Canadian politics, Cambodian politics

My brother's friend, Paul Kemp, wrote a book called DOES YOUR VOTE COUNT?, in which he examines whether or not an individual Canadian's turn at the polls actually MEANS anything. By interviewing various Canadian politicians, he exposes a lot of the gaps and loopholes inherent in our political system.
In Cambodia, it's easy to get smug and high-falutin' about our own political systems back home, if only because this place's network of higher governing is so supremely, even galactically, messed up.
Average government workers here, the low-level ones, get paid, on average, 20$ U.S. a month. (Of course, there's a whole network of higher-ups that are makin' the big, BIG coin, but that's for another post.)
That's right. Twenty dollars. What that means is that everybody has to get a second job to help support their family -- tailor, restauranteur, whatever. What that mean is that everyone is one the take, and the only thing that matters is how much money you have in your pocket. The reason why it is so hard to implement new, innovative ways of governing and alleviating the poverty is simply: Who has the time? Who has the know-how? If you're making twenty bucks a month, are you willing to TAKE the time to LEARN the know-how? You don't HAVE the time. You don't HAVE the energy. It's easier to pass the buck and take the bucks. The system is rotten from within. Anyone who wonders why developing countries don't develop, well, do the math.
And yet...
The ideals that countries like Cambodia are trying (in theory) to achieve, the ideals that a country like Canada supposedly represent -- are they, in fact, always put in practice? Canada has had its own share of political, financial scandals. And don't get me wrong -- the Cambodian system has many, many decades until it will be able to successfully emulate what makes Canada so fantastic.
But the democracy we take for granted in Canada has its price, and that price is apathy. Americans get into a frenzy around election time, but Canadians are too often willing to give the government the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it's precisely because we're so slack in our political allegiances that the Canadian government has been able to get away with so much. The centralized power that DOES YOUR VOTE COUNT? cautions against, the relative LACK of power that most members of parliament wield, indicates that we have a long way to go before our own political system represents the ideal that the Cambodian people strive to attain.