Electoral Reform Committee on Aug. 22nd, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Good afternoon, colleagues, and welcome. May I ask you to take your seats.

It is a pleasure to see you again after our approximately two-week break. As you know, we are starting a phase in our work that will be a little more intense. We are going to have four sessions this week. Next week, we will continue with four sessions with witnesses present. Thereafter, around the middle of September, we will travel across the country for three weeks so that we can consult with Canadians where they live.

I would like to welcome Mr. Dubé, who joins us for the first time, and Mr. Ste-Marie, with whom, I believe, Mr. Thériault will be sharing his time in the period set aside for questions.

Today we have two esteemed witnesses: Professor Arend Lijphart, who is joining us from San Diego via video conference; and Professor Benoît Pelletier,

who, of course is well known both in Canada and in Quebec.

We will start with Professor Lijphart, but first, let me give you some details about himself, his work, and his interests in the context of his university work.

Professor Lijphart is a political scientist specializing in comparative politics, elections and voting systems, democratic institutions, and ethnicity in politics. He holds a Ph.D. in political science from Yale University and is currently research professor emeritus of political science at the University of California, San Diego.

Dr. Lijphart served as president of the American Political Science Association from 1993 to 1996, and in 1999 published his well-known book, Patterns of Democracy. Dr. Lijphart has won many notable awards in the field of political science and holds honorary doctorates from a number of universities, including Leiden University, Queen's University Belfast, and Ghent University, in addition to being an honorary fellow of Coventry University.

Professor, as a witness, you will have 20 minutes to present to us, and then we'll go to Professor Pelletier for 20 minutes. We'll then have two rounds of questions. Each member gets to ask one question in each round, and the question and answer period for each member lasts five minutes, including the answer. The question and answer have to fit into five minutes.

Without further ado, the floor is yours, professor. Thank you for being here via video conference.

[Professor Arend Lijphart, Research Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of California, San Diego, As an Individual]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate being here.

I am speaking from San Francisco rather than San Diego, but I don't think that makes any difference to you. It is far away from Ottawa, and I very much appreciate, Mr. Chairman, being able to speak by teleconference to your committee. It is a great honour for me to be invited to speak to your committee.

I am happy to share with you my findings and conclusions about the advantages of proportional representation, or PR, and the kind of democracy it creates. On a personal note, I have to confess that when I was a graduate student and young instructor in the 1960s, many decades ago, I was an admirer of the British system of government and its electoral system of first past the post, or FPTP. I think that's also what that electoral system is called in Canada, and I will keep referring to it as FPTP.

I've gradually come to the conclusion that proportional representation, or PR, is the better option. This has also been the trend among political scientists generally. The empirical evidence is now overwhelmingly strong in support of this conclusion. PR is a crucial ingredient in what I have called “consensus democracy”, especially in combination with a parliamentary system of government. It tends to lead to a multi-party system, which in turn tends to lead to coalition cabinets, and also leads to parliaments that are stronger and cabinets that are less dominant than in majoritarian systems. In addition, it tends to be associated with a more co-operative system of interest groups.

Typical examples of consensus democracies are Switzerland, Germany, Finland, and also New Zealand after the introduction of PR in 1996. These characteristics are in contrast to those of majoritarian democracies like Great Britain and also New Zealand before it shifted to PR in 1996. These characteristics of majoritarianism include FPTP, two-party systems, one-party majority cabinets, cabinets that are dominant vis-à-vis their parliaments, and a more competitive interest group system. Consensus democracies aim to rule by broad consensus instead of narrow majorities.

Democracies do not all fit the two perfect models of majoritarian and consensus democracy. They fit on a continuum between the pure types. For instance, Canada is on the majoritarian side, but not in an extreme position. One reason is that Canada has occasionally had minority cabinets that deviated from the one-party majority ideal of majoritarian democracy.

I need to add three footnotes at this point.

One is that there is a second dimension of the difference between different types of democracy. The main contrast here is between unitary and centralized versus federal and decentralized systems. Canada is obviously an example of the latter. I don't need to say more on this subject because it is not related to the electoral system and, hence, not relevant to your discussions. In any case, I assume that Canada is not about to change its federal system.

Second, as I have already indicated, the advantages of PR depend a great deal on its combination with a parliamentary system of government. Canada is fortunate in already having a parliamentary system. Political scientists are virtually unanimous in their dislike of presidential government, which has many serious weaknesses. I assume that few Canadians favour the adoption of a federal system, and it is great that we do not have to worry about this particular issue.

