Editing Party discipline (section)

===Canada===
Canadian parliaments have seen an especially drastic rise in party discipline over the past 100 years. In the early 1900s, just 20 percent of elected MPs voted with their respective party 100 percent of the time.<ref name=":0" /> The past ten years{{when|date=April 2022}}, however, has seen MPs vote against their party less than 1 percent of the time. This mass conformity has had a drastic effect on Canadian elections, with just 4 to 5 percent of Canadians listing the actual candidate as prioritization in elections. Furthermore, statistics show that voter opinions of local candidates matter in less than 15 percent of elections.<ref name=":0" /> Thus Canada has become widely regarded as the parliamentary democracy with the most stringent party discipline. This, in turn, has led to frustration among many Canadian voters who feel their elected representative is no more than a simple brand ambassador.<ref name=":0" />

==== Concerns over presidentialization of parliamentary systems ====
This stringent discipline in the Canadian system has, in turn, played a part in what is deemed the presidentialization of the [[Westminster parliamentary system]].<ref name="VandenBeukel 830–849"/> The Canadian system has come to possess many characteristics of presidential systems without any of the formal attributes. The position of the Canadian prime minister has seen an increasing level of power which has resulted in the position becoming arguably more powerful than some actual [[presidential system]]s.<ref>{{Citation |last1=Poguntke |first1=Thomas |title=The Presidentialization of The Presidentialization of Politics in Democratic Societies: Politics in Democratic Societies: A Framework for Analysis |date=2005 |url=https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/10.1093/0199252017.001.0001/acprof-9780199252015-chapter-1 |work=The Presidentialization of Politics |place=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |doi=10.1093/0199252017.001.0001 |isbn=978-0-19-925201-5 |access-date=2022-04-07 |last2=Webb |first2=Paul}}</ref>

==== Party discipline in the reformed Canadian Senate ====
The 2015 reforms to Canadian senate sought to increase independence, ideological diversity, and encouraging the exercising of formal powers, by eliminating political parties in the senate. While party discipline has been somewhat loosened, it has not really been effectively loosened as appointees are still likely to follow respective party policy and rhetoric.<ref name="VandenBeukel 830–849">{{Cite journal |last1=VandenBeukel |first1=Jason Robert |last2=Cochrane |first2=Christopher |last3=Godbout |first3=Jean-François |date=December 2021 |title=Birds of a Feather? Loyalty and Partisanship in the Reformed Canadian Senate |journal=Canadian Journal of Political Science |language=en |volume=54 |issue=4 |pages=830–849 |doi=10.1017/S0008423921000548 |s2cid=243704273 |issn=0008-4239|doi-access=free }}</ref> While senators are now officially unaffiliated with political parties research has shown that they still to tend to largely vote along the same ideological party lines as before. While more time is needed to study the implemented reforms' effects, initial data shows that the reforms have been largely ineffective and have actually negatively impacted regional representation.<ref name="VandenBeukel 830–849"/>