Electoral Reform Committee on July 27th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

About 35 seconds.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Would a PR system increase the participation of women in office?

[Prof. Henry Milner]

The statistics certainly show that. There's no question that women get elected much more significantly in PR systems than in non-PR systems. That's unquestionable. You could ask, where is the causality? Is it because these countries are more open to women's involvement that they choose proportional elections, so that the causality tends not to go from the electoral system but from the political culture? But the relationship is very strong.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We'll start our second round with Mr. DeCourcey.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Professor Blais, I'd like you to elaborate on the conclusions and findings of your studies.

One of your conclusions—and please correct me, if necessary, because I was scribbling as quickly as I could—is that PR potentially enhances perception of fairness, or does enhance perception of fairness, but that it is unlikely to increase voter satisfaction. What were you measuring in each of those particular conclusions, which seem a bit incompatible? Was it the result in Parliament and what Parliament looks like versus the functioning of government? Just some clarity around those two conclusions would be helpful for me.

[Prof. André Blais]

The exact questions that were asked in those surveys were the following, almost exactly.

The question about satisfaction with democracy is this. How satisfied are you with the way democracy works in your country? And the choices of answer are the following: very satisfied; fairly satisfied; fairly dissatisfied; or very dissatisfied.

The fairness question was something like this—and this was after the election. How fairly or unfairly was the election conducted? I think the answers were these: very unfairly; somewhat unfairly; somewhat fairly; or very fairly.

These two questions are correlated, but imperfectly, and we observed differences only with respect to perceptions of fairness between PR and non-PR—only with respect to perceptions of fairness, and not with respect to overall satisfaction with democracy.

There is a correlation, but it's not overly strong. The only difference that is really clear is the difference with perceptions of fairness. In terms of satisfaction, there doesn't seem to be any significant difference.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

If we were drawing conclusions from those conclusions, what lesson would you leave us with to keep top of mind in the Canadian experience?

[Prof. André Blais]

All of these results are not absolutely certain. This is the best evidence we have, and it's still not.... More work could be done. But unsurprisingly, I guess, when you ask specifically about perceptions of fairness, then PR clearly performs better. But when you ask for a very general evaluation of how democracy works, then it doesn't make a difference. PR helps in affecting specific perceptions of fairness, but if you think about overall evaluations of how democracy works, it's not enough. There are many other things that are taken into account, and in the end it doesn't have a significant effect, it seems.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Professor Milner and Mr. Himelfarb talked about the system they prefer, telling us about some of the studies and research conducted.

As a researcher, or a Canadian citizen, which system would be your preference?

[Prof. André Blais]

I will not directly answer the question, but I might, after we have been grilled many times. We'll see. I will be giving a class on electoral reform this fall for 35 students, and we'll discuss all the studies that have been done. In the last five weeks, the students will deliberate, discuss, and propose the best reform for Canada. I tend to support that proposal, so that's my view at this point.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

I have one last question for each witness. Given the competing values that we should consider as elected representatives in putting together a report to government on potential alternative electoral systems, what is the highest priority or the top value we should keep in mind?

I'll ask each of the three of you to briefly reply.

[Prof. Henry Milner]

I think it's fairness. I don't think it's an accident that André's report clearly shows that people consider which electoral system is fair, the proportional systems win out. It's not an accident. Does it necessarily make you more satisfied with the workings of democracy? No, not necessarily, because you may be paying more attention and there are things that you are more critical of, which you might not have been doing in our kind of system, because there's a government that is running things, and so on. That, to me, is less important than the crucial sense of whether you think the system works fairly.

By the way, I should add that André is on record, so if you want to know where André stood in the past, you can look at the Quebec discussion in which he participated, but we're going to re-create his virginity on this question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I can see right now everyone going to Google to see what that position was, but we'll have to move on now to Mr. Reid.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Speaking of things that individuals have written in the past, Professor Milner, I have a paper you wrote in 2004, and I want to go through some of the details you were discussing in that paper with regard to some aspects of multi-member proportional that have not thus far been discussed in this committee, either at this meeting or previous meetings.

I want to dwell upon two subjects you raised. I'll start with the first, and we'll see whether we have enough time for the second.

You describe a situation in Scotland in which the greater strength of the SNP in the individual electorates or ridings resulted in their having virtually no list members. Other parties had many list members and very few elected in the ridings.