Third is a quick comment on the term “consensus democracy”. It should not be interpreted to imply that it is a kind of democracy in countries that are highly consensual and homogeneous. Rather, PR and consensus democracy are suitable for any country, but especially for countries with religious, linguistic, and ethnic divisions in which consensus needs to be created. It is significant that PR was first adopted in the 1890s in countries like Belgium, with its deep religious and linguistic differences. Some of my political science colleagues have also called consensus democracy “negotiation democracy”, “compromise democracy”, “pacification democracy”, and “proportional democracy”. This last term is especially appropriate because it emphasizes the crucial role of PR.

For a long time the prevailing view was that PR might have slight advantages in terms of having more accurate political representation and more accurate and faithful minority representation, and that FPTP and one-party cabinets had a much greater advantage in terms of effective governments. One-party cabinets were said to be more decisive and capable of making both quicker decisions and more coherent policies than coalition cabinets. This looks like a logical argument, but it overlooks some logical counter-arguments. For one thing, as we all know, fast decisions are not necessarily wise decisions. Also, a great deal of coherence in policy is lost in the alternation between governments of the right and governments of the left, and then back again to governments of the right. This was the main reason why the famous British political scientist Samuel Finer, who had been a strong supporter of FPTP, changed his mind and advocated PR in an influential book published as early as 1975. Finally, policies supported by a broad consensus are more likely to be successful and to remain on course than policies made by a so-called decisive government against the wishes of important sectors of society.

Fortunately, we now have very good methods to settle these competing arguments, especially since reams of excellent data on effective government and the quality of democracy have become available since about the year 2000. I have relied on official government sources, international organizations like the United Nations and the Inter-Parliamentary Union; The Economist Intelligence Unit; and the Worldwide Governance Indicators project, led by experts at the World Bank and the Brookings Institution. The evidence shows that consensus democracy is superior to majoritarian democracy in terms of effective government and policy-making, and that it is vastly superior in terms of equality of democracy.

In order to emphasize how strong this evidence is, I'd like to make several points about the findings in my book, Patterns of Democracy, which was first published in 1999, and a second and updated edition that I published in 2012. It is the evidence from that 2012 edition of my book that I present here.

First, the 36 democracies that I compared in my book are not just a sample of democracies, but all of the democracies that satisfy the definition of continuous democracy for a period of at least 20 years, from 1990 to 2010, according to the widely used criteria of Freedom House.

Second, I test both effective government and democratic quality in terms of not just a few indicators, but a wide variety of indicators. For effective government, I look at performance with regard to such basic and obvious measures as economic growth, inflation, unemployment, and budget balance, and also the Worldwide Governance Indicator measures of government effectiveness, regulatory quality, the rule of law, and control of corruption. For measuring the quality of democracy, I look at voter turnout, women's representation in parliaments and cabinets, gender inequality, economic inequality, and survey responses with regard to satisfaction with democracy. I also look at the overall Democracy Index by the Economist Intelligence Unit, in addition to the separate categories that make up this index, like the quality of the electoral process, political participation, and civil liberties.

Third, I find positive correlations between consensus democracy and effective government with regard to 16 of my 17 indicators. They are so strong as to be statistically significant for nine of the measures. For democratic quality, I have 19 indicators, and without exception all of these show that consensus democracy works better. Moreover, all 19 correlations are very strong and statistically significant.

Fourth, a legitimate question is, could this good performance of consensus democracy be caused by other factors instead of by consensus democracy? There are in fact two such factors that affect both effective government and democratic quality. These are the level of economic development and population size. Richer countries tend to do better than less well-to-do countries, and small countries, that is, less populous countries, tend to do better than large countries. But these factors can be controlled for in the statistical analysis, and the results that I have reported already control for them. This means that the positive correlations remain strong even after the effects of economic development and population size have been taken into consideration.

Let me turn to three specific issues with regard to the possible introduction of PR in Canada. First, it is important that supporters of PR agree on the kind of PR they want to introduce. One sure way of wrecking the chance of PR is for its advocates to split into hostile camps with regard to which form of PR they prefer.

