Evidence of meeting #3 for Bill C-20 (39th Parliament, 2nd Session) in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was votes.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Director of Operations, Democratic Reform, Privy Council Office
You can receive as much money as you want, as long as the persons giving you that money.... Each individual can only give you $1,000 indexed—so it's $1,100 now—as in the Canada Elections Act. The reason there is no—
Conservative
Liberal
Conservative
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK
Charlie, I hope this will help you, because I think Mr. McDougall was misspeaking. He was saying you could only spend $1,000. There's no spending limit, correct? There are contribution limits, constraining limits. You can't give more than $1,000 to a candidate, but there's no spending limit as far as the senatorial candidates are concerned. I wanted to clear up any confusion.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Albina Guarnieri
It's quite clear.
I'm allowing latitude, because I know we're all after correct information.
Mr. Angus.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
So you have to be 35, you can spend as much money as you want, and then when you get there....
Is it 30 or 35? You have to be 30, you can spend as much money as you want and then when you get there, you're not even guaranteed that your democratic votes count, because it's still an appointment.
If we're talking about democratic reform, doesn't the word “democratic” come first? It seems to me we're putting in a lot of window dressing, because what you said earlier is that there's “difficulty” in achieving an elected Senate. So are we just walking our public around in a whole bunch of circles to take them nowhere, because you can't come back to us and tell us we can get an elected Senate? The senators, number one, will say they're not going along with it. We're going to have to go back to the provinces, and the provinces are going to say no.
So we're back to the situation where nothing is really going to change. Is that why we're not dealing with the issue of an elected Senate and going down this route?
Director of Operations, Democratic Reform, Privy Council Office
I think perhaps a bit of clarification on the spending point might be useful for members.
The spending limit was something that was looked at in constructing the bill. The reason there's no spending limit is this. In a province-wide election, if you take your case of Ontario, as an example, there's roughly a population of voters in Ontario of 12 million or so. If you apply the spending limits that are currently in place for an MP, it works out to be roughly 80¢ per voter. If you take 80¢ per voter and multiply that by a province-wide population of 12 million, you have a spending limit of roughly $9 million or $10 million. If you compare that to the restrictions on contributions, and the fact that I, as a candidate, can only contribute $2,100 to my own campaign—there are no corporate donations, no third-party donations, no union donations—the possibility of raising $9 million, as an individual candidate, becomes rather difficult, it would seem to me, at least.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Raising $800,000 and someone else managing only to raise $80,000 because they're up in Red Lake, Ontario, certainly makes a huge difference, right?
Director of Operations, Democratic Reform, Privy Council Office
Indeed, but if we're talking about spending limits—one needs to consider all the spending limits—at least from my perspective, it seems difficult to contemplate that you would have a more restrictive spending limit for a province-wide campaign than you would for the campaign of an MP in a much smaller geographical area.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Three people run in an election in Newfoundland or Ontario and one person wins. They obviously come out with the most votes, but the Prime Minister doesn't appoint them. The Prime Minister picks the one he likes, which is our tradition right now. Then eight months go by and another senator kicks the bucket. Do we pick from the people on the list or do we do the election again? Is there a stale date on these people sitting who actually run?
Director of Operations, Democratic Reform, Privy Council Office
There is no stale date on the list, no.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
So someone who ran, like Senator Brown, three years ago can get appointed now?
Director of Operations, Democratic Reform, Privy Council Office
That's correct.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
Thank you to our witnesses--all three of you--for coming here.
I have some questions about the single transferable vote system, but before I do that I just want to inquire....
Mr. Angus suggested one candidate might raise $800,000. As a practical matter—I guess this is more in the way of a comment than a question—we can all as MPs raise money for our riding associations from anywhere in the country. I'm unaware of anybody who has raised anywhere near $800,000 through their local campaign, and of course that information is all publicly available. I think a little perspective is required. The impositions we've put, particularly with the elimination of corporate fundraising, make it unlikely that anyone could simply buy their way to office through running massive advertising campaigns funded by massive spending. It's a practical matter.
I want to ask about the voting system. On the single transferable vote system, you didn't say this, but I gather this is the same system, in rough terms, that was voted on in British Columbia, in the referendum a few years back.
Director of Operations, Democratic Reform, Privy Council Office
It's very similar to the system that was proposed in B.C., yes.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
Okay.
I used to live in Australia, so some of the things you're mentioning have some familiarity to me. The alternative vote system.... You said in a place where there's essentially one vacancy being contested--and of course what I thought of was one of the territories--an alternative vote would occur. That's a term we used in Australia for how they elected their lower house. It's a preferential vote, but with only one winner. Is that essentially right?
Director of Operations, Democratic Reform, Privy Council Office
It's essentially that, yes. It follows the same rules, so the process that's set out in the bill for the rules that are followed in the process is the same.
Going back to your previous comment--the practicality of contribution limits and what it means--here the practicality of the way the system works means that it becomes an alternative vote system. What happens obviously when there's only one candidate—
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
You mean one vacancy, not one candidate. You'd have candidates from various groups.
Director of Operations, Democratic Reform, Privy Council Office
Indeed. Sorry, I meant one vacancy. There's no transfer of surplus, because obviously once someone attains the quota, they become the person who is the successful candidate. When there's only one candidate, obviously when you determine the quota, the formula means that the quota becomes as the quota is for a “first past the post” system. It's fifty plus one.
So if you get half the votes, you win. As you go through the rules and apply them in the process, it's the people with the fewest votes who drop off at the bottom, as I was mentioning earlier. You keep dropping them off and transferring their votes until the person attains a majority. So it's not only a preferential system, but it's a majoritarian system in that instance.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
Right, and then I guess the other thing is--I realize this doesn't apply to a large province like Ontario, but it does to a small place like Nunavut--effectively the way in which you collect funds is virtually identical to what it would be in a regular by-election.
Director of Operations, Democratic Reform, Privy Council Office
Essentially, yes.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
The other thing I want to ask about is as a result of having watched the system operate in Australia, where they have a single transferable vote system for their senate. This has produced a highly partisan upper chamber, but that hasn't been the case in some of the Australian states, which also use the single transferable vote.
What seems to drive it in the upper house in Australia to be highly partisan is that effectively most people simply tick off for one of the parties. There's a requirement that you have to vote for every single candidate, rank them in order, or else your ballot is declared invalid, or you have the option of simply saying you vote for the labour party list, the national party list, and so on. They call it above-the-line voting.
Is anything like that contemplated here?