as the score was still way better than many other countries on the list.