The state of democracy in Canada has tumbled compared to the past, pushing it out of the top-10 most-stable democracies in the world, according to a new report that places the blame in large part on the effects of COVID-19 restrictions on personal freedoms and related public sentiment. On Feb. 10, London-based Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) released its annual Democracy Index report that rated 167 countries in 2021 based on measures including electoral processes and civil liberties. While less than half of the world’s population live under some form of democracy, Canada also fell out of the world’s top-10 most stable democracies for the first time since The Economist began publishing the report in 2006, dropping to the 12th spot. “Canada’s citizens feel that they have little control over their lives, a sentiment that has been compounded by pandemic-related restrictions on individual freedoms,” the report reads. The ECU used data from the World …