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.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
It was by his threatening to hold a confidence vote on every bill, which I think Mr. Cyr has some suggestions on how to reduce that threat.... I was there. It was intoned to us that if transportation bills and fisheries bills, etc., fell, so would the government.
Research Director, Canada's Changing Federal Community, Institute for Research on Public Policy
His isn't the only party that did that—
Research Director, Canada's Changing Federal Community, Institute for Research on Public Policy
Jean Chrétien did that all the time, and with a majority—
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Mr. Harper learned well from perhaps some bad examples.
We have a study in front of us, and some experts have spoken to this, that looking back over the last 50 years, countries that have chosen winner take all systems have had on average 16.7 elections in that 50 years. Countries that have chosen proportional systems have had 16 elections on average over that same half century. Is there not a myth associated with proportional systems that they are somehow more unstable? Everyone trots out the example of Italy every five minutes—
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
John did it the other day. We should actually update what Italy's system is right now, because it's anything but proportional. They've concocted some completely unstable, not-proportional, system, so to even equate it....
Mr. Cyr, you wanted to comment on this.
Prof. Hugo Cyr
It is precisely because Italy and Israel are always cited as the classic cases. Historically, it has been claimed that there is no stability in these countries. In the literature, there are studies on what is known as rationalized parliamentarism. That's why I wanted to tell you about certain rules or mechanisms that have been developed. There is some experience and expertise out there. There are many cases where the system put in place often results in minority or coalition governments. We know how it works.
We should not restrict ourselves to just our experience in Canada or in our province. There are mechanisms to ensure stability. If we look at all the countries that often have minority or coalition governments, we cannot say that their system is not as good as ours.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
I have one final question, and you can help us on this. We don't have a lot of examples in the world where one political culture uses two voting systems at the same time, except in Australia. We've heard testimony that under that system, women's participation is almost double under the Australian House that uses proportional representation versus the one that uses first past the post. They have two houses. They vote them in different ways, and women are 40% in one and 25% in the other.
Do we have other examples around the world? That just seems like the one striking example to me that we should perhaps pay some attention to in terms of women being more able to participate and get elected.
Liberal
Prof. Larry LeDuc
Yes. List PR has proven to be more favourable to women, but it's only a tool, because it depends on the parties. An example that Leslie Seidle gave earlier comparing Sweden and Hungary is telling, because they're both list PR systems. But in the Scandinavian countries they tend to use lists, the parties have quotas, and they make sure that there are sufficient numbers of women on their list to meet the quota. The lists are often “zippered”, as they call it, alternating male and female.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
The question was, are there other examples? Was that your question?
Okay, so it's other Scandinavians countries, I guess.
Liberal
Bloc
Luc Thériault Bloc Montcalm, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Cyr, your work is very important. As you mentioned, the foundation of democracy is the legislature. There are 338 elections, not just one. Directly, they determine who will represent the people, who will be the holders of parliamentary democracy.
In our discussions, we talk very little about the fact that it is necessary and imperative that the new voting system restore a lot more power to elected officials, in terms of both procedure and the putative change of culture. I would hope that this will to change the culture is not just evidenced by my participation in this so-called special committee. It should also be reflected in the day to day of the other House committees.
How do you think we can improve the rules and parliamentary democracy if we do not examine the Standing Orders of the House at the same time we do this study? We claim we want to increase the plurality of voices and ideologies contributed by the small parties, but this requires a fundamental change of culture in the House, and we need to review the rules.
I put this question to the Chief Electoral Officer, but surely you have an opinion on it. We would also need to restore government funding for political parties. It's fine to have a system that promotes ideological plurality, but if the ruling party and the official opposition are the only ones with the money to make their voices heard, we will not get very far.
Prof. Hugo Cyr
As a law professor, I would tell you that every rule has a specific function. A rule is adopted to respond to an existing need when it is created.
The rules governing how Parliament works have been developed over time according to the type of elected officials, customs, and traditions. If we change the way members are selected, we must conduct an appropriate study to determine whether all the current rules are suited to this new procedure. We will have to review the rules one by one to see if they need to be updated.
