Bill C-20 (39th Parliament, 2nd Session) Committee on April 2nd, 2008

[Pauline Picard, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

If the quota has not been met.

[Dan McDougall]

There are two possibilities when it comes to vote transfers.

First of all, there is the situation where there are surplus votes—that is, a candidate has received more than the required number of votes. In that case, all the ballots are examined to determine who would be the second or next possibility.

There is an additional situation where no one, in a given step, meets the quota. That is a separate case. In that circumstance, the person having received the fewest votes is eliminated. According to the process, the votes cast for each nominee are examined and their votes are transferred to other nominees.

[Pauline Picard, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

You mentioned that you could explain the system of transitional measures. Could you do that?

[Isa Gros-Louis, Director, Democratic Reform, Legislation and House Planning, Privy Council Office]

The system of transitional measures will be the same as the one currently in place for elections to the House of Commons. The Chief Electoral Officer is being given a two-year timeframe in which to implement a single transferable vote system.

So, for the first election, if the single transferable vote system is not yet in place, we will use the same voting system as exists for the House of Commons.

Is that what you are referring to?

[Pauline Picard, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Yes.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Just to be practical, let's come back to my example of the five seats to be filled. If there are ten candidates, which ones will be chosen? The first five?

[Isa Gros-Louis]

It will be the ones with the majority of votes. So, the five nominees with the highest percentages of votes will be elected.

[Dan McDougall]

There will be less precision in that system, but it will work.

[Isa Gros-Louis]

Voting will be done by writing an x, rather than number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Could we also have…

[The Chair, Liberal, Albina Guarnieri]

Do you wish to share your time?

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Actually, it would be helpful to have an illustration of that as well, because it isn't clear.

[The Chair, Liberal, Albina Guarnieri]

Have you finished? Thank you.

[Pauline Picard, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Yes, unless my colleague has another question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Albina Guarnieri]

Mr. Moore.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thanks to the witnesses.

I have to tell you that the most interesting thing I've heard so far is the placement on the ballot. I want to run against someone like a Z rather than someone whose names starts with A. Is that what I'm to understand?

[Dan McDougall]

That would be the case if there weren't provisions for rotation on the ballot, but the bill actually provides that there is.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

I'm thinking of individuals I've run against in the past. Paul Zed...that explains some things.

I would like to get your comments. I heard a lot of questions in the first round about why don't we just do this or that. Everything we're dealing with and everything you've been tasked with in drafting this piece of legislation has to be seen through the filter of the constitutional constraints we have.

You did touch on this a bit in response to Mr. Lukiwski, but I'm wondering if you could hit the high spots on where flexibilities have to be left in place and where, in the case of the Prime Minister and the Governor General, necessary discretion has to be left, without getting into constitutional amendments. So in light of our current constraints, how does this bill have to be shaped in a way that we have some genuine consultation and democrat input while respecting the limits we're currently faced with?

[Dan McDougall]

In the first instance, I guess the Constitution currently provides for the process for selecting senators. When I say “process”, it's not much of a process. The Governor General summons persons to the Senate, and it's by constitutional convention that the process of the Governor General doing so is on the advice of the Prime Minister.

The Constitution also provides that if you're to change the process of selection of senators—as I just said, it's set out in the Constitution—that would require what's called a complex constitutional amendment with the engagement of the provinces. As I think we've indicated, there's little prospect of that happening in the short term. So the next best approach, from a democratic reform perspective, is to ascertain as strongly as possible the wishes of Canadians directly as to whom they would like to have represent them in the Senate, recognizing that Senate appointments currently, except in Quebec, are province wide. Of course, in the case of Quebec, there are provisions in the Constitution that senators are appointed for electoral districts--24 electoral districts in Quebec.

Those are the general parameters surrounding the Constitution and what's required currently within it. This bill is certainly designed with those in mind. As you mentioned, the bill is crafted so as to ensure we don't trip over those provisions and provide for a process that's not respecting those.

The bill provides a number of areas of flexibility for the Prime Minister in terms of when to use the consultation instrument and how to use it. It's the Prime Minister who's deciding the type of advice he would like to get from the Canadian public--it's advice to him--and then he can make his decision in terms of recommendations to the Governor General. It's a political imperative that's created, as Mr. Lukiwski mentioned, rather than a legal imperative. There's no obligation on the Prime Minister to select anybody from the list. Presumably there may be political consequences for a prime minister deploying an instrument such as this and then not relying on the results from it.

In that way it's very similar perhaps to another bill that's been passed by Parliament in this session, with respect to fixed election dates, where the prerogative of the Prime Minister has some self-imposed constraints put upon it. That's certainly what's happening here, again, respecting as that bill did, the constitutional limitations as to what the Prime Minister, the government acting alone, can do.

[The Chair, Liberal, Albina Guarnieri]

Thank you for respecting the time imposed.

We'll go back to Mr. Angus, please.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you.

I accept the argument. It's been the New Democratic position that an elected Senate is not going to happen simply because there's enough entrenched interest to say it won't happen.

I'm interested in following this little side puppet show we're creating here for a consultation process. Given that the Prime Minister can't deal with real democratic reform and we're going to go down a consultation route, why is the Prime Minister and the government writing into the bill that they don't have to bother to even use this consultation process? Why does it not say in the bill that if a senator resigns, there will be a Senate election either at the first provincial election, if the province is willing, or the federal election? Why is it a matter of choice?

[Dan McDougall]

The matter of choice is again in relation to the previous question. I guess that may well be seen as fettering the discretion of the Governor General or the Prime Minister with respect to the appointment process and require the use of an amendment process to the Constitution itself.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

So we can go willy-nilly on a consultation process or not at all, and that won't intervene with anything? Could we not say, given the constraints of the Constitution Act, that whenever a senator retires there will be a consultation process with the public and the choice of the consultation process will be the person the Prime Minister accepts? You're saying the Prime Minister doesn't have to do a consultation process. He or she can pick any failed political candidate he wants, he or she, to that position, and this consultation process just sits by the side of the road. It's a matter of choice. Why is that in the bill? Why is it not guaranteed that there will be a consultation?

[Dan McDougall]

I will ask my colleague to comment on that.

[Grégoire Webber, Policy Analyst, Democratic Reform, Legislation and House Planning, Privy Council Office]

A distinction should be drawn, I think, between constitutional considerations and political considerations. Some of the matters you outlined could perhaps be speaking to political considerations, but as a matter of constitutional compliance it was thought prudent to ensure that the Prime Minister not be obliged to hold the consultation nor be obliged to appoint names submitted to him as a result of the consultation. Otherwise, it could be seen as fettering the prerogative of the Prime Minister to recommend according to the dispositions or constitutional conventions set out as matters of convention and the powers for summoning persons to the Senate set out in the Constitution.

The bill is currently drafted in such a way as to ensure that the prerogative of the Prime Minister and the powers of the Governor General are not in any way fettered. Matters of political practice may develop, but the bill cannot and does not speak to that.