I agree with your analysis of the evolution over time, and of how we've become disconnected from government to the point where we feel like the government is just this agency that does things but is not really our government. That discourse has been quite corrosive, and I agree that it probably began in the 1980s.
In the discourse that surrounds these kinds of things, it's important to say that this is a project for Canadians, with Canadians. That sort of collective sense that we are doing something together to make our country better is a discourse that draws people into democracy.