Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Nov. 17th, 2011

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley]

Yes.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

My question is on your thoughts. It's kind of a macro picture, given your earlier role. As you've noticed, it still leaves us—I'm not going to deal with the Quebec issue, because that's really a political issue—with an issue where Ontario and B.C. are still not as close to their population seat count as the other provinces.

First of all, what do you think about that, in terms of the health of our democracy, where we maintain that discrepancy, especially in our largest province and our third-largest province? And secondly, do you have any thoughts as to what we could do about those anomalies, because they are outside this formula? Can you think of anything we could do—even a one-off—that would be consistent with the thinking, but bring us closer yet to parity in terms of the seats that Ontario and B.C. should have?

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley]

Obviously, every province should have the number of seats that is proportional to its proportion of the population. That is the ideal.

Is there a way of improving this bill? In order to do it and have a formula to do this, mathematically speaking, you have to work with the quotient. You will have to reduce that quotient to increase those seats. At a moment in time, you can't do it just for one province. It has to be based on a formula.

The alternative is to increase that, but this is what you were discussing the other day. You get to a point where you have too many members of Parliament, especially when you consider that the people at the bottom, the people who are overrepresented, the provinces that are overrepresented, are significantly overrepresented, some of them. If you are going to be basing it on that, in order to have that as your common denominator, you have to blow the House of Commons totally out of proportion.

I think it's the right idea to eliminate that as part of the solution. You just leave that and work on the rest. That's why I think this bill is probably as good as it can get.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

I'll defer to my colleague.

[Alexandrine Latendresse, NDP, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you.

With respect to the time limits that are gong to be changed, Mr. Mayrand mentioned last week that it usually takes 9 to 12 months to get ready for an election, except in 2001, when it was done in 7 months. Mr. Mayrand said it took heroic efforts to pull that off.

By changing the limit to seven months, don't you think there could be some problems?

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley]

I'm sure Mr. Mayrand is as capable of heroic efforts as I, and Elections Canada is as well equipped as when I was there. I answered somewhat jokingly, but basically, it won't cause any problems. The mould has been broken. It could even take a little less time. We made heroic efforts, not superhuman efforts. So it can be done. Mr. Mayrand said he thought he could be ready in seven months too.

[Alexandrine Latendresse, NDP, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Could there be any flexibility with the time limits? The main thing is to have optimum conditions, consultation, and that everyone be satisfied with the process. Do you think there could be some flexibility with the time limits so that things can be done as adequately as possible?

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley]

In order for there to be flexibility, it would have to be in the act. Personally, I don't see the need for that. I don't think the changes to the time limits are a big deal.

[Alexandrine Latendresse, NDP, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

That's good.

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley]

If I felt that way, I would say so. That's not my job anymore, but I have a clear recollection of how I ran the shop. There is no reason to worry about any problems here.

[Alexandrine Latendresse, NDP, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

At any rate, it is my understanding that a number of these recommendations come from your own report in 2005.

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley]

They were based on our experience. So I was comfortable saying so. It takes seven months, because I've done it in seven months. No one committed suicide at the end of the exercise.

[Alexandrine Latendresse, NDP, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

That's usually a good sign.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

There's still a minute or a minute and a half left here, if you wish to use it.

We'll go on to Monsieur Dion for seven minutes.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Kingsley, thank you for being here.

The bill has to do with seat distribution by province. That attracts a lot of attention, understandably, but there are also a lot of other, more technical aspects. These aspects call for expertise that we parliamentarians don't necessarily have. At least, I don't. You have considerably more than we do.

So my question is very general, but important. Do you see anything in the bill that could be improved, in terms of how elections are conducted, when it comes to everything other than seat distribution by province?

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley]

In the report produced in 2005, when I was chief electoral officer, a whole range of proposals to improve the process were made. Here the focus is on a bill that would basically redistribute seats and speed up the process. Other recommendations were made that, to my mind, should be dealt with by the commissions themselves. I had proposed that they be dealt with in legislation, but that may not be necessary.

Mr. Mayrand indicated in his testimony that he planned to hold a conference like the one I had organized, involving the chairman and the two other members of the electoral boundaries commissions. It was a 3-day conference that brought together 30 people. We went over various subjects and facets, for example, what constitutes a community, in order for there to be a common view of this concept. The improvements I was after should, in my view, be discussed, so they should be on the agenda at this specific conference, so that together, commission members can agree on how to improve their performance.

I will give you an example. I said that for aboriginal people, for members of first nations, the dimensions of reserves should be taken into account. One reserve was divided into two ridings.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

That's very interesting, but I don't want to go into too much detail. I'd like to know whether there are things that in your view should have been included in the bill and that we won't later be able to deal with otherwise.

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley]

I don't think that is necessary at this point. I recommend that immediately after the exercise, this committee should see how it worked.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

Is it possible that in a week or two, when you examine the bill more closely, other ideas may come to mind that you may wish to share with the committee?

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley]

I am leaving for two weeks on a business trip. I will be bringing the bill and all that with me. I will have a chance to look at it, and if other ideas come to mind, I will get back to the committee through the chair.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

You mentioned earlier that the government—and I guess it was a Liberal government—had asked you to consider the possibility of reducing the number of seats in the House to 300. What year was that?

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley]

I believe it was in the 1990s and it was a request from—

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

At the time of the 1994 readjustment?

[Jean-Pierre Kingsley]

I believe it was later. A fair number of Reform Party members had been elected. I don't remember the specific date. I made some phone calls this morning, but nobody remembers. A lot of documentation was created in connection with that committee. We studied the question and determined how it could be done.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

At the time, how many seats were there in the House?