With regard to government funding for political parties, I have a lot to say about that. Beyond the political financing, I've heard it said many times that in this or that election, despite the percentage of votes, a party obtained only one seat. We always talk about anecdotal situations, but we forget that, systemically, in other words, not just in any one election, some votes have no impact on the number of seats, depending on the region or the location. We always bring up anecdotal cases, but in the current system, there is a systemic imbalance between the provinces that is much more long term. The issue of political party funding comes on top of this imbalance, which exacerbates the lack of representation in a systemic way.
Bloc
Luc Thériault Bloc Montcalm, QC
At least the vote is associated with a government contribution, which benefited the Green Party at that time. This makes it possible, minimally, for a party to make its voice heard between elections and during the election debates. Otherwise, the party's continued existence would be rather difficult.
Research Director, Canada's Changing Federal Community, Institute for Research on Public Policy
Actually, you still have tax credits and refunds after the election. It is not fair to say that the government funding was eliminated. Only part of it was.
Bloc
Luc Thériault Bloc Montcalm, QC
Yes, quite right, but just try to ask people on the street if they know there is a tax refund.
Liberal
Green
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Thank you.
My question is for Professor Cyr.
I think that the recommendations made here are very important. Yesterday, Professor Russell said that we should consider the idea of only allowing non-confidence motions that are constructive. It was the first time I heard such a suggestion, but I think it's really strong. He also said we should make a recommendation to impose a maximum time that can elapse between elections and the start of parliamentary proceedings.
In your brief, I believe you say that more than half of Canadians think that they vote directly for a prime minister. You also describe what we have to do to educate Canadians about the current system before changing it.
How can we explain our current system if we are getting that kind of response in a poll?
Prof. Hugo Cyr
I've been working on that question for many years. In one of my publications, I identified all the articles that dealt with federal and provincial elections and had appeared in newspapers the day after the election. I also noted the time at which the media announced who would form the next government. Time after time, the media reported that the election pertained to the prime minister or premier and identified who was appointed prime minister or premier that night.
I will give you an example. When the Parti Québécois won a plurality of seats in the Quebec National Assembly and Pauline Marois was the party leader, the next day we read in some newspapers that she was the “first woman Premier of Quebec”. However, she had not been sworn in yet and no party had obtained a majority. In such a situation, the premier in office is in principle still premier and even has the right to return to the House to try to regain its confidence.
There is a problem with people's understanding of the rules. That is why I talked about the manual. This is a problem at all levels. It's not just a problem for the public. It also affects the media and how they report information. Those who contributed to preparing the British manual included not only academics, senior government officials, and political parties, but also the media. A lot of hard work went into educating the media to minimize the use of this kind of information, which is an intellectual shortcut and flows faster, but distorts the true nature of our political system.
Green
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
That media point now actually feeds into something I noted in one of your earlier papers, Professor LeDuc. In 2008 you published “The Quiet Referendum: Why Electoral Reform Failed in Ontario”. I was struck by the graph there—perhaps you recall it—on the aggregate of newspaper reporting on the subject of referenda and of the referendum in Ontario. Perhaps you could comment on it.
We have a lot of media reporting on this hearing and on this committee's work, and it's terribly important that we reach Canadians through the media. But what accounts for the fact, or do you have any theories as to why, the preponderance of newspaper reporting was against accepting mixed member proportional in Ontario?
Prof. Larry LeDuc
When we were writing that paper, we tried to explore that question a bit further and didn't get very far with it. I was stunned by the negativity of the press throughout the entire campaign.
It started back with the citizens' assembly. During some of the sessions of the citizens' assembly, I sat next to the Toronto Star reporter who wrote some of the negative articles. He had made up his mind very early on that the citizens' assembly was a disaster. He had no use for it. We became convinced that there was a reason why he was assigned to that—so it wasn't just his personal view—and that the Star had staked out its ground early on and sent him out there to basically trash it.
The negativity of the press I think fed into the distaste of the business community for the proposed reform, but it was not possible for us to really connect those dots. We kept staring at them. We couldn't really put the finger on it. But the negativity of the press was very strong.