Evidence of meeting #11 for Electoral Reform in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was political.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Leslie Seidle  Research Director, Canada's Changing Federal Community, Institute for Research on Public Policy
Larry LeDuc  Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto, As an Individual
Hugo Cyr  Dean, Faculty of Political Science and Law, Université du Québec à Montréal, As an Individual

3:30 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia

Thank you.

Mr. DeCourcey, you have five minutes.

3:30 p.m.

Liberal

Matt DeCourcey Liberal Fredericton, NB

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I thank all three witnesses for their presentations this afternoon.

I'd like to start with you, Professor LeDuc.

One of the principles that we've been asked to consider as part of our mandate is local representation and how it may work in the preferred system that you've mentioned, or one of the other possibilities under consideration. As a member of Parliament from Atlantic Canada, if you'll allow me to editorialize for a moment, I would say we're very fond of what our part of the country has to add to the public policy conversation in Canada. I wouldn't want, nor do I think people from that region of the country would want, to lose the representativeness that is sent to Ottawa on their behalf. How would local representation potentially work, and what value should we place on that in our deliberations?

3:30 p.m.

Prof. Larry LeDuc

We have to come up with the definition of the word “local”, and that's very tricky. I think all list PR systems have districts, except for the small handful that have one single national constituency—and there are only a few of those. They're mostly smaller countries. The Netherlands, for example, has a single national constituency.

Some of them have larger districts than others. Some of them have districts of different sizes. That's why I said that if I were designing a party-list PR system for Canada, I would consider district size to be one of the major considerations to look at. I would also want to entrust that actual task to boundary commissions, as we do now, rather than to try to make it an inherent part of the system design. There are a lot of difficult technical issues related to geography that arise in Canada that you need to pay attention to.

I think as Canadians we want a system that provides effective local representation. How small your districts have to be for us to effectively do that is a more technical issue that needs to be worked out. In Spain, which I use as an example in my brief, but it's only an example—I don't argue that we should emulate the Spanish system here—the districts range in size from the smallest one of two members to urban ones that go up to 12 or 13 members. I think Professor Russell made the point yesterday, although he was talking about the STV system, that he thought that in Toronto you could have districts with larger numbers of members, whereas in other parts of Canada you might not want to have districts so large.

I think those are issues that could be addressed by a Canadian-designed, party-list PR system. One of the attractions of that is that it's very flexible. It's a very flexible system in terms of the number of seats, the number of districts, and so on.

One of the problems with MMP that we discovered in Ontario with the citizens' assembly, or an issue they got hung up on and could never figure out a way to resolve, was the size of the legislature. This was coming in just after the Harris government had reduced the size of the legislature and persuaded people that they needed fewer politicians. But to design an MMP system, you need a bigger parliament. Typically, the people in Canada who advocate for MMP say, “Well, we'll keep the present districts and just add some seats.” Well, how many do you need to add to make it truly proportional? Quite a lot. It's not coincidental that Germany has a 600-member parliament, because a half of the seats are district seats and a half of the seats are list seats.

In party-list PR, you can keep a parliament of about the same size as it is now, and then vary the district magnitude as necessary across the country, depending on which province we're talking about or which geographic area. There would still be some large districts, and some people might not like that, but I think that's an area where you have a lot of flexibility in the design. You have much less flexibility under some other models.

3:35 p.m.

Liberal

Matt DeCourcey Liberal Fredericton, NB

Maybe with the time remaining—

3:35 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia

You have 30 seconds.

3:35 p.m.

Liberal

Matt DeCourcey Liberal Fredericton, NB

—our other two panellists could quickly address the value that our political culture places on local representation, and how we should move forward keeping that in mind.

3:35 p.m.

Prof. Hugo Cyr

That's precisely why I referred to the examples of Wales and Scotland. They wanted to maintain that tradition of having local people elected there, but as well have a portion of the seats given according to the proportion of the votes the parties get. That's why they have a mixed proportional representation system in both cases, and because of the size of those populations.

3:35 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia

We'll start the second round with Ms. Sahota.

3:35 p.m.

Liberal

Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON

I'm going to go back to my original question. A portion of it about engagement has been answered in pieces with other questions. I know we've talked about the citizens' assemblies, which is a great idea.

Coincidentally, about a month ago, I had the privilege of sitting next to somebody who was among the 102 people in the Ontario Citizens' Assembly. We started talking and it was very interesting to hear his perspective, although he doesn't remember a whole lot anymore of what happened at that time.