This seems to have been a problem at that time, enough that you identified it. Is it still the case that this is a problem? Has it resolved itself? Is it inherent in the system, or was it just an accident of the first election that took place under MMP in Scotland?

[Prof. Henry Milner]

The SNP, as you probably know, was able to take power after that. Clearly, in order to do that they had to win a good part of the individual districts as well. This was, I guess, a way to break through the system originally. Depending on how you feel about Scottish independence, you may say it was a good thing or a bad thing, but putting that aside, I think the system worked as it should.

For a party to represent an important tendency that has been under-represented by the existing system, to enter because the new system represents the parties much more proportionally is a good thing. They are then in a position to present their ideas, reflecting their strength within the population. There were clearly other things happening at the same time, but that certainly helps to explain why they were able to do better in the subsequent elections.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

You talked about this being a “two classes of MPs” issue: some are from the list, and some are from electorates. This seemed to be a problem back then. I'm asking whether it is a problem.

[Prof. Henry Milner]

In a temporary sense, you could say that when one party gets mainly one kind of seat and the other party gets mainly another kind of seat, if they're big parties that could be somewhat problematic, but the problem tends over time to resolve itself. It's the very small parties, such as the Greens in Germany, for example, that rely on the list seats in order to maintain a proportional presence in Parliament. When it comes to big parties, it's a temporary situation.

I was writing in 2004. I think if I went back to Scotland today I wouldn't raise that as an issue.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Okay, that actually does answer the question. It appears to be an accident of that election rather than a feature of the system.

The other question I want to ask relates to something that happened in New Zealand. A number of people elected under Winston Peters' New Zealand First party proceeded to bail out of that party and go to other parties. Mr. Peters, who held the balance of power, then demanded that an anti-party-hopping bill or anti-ratting bill or anti-floor-crossing bill be passed. It was, and it then had disastrous results in which another party unexpectedly was effectively destroyed because it couldn't split into two factions.

How did that situation resolve itself? What is the status quo in New Zealand? Is anti-party-hopping done anywhere else, or is it simply ruled out in most MMP jurisdictions, to the extent that you have any knowledge?

[Prof. Henry Milner]

I'm trying to remember the details. Maybe André knows.

I know that in recent elections in New Zealand, this hasn't come up as a real problem. so they did resolve it. It was a very particular case. New Zealand First is a very special kind of party that, really, you pretty much cannot compare with a party anywhere else, because it was a personal party; it was the party of Winston Peters, who was a particular character, and he's gone from the scene now. Maybe that explains the situation, but it meant that they had to deal with a particular case.

I don't know exactly how it was resolved, but it seems to have been resolved.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

You only have 10 seconds, so we'll go to Mr. Cullen, if that's okay.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

The process that we're engaged in right now is the first stage of what this committee is endeavouring to do. The next stage involves cross-Canada consultation with Canadians.

Some witnesses have suggested that when we get to that stage, that the committee, that Parliament, should start to present more concrete proposals to Canadians that they can then comment on, rather than just the broad topic of electoral reform writ large—every issue under the sun.

For the benefit and the efficacy of that public engagement, would you have any recommendations that the committee start to formulate ideas that Canadians can then comment upon, or are you more in favour of the idea of our remaining in the 50,000-foot level, all issues on the table at the time?

Mr. Blais.

[Prof. André Blais]

I am clearly in favour of more concrete proposals.

I think that if the committee could come up with, let's say, five concrete proposals, that would help a lot. That would not be the end of it. There is always the possibility of other options coming out later, but focusing the attention on concrete proposals, I think would help a lot.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I wonder if any of our other panellists have comments as well.

Mr. Himelfarb.

[Alex Himelfarb]

Yes, I think narrowing down the proposals is really important, for example, taking some things off the table like national lists, which would never work for Canada. It's really important to narrow it down to things that are likely to be implemented in Canada. I would do that.

Ideally, though it's going to be hard to do, it's about having a set of principles—and not just the government's principles, but a consensus set of principles—against which you assess each of these proposals and ask how well you are meeting them, and then which of the principles are most important to people.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I want to get back to a question that I think was put to you, Mr. Milner, about participation of women and that there are different political cultures.

We were talking with the Electoral Commission of Australia last night. There we actually have a working example in which the lower House and the upper House are elected by different systems. One is the alternative vote, which sits in the winner-take-all category and elects less than 25% women. The other House runs on proportionality and elects approximately 40% women. It's the same political culture, the same country.