Madam Speaker, I rise today to address Motion No. 86. Knowing the sincerity and good will with which this motion was put forward by the member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith, it pains me to have to vote against it. I will devote my remarks to explaining the reasons why I will be doing so.
Motion No. 86 proposes to create a citizens' assembly on electoral reform. A citizens' assembly is an ad hoc assembly of people selected by lottery from the general population, much as a jury is selected. Its ephemeral nature, in that it is called together to deal with a single matter and then disperses, is also similar to a jury. The purpose of this citizens' assembly, as the text of the motion explains, is to, “Determine if electoral reform is recommended for Canada, and, if so, recommend specific measures that would foster a healthier democracy.”
This proposal is half right, but it is also half wrong. Specifically, I agree that a citizens' assembly can play a useful role in designing what Motion No. 86 refers to as “specific measures”. More precisely, a citizens' assembly can engage in the detailed design of one or more electoral systems, which could then be offered as alternatives to Canada's status quo first-past-the-post electoral system.
However, I disagree with the motion in that I believe it is not appropriate to ask a citizens' assembly to “determine if electoral reform is recommended for Canada”. Canadians, themselves, should make this determination, and they should do so via referendum.
I would have been much happier if the motion had explicitly stated that the role of a citizens' assembly is to propose one or more alternative electoral systems for Canadians to vote on in a referendum. Citizens' assemblies have been used twice in Canada for the purpose of designing electoral systems: once in British Columbia in 2004 and once in Ontario in 2006. On both occasions, the resulting proposal was submitted to the voters for final approval in referendums.
However, Motion No. 86 does not contain any reference to a referendum, and given how the NDP strenuously objected to any referendum when electoral reform was being seriously considered back in 2016, I worry that, if I were to vote in favour of Motion No. 86, I would subsequently be told that I had approved a process under which the citizens' assembly would determine the outcome, as opposed to merely proposing potential outcomes.
As well, it would be unhelpful to have a citizens' assembly that provides merely a general outline of the electoral systems it is proposing, as appears to be advocated here, with the expectation that parliamentarians would then fill in the details later on.
We all know the old saying that the devil is in the details, and by necessity, any proportional or preferential electoral system contains enough details to hide a considerable amount of devilry, which could have the effect of producing an electoral outcome very different from what the voters had thought they were buying into.
There is no need to repeat, in this anticipated future process, a version of what happened in the 2015 election, when voters naively supported an electoral promise by the current Prime Minister, the then leader of an opposition party, that the election then under way would be the last to be held under the first-past-the-post system, only to learn, after it was too late to retract their votes, that the only alternative to the status quo that the new Prime Minister was willing to consider was a preferential ballot, a system which would, very predictably, have greatly enhanced the electoral success of a centrist party such as the Liberals.
This kind of bait and switch could be carried out, although admittedly at a less Wagnerian level, with the details of an assembly-approved proposal being proffered without spelling out the details, an option such as multi-member proportionality.
To get the idea of just how much variation there can be within the umbrella term “multi-member proportionality”, I invite colleagues to peruse pages 84 to 94 of the report of the House of Commons Special Committee on Electoral Reform, which provide details of some of the potential variations under that rubric that could produce meaningfully different implications.
To be clear, it would not be the members of the citizens' assembly who would engage in this sleight of hand. It would be us, the politicians, sorting out the details after the assembly has done its work. The only solution is to leave no drafting work to be done by the politicians after the approval process. My view is that a citizens' assembly could make a useful contribution if it is utilized at an early stage of a consultation process that culminates in a referendum.
The citizens' assembly should take place at a stage that is roughly analogous to the committee stage in the normal parliamentary legislative process. It is at this point in the process that the assembly could engage in the detailed work of designing alternatives to the status quo or in reviewing and approving designs prepared by subject matter experts.
As an ad hoc body whose membership is composed of non-politicians who have no partisan interest to defend, the citizens' assembly is likely to put forward models for potential approval that will transparently not contain hidden elements that benefit this political party or that political party. However, it is the referendum itself that is the essential backstop preventing any attempts at manipulation from ultimately succeeding. It is not enough to rely upon the citizens' assembly alone, and it would be perverse to regard the work of the assembly as being so morally prescriptive as to require Parliament to simply enact that which has been determined by the assembly. Only a referendum can give this kind of moral weight.
There are several ways of conducting such a referendum. Based on the history of the past 20 years, it would seem that a referendum structured as a preferential ballot, in which voters rank the various options designed by a citizens' assembly, is the likeliest to produce a mandate for changing away from first past the post. However, such a result will not be legitimate unless first past the post is one of the options on that referendum ballot. This was the process used in Prince Edward Island for a referendum that took place in 2019. P.E.I.'s 2019 referendum was one of seven referenda on the subject of electoral reform that have taken place in this country over the past two decades, with a mixed record of success.
It might be helpful for me to devote my remaining time to running through the results of all of these referenda.
In British Columbia, voters have cast ballots in three referenda on whether or not to adopt a new electoral system. The first of B.C.'s three referenda took place in 2005, and 57.6% of participating voters supported the adoption of an electoral system known as single transferrable vote, or STV. The STV model had been designed a year prior to the referendum by an ad hoc group known as the B.C. Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform. I suspect that the 2004 B.C. Citizens' Assembly is probably the inspiration for the one proposed in the motion we are debating today.
However, the new electoral system was not adopted into law in consequence of a provision in the province's electoral law requiring any referendum measure to win a supermajority of at least 60% in order to be adopted. Therefore, to deal with this troubling result, a second referendum was held in 2009 on the very same STV electoral system versus the status quo, but this time only 39% of voters supported the single transferrable vote system. There was a very similar voter turnout in both referenda, 2.8 million votes in the first versus 2.9 million cast in the second, so the only possible explanation for this change is that over the course of four years, voters had cooled to this option.
In 2018, a third referendum was held. This time, there were two questions on the ballot. First, voters were given a choice between changing to a new electoral system or sticking with the status quo, and second, voters were asked to rank three alternative electoral systems. This two-question structure was designed to ensure that in the event of a vote in favour of change, even voters who supported the status quo would have an equal voice in choosing the new system. It was anticipated by many observers, me included, that a two-question ballot would result in a higher percentage of voters feeling comfortable with changing to the new system and therefore voting yes to change. However, the opposite happened and less than 39% of voters voted for change.
In P.E.I., voters have cast ballots in three referenda on adopting a new electoral system. The first of these referenda, held in 2005, showed change being firmly rejected. Only 36% of participating voters endorsed the alternative proposal. Provincial leaders concluded from this experience that in any simple head-to-head popularity contest between the status quo and any particular alternative, the new alternative is at a disadvantage because advocates of different new alternatives, who might not much care for the status quo, will nonetheless vote for it in the hope that in a later contest, they will be able to get their own preferred system set in place.
A second referendum was held in 2016, with voters being asked to rank four options, including the status quo and three alternatives. The result would indicate this worked out very well for the designers of the referendum, as 52.4% of participating voters endorsed a new system. However, this did not lead to P.E.I.'s system changing, because only 37% of voters actually cast ballots, which cast legitimacy on this very small majority. P.E.I. normally has a very high voter turnout, around 80%, so the premier decided it would make sense to have another referendum. This was done and it produced a much lower result, with just under half of voters endorsing a new system.
There was also a referendum in Ontario in 2007. This followed a convention of the sort discussed in this motion, but it nonetheless failed, which means there is no guarantee of success just because we tried to use a citizens' assembly.
