Bill C-20 (39th Parliament, 2nd Session) Committee on April 9th, 2008

[Marc Mayrand]

They can certainly share information.

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

Yes, and they can sign up as a third-party activist.

So we would have a situation where one party might have a war chest ready to go. I know they're not supposed to spend money directly, but we have fairly loose rules here. We might have three regions where they might not stand a chance of winning any of the seats, so just before the election they would appoint a whole bunch of candidates, and then in an area where they think they could win, they would announce one of these consultation, dealer's choice processes. The election financing rules could really skew the local elections, because we'd have the possible use of phone banks; we'd have the party acting as a third party...all the money that they wouldn't be allowed to spend in local elections.... We just have to look at how much they got themselves into with the in-and-out scandal. This would certainly be a huge way for a party to potentially influence regional elections.

What kinds of rules would we need in place to ensure that this kind of attitude and that kind of behaviour wouldn't cut it? The argument I hear from the government is, “Trust us; the Prime Minister wouldn't do that”. That's a joke. This is 2008; we didn't just come off the turnip truck. We need clear rules here.

So what rules would you suggest to ensure that this kind of behaviour wouldn't be gotten away with?

[Marc Mayrand]

I mentioned a few in my earlier presentation. I think the first thing would be to prohibit someone from being a candidate both as a Senate nominee and as a House of Commons member.

Also, maybe there should be consideration given to prohibiting a candidate for the House from registering as a third party; that is, I think there should be a further discussion as to why this is needed. There are anti-collusion provisions in the electoral law. There are some in the proposed legislation. They could be strengthened a bit.

And the other question—and this is why I think it merits a fair bit of discussion and debate—the last one, would be consideration of prohibiting not only transfer of funds but also transfer of goods and services.

On the other side of the equation, you have candidates having to run provincial campaigns, and there is a need to provide some sustainability to their campaign. I think that's the challenge here.

One of my concerns, and this is why I bring these issues forward today, is that I'm not sure we have achieved the right balance. The rules as they are set up may undermine some of the rules governing candidates to the House. That's why I raised those concerns today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Albina Guarnieri]

Thanks, Mr. Mayrand.

We'll proceed to Mr. Moore.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Thank you, and thank you, sir, for being here today.

It's been interesting to hear some of the questions, I would suggest bordering on hysterical, as to the approach. When we look at the situation we have now, there is no consultation whatsoever. There's an unfettered ability for the Prime Minister to make partisan appointments without any limit. In this bill we have an opportunity for Canadians to consult and for Canadians to have input.

As you have rightly pointed out, although in my time sitting here the issue keeps coming forward, and I think it was even raised in the last round, why don't we just elect senators; why don't we just elect them directly? Well, the problem with that, as is the problem with the preferred course of the NDP, which would be the abolition of the Senate, is that there would have to be a constitutional amendment. You've rightly pointed out that this is a way of consulting with Canadians, but as the constitutional experts we had here before pointed out, to go far beyond that would involve a conflict with our Constitution.

I have a couple of questions.

Roughly, what is the cost now of a general election?

[Marc Mayrand]

It will be roughly $280 million for the next one.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

So I guess my point is—to address another concern I've heard raised around the table—democracy does cost money. There is a cost to having a democracy. There are probably a lot of cheaper systems, but there are none that I would rather have than a democratic system.

So democracy costs, and this system will cost money to implement. However, I would argue that to put a democratic stamp and to have that consultation with Canadians that so many of them want, it would be worth the money that we're going to spend to get Canadians' input and add that democratic stamp to the Senate.

One other issue I just have to mention, which has been raised, is what about the cost? It's going to be expensive. Elections are expensive. All of us have had to raise money, but if there's one thing the current appointees to the Senate have proven particularly adept at, it's raising money. There are many of them who have shown themselves to be quite capable fundraisers, and I would suggest that if the future nominees are half as capable fundraisers as the current senators we have, they'll do just fine.