What other ways can this committee engage people in the process we are currently undertaking? The process is very important to us, and you've recognized it as being an important process before. If we were to end up with a referendum or not, or if we were to implement a system and then go into a referendum two years later, whatever we do, what do we do now to make sure that the people are engaged before we change our system eventually?

3:35 p.m.

Prof. Larry LeDuc

It's a very difficult question.

I'll go back to the original point you made, which was about deliberation. We need to find a process to do this that is more deliberative. Polling doesn't generally do it, because you're asking a question that people often don't understand or in which the question wording shapes the answers. The citizens' assembly was a mechanism for creating a deliberative body that could discuss this and had some legitimacy, even though it wasn't an elected body, in what it represented because it was a microcosm of the larger electorate.

3:35 p.m.

Liberal

Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON

Can you give examples?

3:35 p.m.

Prof. Larry LeDuc

There is a mechanism called deliberative polling that I was going to mention. It hasn't been used all that much in Canada, but it's more feasible now with the increasing use of the Internet in polling. If you were to draw samples, the way you do for ordinary public opinion polls, and then extend them by having people deliberate the issue online and exchange thoughts about it, the technology is there to do that.

There are several good books in the U.S. written on deliberative polling, and it has been used in various places, but it has been on a model a little different from an Internet-based model. I could, however, see some of its principles being extended, because polls have some credibility, if the sampling is done right. If you could get a sample that was not just an instant snapshot of answers to a question but was based on some kind of built-in deliberative process that took place over a period of time, I think that's a possibility we might look at.

Someone closer to the polling industry than I am might have better advice on this than I.

3:35 p.m.

Research Director, Canada's Changing Federal Community, Institute for Research on Public Policy

Dr. Leslie Seidle

Although the budget that has been allocated to this process wouldn't allow for it, I don't think—but budgets can be increased—the committee could develop agreements with relatively neutral outside organizations, such as research institutes. I'm not making a call for our own, but....

There's a precedent from the winter of 1991-92 leading to the inter-governmental agreements that led to the Charlottetown accord. There were I think five conferences across the country, and they were on a thematic basis. They were organized by research institutes, they lasted for two days, and there were expert presenters, but there were a lot of workshops. It was more participatory.

I commend the work of this committee, even if you may think I'm a bad witness, but there are limits to this kind of forum. It doesn't allow the kind of iterative and participatory development of ideas and proposals that a citizens' assembly does, but it is, in a way, a little too late for a citizens' assembly. If the government had decided to do it, that would have been the first step, rather than a parliamentary committee.

So if you're thinking about suggestions, either for the shorter term or for following up, I think they should lean towards activities that bring in ordinary Canadians who have some expertise available and that allow for participation and debate, which itself is a process of education.

That's the story of the citizens' assembly in B.C. It went on for about six months, and then, when the conclusions were reached, those members went out and most of them were promoting the results they had come to agree on. That's part of the reason the vote was 57% in favour, in my view.

3:40 p.m.

Liberal

Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON

We will be travelling across Canada, and we will be doing town halls with regular citizens. There are last minute decisions we have to make about exactly where we're going to go, but we have a rough outline—

3:40 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia

I have to go to Mr. Kenney now.

3:40 p.m.

Conservative

Jason Kenney Conservative Calgary Midnapore, AB

Picking up on that, Chair, I think Ms. Sahota misses the point, which is that a citizens' assembly is a deliberative process. It's not where parliamentarians stay in a hotel in a city for a day and listen to 10-minute presentations and passively ask a few questions. It's a deliberative process that moves this beyond politicians who have a stake in and, therefore, I would argue, a conflict in choosing the system by which they are elected. I think it's unfortunate that we seem to be operating under an artificial timeline.

Professor LeDuc, you pointed out that in New Zealand, this was about a 12-year process, with a royal commission, a parliamentary committee, two referenda, legislation, parliamentary debate, adoption, and then ten years later, a third referendum. In Japan, I think you said it was 23 years, which ultimately was resolved through classic Japanese parliamentary horse-trading. It seems to me unfortunate that we've leapt past what is normal in other democracies on such a sensitive issue, where democratic legitimacy is at stake, with an artificial timeline, without inviting the....

I just met a fellow here who was in the gallery just to watch. He participated in the Ontario citizens' assembly and was wondering why there was not a similar process to engage in here.

I hope that all colleagues here listen to your exhortation, Professor LeDuc, to not allow the substance to drive the process but to allow the process to come up with a consensual system.

