The convoy crisis is nearly at an end, and hopefully there will not be any serious violence; but the corrosive tides which inundated our capital and land borders in February, 2022 will come back even stronger. We have to prepare our democratic institutions to resist the next storm.I come from the shores of the Bay of Fundy where every spring a bit more of the land is turned over to the sea. The winter tides and ice batter the shoreline, and with the spring, fields and backyards shrink by as much as a metre. It has been common practice for decades to pick up cottages and move them back several metres.What has unfolded these past weeks here, in Ottawa, and along the border in Coutts, Windsor and elsewhere is just like a bad Nor'easter, and make no mistake, we've lost some ground, and the fragility of our democratic shores is showing.Some landowners take to simply piling rocks on the shoreline: it's expensive, it's simple and the sea eventually finds its way in anyhow. The better way requires patience and co-operation among neighbours to plant shore grasses, and encourage wetland formation and improve drainage. Rather than trying to wall off the sea, you strengthen the ground itself.Canada is not special. Canada does not exist apart from a world in which white supremacy, gross economic inequality and ignorance mix with disinformation and violent ideology to form a toxic on-line brew that can spill over into real life. These are not phenomena that somehow occur in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and so many other of our allies, while sparing Canada.The past two years have been hard on everyone. The people occupying Ottawa's streets may feel that they have borne the brunt, or that only they understand what is really going on; frankly I couldn't tell you what they really think because nothing they've said makes any sense to me.We can at least agree that we are all feeling worn down. Thirty-five thousand Canadians died from a COVID-19 infection, and their families and friends miss them. There are thousands of COVID-19 survivors who must live with the disease's long-term effects. The pandemic has been hardest on front-line health workers, service workers and essential workers; it has had disproportionate impacts on people of colour, women and persons with disabilities, to name only some.The current crisis of blockades and occupation may have been triggered by public policies implemented to address the pandemic, but the undercurrents have existed for much longer. For too long we have been forced to debate facts instead of ideas because climate change deniers, Holocaust deniers, Islamophobes and conspiracists propagate their lies instantly through social media. These anti-science, ahistorical and fact-free messages are amplified by people with platforms, like talk radio personalities, clergy, wellness quacks and politicians. Fox News and its acolytes from News Max to Rebel exist to pour fuel on the fire.Arrayed against these insidious and anarchical forces, we have democratic institutions that were built in the Victorian age. The pandemic itself offers an extended indictment of federalism, of which the paralysis of policing in Ottawa is only the latest example. It has been an exhausting, non-stop parade of finger-pointing and duty-shirking by every level of government. Squabbling over jurisdiction--not hockey--is Canada's true national pastime.And just look at the state of our national politics: the federal Liberals, governing with less than 1/3rd popular support, can't decide what to order for lunch, let alone how to secure the national capital. The federal Conservatives are fundamentally broken and will never seriously challenge the Liberals again. The NDP is a shadow of the party Jack Layton left behind, lost in the wilderness with no way out. The Greens have permanently wilted.We have missed many opportunities to improve the health of our democracy over the decades since the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was adopted, but none is as glaring as the February 2017 decision of Prime Minister Trudeau to abandon his commitment to electoral reform. It was a signature plank of the Liberal Party's 2015 platform, and the combined popular vote share of the Liberal, NDP and Green parties--each of which made a similar commitment--constituted an overwhelming mandate to proceed.But Trudeau cynically calculated that he didn't need electoral reform to maintain power. The next big event on the democratic calendar in Canada offers no hope: the Conservative leadership race promises a doubling down on extremism and grievance and poses no threat to Liberal hegemony.We need leadership, but our system is designed to avoid it. Every government can always blame another; and every election can be cast as Us vs. Them, a contest of fears rather than of positive visions for a better, united Canada.If all we do after this episode is prosecute some occupiers and add new laws and regulations to the books, it'll be like dumping rocks on the shoreline. We need to invest in our democracy, modernize our electoral system and create space for new ideas to be seriously considered in politics. It will take time but spring is around the corner, and what better time to plant the seeds of renewal.Joel Henderson a lawyer in Ottawa, and former EA to former MP Bill Casey.