On the issue of the timeline, I note that you did consult with an IT firm, I believe it was, on the implementation. I'm a bit taken aback at the two-year to three-year figure. I know in business oftentimes something can come and go in two years. So I'm wondering about the notion that we couldn't speed this up. I would be quite surprised if any challenge, from a timeline perspective, would come on the IT side. Do you have any comments on that?

[Marc Mayrand]

If it were not for technology, probably two years would be fine. But with technology, which would be new, again, in the electoral process in this county, it needs to be fully tested to ensure full trust in those results. We think we'll need those three years.

I would be happy to share more information on how we arrive at that.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

I'm wondering, too, if there was broader consultation, perhaps, with other groups. There may be some IT firms that would say, “No, as a matter of fact, two years is doable.” That's a thought that I would put out there.

We've talked about when there's a federal event or when there's a provincial event. I recognize and I think my colleague, Mr. Gourde, mentioned that a vacancy could open up just after a federal general election and we would want to fill that before another four years or so. You mentioned that while it may be a bit cumbersome and it may require some work, having this consultation in sync with a provincial event is doable.

[Marc Mayrand]

Administratively and operationally, yes. The issue is over the rules you would apply on that day. How many rules for voter identification would you apply during that day? That's an issue that needs to be reconciled, and unless there's more clarity in the act....

Let's say there's a general election in any province next year and this bill is in place and there's an order. Will STV apply for that consultation? No province has STV.

There are some issues that I don't think are the responsibility of the administrators of the process, either provincial or federal, to resolve. We need to have a set of rules on that day, and that's why I was suggesting that maybe a solution to address the problem of the time lag in consultation would be to rely more on provincial legislation. Alberta has had that experience, certainly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Albina Guarnieri]

Thank you, Mr. Mayrand.

Mr. Maloney, you have the floor.

[John Maloney, Liberal, Welland, ON]

Mr. Mayrand, I thank you for your recommendations on pages 9 and 10 of your speech. I think they make eminent good sense, and I hope the committee will consider them in our deliberations.

On the issue of the single transferable vote, if a consultation panel became necessary during the transition period--the two years or three years that you suggest--we would have to use a system other than the single transferable vote. If we hold an election in conjunction with the provinces, you've indicated that no provinces utilize the single transferable vote at this time, so conceivably we could, at any given time in the future, be using the federal election rules or we could be using the provincial election rules at the same time--say, five years from now. Would that not constitute a lot of confusion? That's my first question.

Second, would there be any potential significant differences if we used a system other than the single transferable vote, such as the first-past-the-post system? If you needed a panel of three Senate appointments and there were four candidates, then the top three would get the nod. Is there any magic in utilizing the single transferable vote? What are its advantages?

[Marc Mayrand]

That's a broad question.

First, with respect to carrying out those selection processes in parallel with provincial legislation, again it's the Prime Minister at the time of the issuing of the order who would determine whether, given the legal regime in place, it would be appropriate to hold the consultation in parallel with provincial legislation.

With respect to STV and its benefits, the main benefit of STV assumes there's more than one candidate to be elected for the same district; otherwise, I'm not sure there is more real value for this. However, the minute you want to appoint three or four candidates for the same territory, the STV allows giving the most value to the electors' choices. If an elector comes in and votes for Candidate A and finds at the end of the day that Candidate A has been elected by a majority of 10,000, he may feel that had he known that, he would have voted for Candidate B, because Candidate B was his second-best candidate. STV allows the elector to do just that: number one is this candidate; number two is this one. If my vote is not needed to elect candidate number one, I would like it to be transferred to candidate number two.

It's a better reflection of the choice of the electors when you have to fill more than one seat.

[John Maloney, Liberal, Welland, ON]

I think you've got a monumental education task in getting your electors to understand the process. This committee, at our last meeting, had some difficulties wrapping their heads around how it would work. We had the example in Ontario of the recent referendum in our last provincial election, and people just didn't understand the whole system. It wasn't the fault of the provincial elections officers; they did, I'd say, a good job in trying to educate the people.

[Marc Mayrand]

No, there's quite a challenge there, and I guess there have to be participants who advocate for the system also.

Again, it's been well used in other countries and generally well received by electors of those countries.

