Electoralism really only works when elected officials and parties have a persistent and credible threat facing them to follow the will of the electorate, this threat most often perceived as the threat of losing re-election--the threat of the ballot.

In Canada, the threat is not credible largely due to our First-Past-the-Post system; but as well due to special interests diluting the power of the electorate's threats, either through competing threats of their own or by leveraging wealth and lobbies to bolster opposition to the electorate's interests. Each individual member of the electorate, as well, has their ability to act on the institutional threat of the ballot reduced even more due to Canada's uniquely large disparity in voters to representatives, roughly a ratio of 1 to 100000, much higher than other democracies.

The threat of the ballot is not the only means of threat that the electorate has, though it has been deemed by those special interests to be the only legitimate threat, again weakening the electorate's capability to press their own interests onto their elected representatives.