Having said that, and I've made my points about process, I have a substantive question. One option about which preference has been expressed by members of the government is alternative voting, also known as single member preferential voting, also known as the single member instant transferable vote. You know what I'm talking about. This seems to me deeply problematic in that it actually exaggerates the problem with false majorities. Do you think that's a reasonable concern?

3:40 p.m.

Prof. Larry LeDuc

Yes, that's precisely what it would probably do. One problem with all of these lines of argument is that you don't know exactly if voting behaviour is going to change with any change in rules.

We tend to talk about all systems, including that one, as if voting stays constant, and then we see what the outcome is. But voting doesn't always stay constant. One of the things we learned from Germany—this is getting off track—is that the Germans made some assumptions about voting when they invented MMP, and then about 20 years later, the parties discovered a different way to use it and began to pitch their campaigns differently, and voting behaviour began to change accordingly. So if you change the rules over some period of time, you might change behaviour.

If you gave Canadians second preferences, I think we could predict in the very short-term what would happen, because we can see what voting behaviour has been like recently. Maybe over a longer period it would produce some different outcomes. It's hard to know. But certainly, keep the party system constant, have voting behaviour and turnout much like the last election, and I think you can guess what would probably happen under AV.

3:40 p.m.

Prof. Hugo Cyr

The way I see it, there is also another factor to consider. We want to make sure that the system is legitimate and well received by the people. This means that it must be sufficiently and easily understandable, to ensure that voters clearly understand how the votes are counted. If the system becomes too complex, there could be questions about its legitimacy.

I agree that there must be education components, but we must ensure that the chosen system will be understandable to everyone. I want to say that I particularly appreciate the comments you made at the beginning of our meeting, namely that political parties obviously have an interest in this whole affair.

That is why I do not agree with my colleague on the idea of holding a referendum in conjunction with a general election. This would become the most significant election issue, and political parties would likely present a reform process catering to their own interests, rather than responding to the interests of the whole population. This would divert attention from the real issues.

In my view, if we must have a referendum, it should be separate and not held at the same time as a general election.

3:45 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia

Over to you, Mr. Cullen.

3:45 p.m.

NDP

Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC

He just cut you off, Professor Seidle. I'm sorry. You're on the short end of the stick.

3:45 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia

Well, there's the time—

3:45 p.m.

Research Director, Canada's Changing Federal Community, Institute for Research on Public Policy

Dr. Leslie Seidle

It's okay. I'm saving it for my next time in front of the mike.

3:45 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia

There you go. There are always ways around the rules to achieve what we want.

Mr. Cullen.

3:45 p.m.

NDP

Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC

Yes, to Mr. Kenney's point, we had actually suggested a form of a citizens' assembly back in February when this process was being discussed. Indeed, the question of legitimacy, I think, has been raised by all of our witnesses and others. It's not just the system that we present or this committee recommends, but also whether it is both legitimate and seen as legitimate in the eyes of the voters—otherwise, resistence will be high.

One small thing I want to pick up on is your comment, Mr. LeDuc, when asked about polling. It's one of those things where the question matters. I would assume this is also true of any process that involves a referendum. The carefulness in which we would approach voters with the question, the tendencies in referendums to misspeak the truth by those who wish to push against....The leading Google question in England the day after Brexit, I believe, was, what is the EU? One assumes complete voter awareness when talking about a referendum, which is a dangerous thing when talking about vested interests in a political question.

I want to talk about both productivity and stability because I'm trying to get to outcomes. I'm trying to get to the voters' position on this. If we put forward a system, it has to satisfy what the voters are looking for, not just that their votes are reflected in Parliament, that they cast their ballots, and it's this way, but also that this Parliament and those parliaments are able to function well.

This is where I got cut off last time, so I'll put my question now. We've had experience in Canada of minority parliaments producing, enduring national policies: bilingualism, the social safety net, medicare, the flag. The list is long.

Is it fair to say that while we certainly don't have a culture of coalition governments—we've only had one—our culture around the sharing of power in minority parliaments, just by results, forget partisanship, has worked for Canadians? Is that an exaggeration of the facts, given our history? Let me throw in the Federal Accountability Act too, as part of that, as something that did come out of a Conservative minority.

3:45 p.m.

Research Director, Canada's Changing Federal Community, Institute for Research on Public Policy

Dr. Leslie Seidle

I think it's an exaggeration if you refer to the Harper period. One of Stephen Harper's great achievement, or I should say perhaps the most notable achievement, was to be able to govern in a minority as if he had a majority.