[The Chair, Liberal, Albina Guarnieri]

Thank you.

Do you have a short question?

[John Maloney, Liberal, Welland, ON]

Yes.

For the gazetting of notices for a provincial election, you need a six-month lead time. Again, we've got the practical situation that nobody has a fixed election date provincially. Often an election can happen within a short period of time.

Utilization of the provinces--is that really a practical, realistic choice?

[Marc Mayrand]

We have across the country currently four or five provinces that have fixed dates, so for those provinces I guess that would facilitate the planning for the Prime Minister.

For other provinces, yes, if there's no fixed date, I don't think we would be able, or the Prime Minister would be able, to order the selection process to be held in conjunction with the provincial election, because that would assume he knows the date of the provincial election.

[The Chair, Liberal, Albina Guarnieri]

Thank you very much.

I'm going to shorten the next rounds to give everybody the opportunity to ask a question.

Mr. Reid.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm really more engaging in a discussion with Mr. Maloney than I am asking Mr. Mayrand a question, because I don't think it's fair to ask policy questions of someone whose role is to interpret rather than to offer policy opinions.

Just with regard to the single transferrable vote system and its relative merits or demerits vis-à-vis the first-past-the-post system that we use for members of the House of Commons, the obvious advantage of it is in proportionality. There's some level of proportionality when you've got more than one candidate running and, to some degree, the preferential vote allows you to avoid strategic voting.

If one imagines, as your first choice, you are a supporter of, let's say, the New Democratic candidate and you vote for the Liberal because you think he's got a better chance of defeating the Conservative, who you don't want, that's the kind of thing that occurs in a first-past-the-post election. There's no danger of that under a preferential system, where you can indicate your preference for your first choice. If that person dropped off the list, your second choice then comes into effect. That's a significant advantage.

The other thing I wanted to point to is multi-member elections in the closest parallel that exists, which is the Australian Senate. They use an STV system. They used to use a kind of first-past-the-post system, with multiple members elected at the same time. What happened was you'd get a situation where perhaps in an Australian state, 55% of the vote would be cast for Party A, 45% for Party B, but Party A would win 100% of the slate from that state. They had to actually alter that system. So I think that's the kind of problem that can exist with a first-past-the-post system for a chamber like the Canadian Senate.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Albina Guarnieri]

Mr. Paquette.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

In terms of what you were discussing earlier with Ms. Picard, with respect to advertising conducted by a party presenting itself as a third party, you have suggested, with respect to services, that shared premises not be included. So, in terms of advertising, I understand you to be saying that it is the same thing.

[Marc Mayrand]

All goods and services, yes.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Including advertising.

In any case, we are only beginning our study. It could take quite a long time.

When Mr. Van Loan appeared before the Committee, he said that the bill currently under consideration would give the government complete flexibility in terms of deciding to hold a consultation, when to hold it, in how many provinces to hold it at the same time—it obviously would have to occur at the same time as a federal or provincial election—and how many seats would be involved, vacant or otherwise.

That is a lot of flexibility. You mentioned that you would prefer that it be done at the same time as a federal election. Given that there can only be elections in five of the ten provinces and that elections could be held even if there are no vacant seats in the Senate, might that affect the voter turnout rate and the seriousness with which people treat this type of consultation? For example, there would not be consultation underway in Quebec, but in Ontario, there would, and we know that media coverage is often from coast to coast—you note I didn't say “national”, because several nations are part of the Canadian political landscape. If a consultation can be held even when there are no vacant seats, why would people want to go and vote, since the candidates they select might not get appointed for four or even eight years.

Do you not think the flexibility the government has given itself in Bill C-20 is problematic?

[Marc Mayrand]

I suppose those are factors that would have to be considered by the Prime Minister at the time he made the order.

However, there is a risk that voters would be much less interested in voting if the choice they make is unlikely to serve any purpose in the near future.

Finally, I think we have to consider the impact this could have on the nominees. What is the point of taking part in a race or a campaign if there is no certainty of being appointed, even if you are chosen by the voters? I think that has to be considered, at least as far as the nominees are concerned, in this case.