If America is a Republic, then so is Canada really; but then, so is most of the democratic world. I actually remember learning about the Canadian system in social studies, grade 9, and asked my teacher "so wait, aren't we a republic then?". All he could answer was "No we're not! We're a democracy!" but couldn't explain why I was wrong.



Anyway, a Republic quite simply is a form of democracy. The only difference is that what people here are referring to as "Pure Democracy", is actually called Direct Democracy. A Republic is what most of us use today, which is called a Representative Democracy.


We made the change from Direct Democracy to Representative Democracy because of a booming population that couldn't allow public deliberation on every issue; just too many people to gather on too many issues.
Democracy does not necessarily mandate mob rule though (it does, currently, but it doesn't have to). In the most simple and oft-used first-past-the-post system, 50%+1 gives candidates victory and likewise, 51% of the public can oppress 49% of the population. This is the main problem with classical liberal democracy, it does not ensure the rights of minorities.
Anywho, this can easily be remedied by jumping over to a system of proportional representation, as I described in my post above.


Cheers.:joint1: :S5: