Bill C-20 (39th Parliament, 2nd Session) Committee on May 14th, 2008

[Roger Gibbins]

To me it's pretty clear where we want to go on this. We want the same norms and conventions that apply to electoral financing in the House of Commons to apply in the Senate. It doesn't seem to be overly difficult to figure out how to get there.

The catch is that, since Bill C-20 would allow the election of senators in conjunction with provincial elections, it's not clear whether the federal financing legislation would apply. The provinces are not wildly out of line with federal legislation on this, but this is one of the soft points. If we rely on provincial elections, we're getting beyond the ability of Parliament to set election financing. That's why I think that in the long term provincial elections are a bad alternative.

But this committee would do well to tighten up what may be financial loopholes in the existing legislation. If they're closed, so much the better.

[The Chair, Liberal, Albina Guarnieri]

Mr. Gourde.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to also thank our witness for the great work he has presented.

I just have two short questions. You said that in this process of reforming the Senate the consent of provinces is required. At what step in the process should we consult the provinces?

[Roger Gibbins]

We can go a long way in moving towards an elected Senate without having the formal consent of the provinces. We can go a fair distance, as Bill C-20 does. However, on the distribution of the Senate seats, we need the consent of the provinces. There are hard constitutional constraints on what can be done without the consent of the provinces.

This is the trump card the provinces play. To use a baseball analogy, you can get to first base by yourself, but you can't get to second without bringing the provinces in. So the question is, when do you bring the provinces in? I think you bring them in after you have the process going. People could well differ on that assessment.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

In your view, should we look at all the Senate models that exist elsewhere in the world? Is there a model somewhere that seems better than others? Do you have any suggestions for us?

[Roger Gibbins]

My own view on this is that the Australian Senate experience provides some very good experience in terms of an election format.

To my mind, the American model does not provide a very good model, first of all because of its very faithful adherence to equal representation per state. I don't think that works in Canada. And second, because the Americans only have one senator being elected at one time, you don't have the opportunity to be more creative in terms of the electoral process.

So I think the Australian example is pretty compelling to me in terms of how to make an electoral process work and produce a Senate that is vibrant but doesn't sap the strength of the national government.

The qualification there--and it's an important qualification--is that the states have a much lower profile in Australian life than the provinces do in Canada, and we have to accommodate ourselves to the reality of the Canadian situation.

So there's no perfect model out there, but there is learning we could do.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Albina Guarnieri]

Mr. Hubbard.

[Charles Hubbard, Liberal, Miramichi, NB]

Thank you.

I've listened with interest, but just to recap, you strongly believe in an elected Senate. And you don't agree there should be divisions in terms of a province, that each senator from a province would represent the entire province and not a certain part of the province.

You seem to indicate the Senate elections could become a problem for members of Parliament because the senator might become more important than the member of Parliament.

You seem to think we should make incremental changes to the Senate. The Americans have two senators for each state, and whether the state be California or Alaska, great differences in terms of democratic process. Each has two members in the Senate of the United States, yet I don't hear a lot of complaints from the United States in terms of that type of representation. A senator in the States is very important.

With candidates for your own province of Alberta--we'll say we need three senators from Alberta--should people wanting to become senators be endorsed by their political parties? Should there be three candidates from the Conservative Party and three candidates from some other party and so forth, or should they all run simply as people of the people? Is there a necessity for a definition of who the candidates are? Should the Prime Minister or the leader of the opposition identify who his candidates are on the ballot as it goes to the people of Alberta?

Would you comment on that?

[Roger Gibbins]

That's a difficult question. Let me begin with the one I think is the most important--I'm not suggesting the others are not important--and that's figuring out what the appropriate size of the senatorial districts would be.

My concern with districts that are represented by a single senator is it doesn't provide a lot of opportunity for an electoral system to break up some of these large blocks.

To take an example, if Alberta had six Senate districts, each one electing one senator, we would get this uniform partisan representation from Alberta we have in the House of Commons.

If you have three districts or three senators per district, under the electoral system that is being proposed here, you would guarantee those three elected senators would not all be from the same party, unless Alberta was so overwhelmingly in public sentiment in that direction, which we're not.

So getting the size of the constituency right is very important, and that's what we haven't shaped up, as I read it, in Bill C-20.

[Charles Hubbard, Liberal, Miramichi, NB]

Should the candidates be endorsed by a party? When the people of Alberta go to vote, should they know that candidate X is represented by the Conservative Party and endorsed by the Prime Minister?

[Roger Gibbins]

It's all but impossible to keep parties out of an electoral process. We know that. If we go back to the history of the House of Commons, before the early 1960s, if I'm correct, party labels did not appear on ballots. Then we eventually went to the point of having party labels on the ballot because we recognized that partisanship is such an important cue for voters.

[Charles Hubbard, Liberal, Miramichi, NB]

I'm not asking what was, but what you would suggest. You are here to make suggestions to the committee. Would you suggest that the candidate should be identified by parties or as independents?

[Roger Gibbins]

I would be quite happy with a ballot that listed individuals and, if necessary, occupation, but did not give party labels on the ballot.

