Democracy equates with strong legislatures

A couple of American academics, Steven Fish and Matthew Kroenig, have completed a study ranking the power of 158 national legislatures globally. The strength of legislatures was measured using four factors: influence over the executive, autonomy, vested powers and the capacity to do things (like hiring staff). The correlation is that countries with strong legislatures have more resilient democracies. Weak legislatures cannot keep executives in check. The United States was outranked by 40 other countries. I have no information where Canada stood, but based on the criteria, I would think that Canada would rate higher, which, prior to this study, I would have found surprising.