[Charles Hubbard, Liberal, Miramichi, NB]

If there were three vacancies in Alberta, and we'll say that you have a dozen very good candidates from small centres, as Mr. Angus talks about--some from Calgary, some from Edmonton, some from Cold Lake or Innisfail--what opportunity would people from small places have to get elected? Would candidate Joe from Innisfail be able to raise $1 million to campaign in the province of Alberta to become a senator to represent all the good people of Innisfail or Cold Lake?

[Roger Gibbins]

There is no question that in large-scale elections, which would be the case within the Senate, it will be relatively difficult for people from small communities to be elected. I think that's true. I'm not sure the person from Cold Lake is necessarily better positioned to be appointed to the Senate than other people from Calgary or Edmonton, in terms of the calculus of the Prime Minister. There's no guarantee in that. We just don't know.

[The Chair, Liberal, Albina Guarnieri]

This will be your last question.

[Charles Hubbard, Liberal, Miramichi, NB]

If you look at the past, such has been the case. We have people from the north, people representing first nations, women who came to the Senate. Women generally had difficulty getting elected in this country.

Now, I know your position; you're certainly showing it to us. But somehow we have to come up with an in-between, where we make sure that people are represented as people, and that every person in this country and every group in this country--first nations, for example.... In your own province of Alberta, a great number of the Blood, for example, have 10,000 people living in some of their communities. How would they get elected in Alberta? I don't think we've ever had in Saskatchewan a changing demographic group.

Somehow, whatever this bill results in, Madam Chair, I hope it can reflect what's best for all peoples of the country and not have certain people dominating because of the particular demographic group they represent.

Thank you.

[Roger Gibbins]

I'll be very quick. I realize we have a time limit.

You have to keep in mind that representation in the Senate is complementary to representation through the House of Commons, so what we want to think about is what happens through the two houses. To think of the Senate in isolation and not put it beside how the House of Commons works, and what are the strengths and weaknesses of the House of Commons system, would be a mistake.

[The Chair, Liberal, Albina Guarnieri]

Thank you, Mr. Gibbins.

It's back to Mr. Reid.

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

Mr. Gibbins, one of the things that came up earlier that actually surprised me was a discussion about the size of the districts. I had simply made the assumption that the district is simply the province. I was basing this on subclause 12.(1) of the bill, which says:

On issuing a proclamation referred to in section 57 of the Canada Elections Act for the holding of a general election, the Governor in Council may order the consultation of the electors of one or more provinces in relation to the appointment of senators to represent those provinces.

Maybe that's not all that clear. Would it be preferable, in your mind, if we actually went out and stated in an additional provision of the bill that the Senate districts shall be coterminous with provinces?

[Roger Gibbins]

I think it's an issue that has to be sorted out, and perhaps sorted out more explicitly. You have to ask yourself if the province is the appropriate container. The hard test case on this becomes Ontario. You have to think that maybe we'd be better off if we could take that province and carve it up in some way.

I think that's a discussion that should be held.

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

I'm an Ontario member myself, and in the very first question you were asked today, Madame Folco spoke very eloquently about her concern that rural Ontario would be left out, given the demographic weight of Toronto.

I'll make the obvious assertion that if we're trying to seek one vote, one value, equal weighting of votes, you can't slice Ontario up into districts--be it two, three, four, or five--without underweighting the rural areas, because there are fewer people there. I say this as the representative of a rural Ontario municipality. The largest town in my constituency has fewer than 10,000 people, and we're spread over an area the size of the state of Connecticut. So while I'm very conscious of the concerns of rural people, believe me, I can't figure out how you overcome that basic fact.

What does strike me is that as you get smaller and smaller districts--if you go into four districts for Ontario instead of one large district--you start losing the value of that proportionality. That is to say, people could get elected based on the fact that they appeal to a community within the province. Obviously in some cases they might be people who appeal to rural voters. In other cases it might be someone whose appeal is based on the fact that they represent some other minority, say Franco-Ontarians, aboriginal interests, or whatever the case might be. As is the case in Australia, it might be the people who represent the environmental movement. The Green Party has been quite successful in the Australian Senate, although it's frozen out entirely from their lower house.

I guess I've really given you more of a comment than a question, but I'll leave it to you to respond.

[Roger Gibbins]

My understanding of how this electoral system would work is that if you had a preferential ballot and all 24 Ontario senators were elected at once, you would be assured of election if you received just over 3% of the popular vote. That's a very low threshold, so it wouldn't squeeze out the small communities.

Small communities would get into more trouble if you increased that threshold by having a smaller number of senators elected. It's like the issue of representation by population and proportional representation systems. Where do you want to set the threshold? Do you want it so you can get elected to the Ontario Senate with 3% of the vote? Or do you want a threshold to be somewhat higher?

It depends on your definition of democracy. Do you want those thresholds to be radically different across the country, where you can be elected as an aboriginal candidate in Ontario with 3% of the vote, but in Saskatchewan it takes 12% or 14% of the vote?

These are the design details that I think are hinted at in Bill C-20 but are not fully explained. To my mind, they're important decisions to be addressed. They're not incidental.

[The Chair, Liberal, Albina Guarnieri]

Thank you, Mr. Gibbins.

Madame Folco, you have the last round of five minutes.