Second, which form of PR would be best? I am basically an agnostic on this subject. My native country of the Netherlands uses list PR, and I think it has worked quite well there for now almost a whole century. Most continental European countries also use list PR. But for Canada, it is probably best to follow the example of other mainly or partly English-speaking countries. That means either the MMP system or mixed-member proportional system introduced in New Zealand in the 1990s and also adopted by the legislative assemblies of Scotland and Wales; or as a second alternative, STV, a single transferrable vote, used in Ireland for, I guess, almost a whole century now, in Malta, and in Australia for its senate elections since 1949.

Third, make sure that the system is actually reasonably proportional and that it avoids too high a barrier for small parties. For MMP in New Zealand, the minimum threshold is 4%, which I consider reasonable. For STV, no formal threshold is needed because it uses relatively small election districts. In Ireland, the districts elect between three and five representatives each. In Malta, each district elects five members. In Australia, the six states serve as the principle election districts, and each elects six senators. Occasionally, when there is a so-called double dissolution, as happened recently, this number is increased to 12, but six is a reasonable number. Five five or six is indeed a reasonable number to adopt if one has STV.

Finally, let me address the question of whether PR is suitable for a country like Canada that is geographically very large and has a linguistically, ethnically, and religiously diverse population. The answer is certainly yes. In fact, as I have already emphasized, PR is especially appropriate for heterogeneous countries. How about Canada's large geographical size? Canada is unusual in this respect, but not unique. Australia is comparable, and Australia has used PR and senate elections since 1949. I do not see any logical reason either to believe that PR could not work well in a large country like Canada. Perhaps the most important fact to consider is that PR is the rule and FPTP the exception among contemporary democracies.

Of the 36 democracies in my book, there are four that are neither pure PR nor pure FPTP. The breakdown for the others is 10 FPTP versus 22 PR. This still exaggerates the use of FPTP, because six of the countries with FPTP are very small ones like the Bahamas, Barbados, and Botswana. There are some very small countries with PR too, of course, like Iceland, Luxembourg, and Malta. Excluding all of these tiny countries, the breakdown becomes four countries with FPTP, namely Canada, United States, United Kingdom, and India, versus 19 with PR. The breakdown is four with FPTP and 19 with PR.

However one counts it, PR has the clear majority. In addition, and finally, I think it is significant that in these four FPTP countries, there are important organizations that strongly advocate a shift to PR. In sharp contrast, there are no similar organizations advocating FPTP in any of the PR countries.

I thank you for your kind attention.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much, Professor Lijphart. Thank you so much for adapting your framework to the Canadian experience.

We'll now proceed to

Professor Benoît Pelletier. Professor Pelletier is a lawyer, an academic and a politician. He was a member of the National Assembly in Quebec from 1998 to 2008 and served as minister of intergovernmental affairs, minister for la Francophonie, minister of aboriginal affairs and minister of democratic reform in the Jean Charest government.

Protessor Pelletier is presently teaching law at the University of Ottawa. He recently received the medal of the Ordre du mérite de la Fédération des commissions scolaires du Québec and has been elected as a member of the Royal Society of Canada.

With that said, Professor Pelletier, you have 20 minutes, just like Professor Lijphart. We will follow up with two rounds of questions.

[Professor Benoît Pelletier, Full Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My thanks to the members of the committee for inviting me to appear today.

I'll be speaking mainly in French today, but my first words will be in English.

I would like to point out the fact that I'm not an expert on electoral reform, although I have examined electoral reform from a constitutional perspective. What I have done is to try to see how far Parliament could go without a constitutional amendment with regards to electoral reform in Canada. My perspective is that of a constitutional expert on electoral reform, not that of an expert on electoral reform per se.

This said, I was minister for the reform of democratic institutions in Quebec from 2005 to 2008, and in particular from 2005 and 2007, when electoral reform was the most debated in Quebec.

I would like to mention the contribution at the time of one of your MPs—also a member of this committee—Luc Thériault, who was then the critic for the official opposition when I was on the other side of the National Assembly.

I have prepared a synopsis of my presentation, which I think has been distributed to you. I hope it has. I did it in both official languages. I will be making my presentation in French, but the English-speaking members of this committee will be able to follow most of my presentation through the English version of my synopsis.

Let me start the formal presentation.

Mr. Chair, for my analysis, I examined various constitutional provisions. I mention them here because those I am going to discuss are probably, in my opinion, the most significant constitutional provisions in determining the extent to which Canada can move to reform a method of voting without a constitutional amendment.

In the Constitution Act, 1867, the sections I examined include section 37, dealing with the constitution of the House of Commons, section 40, dealing with electoral districts, section 41, on the continuance of existing election laws, section 51, on electoral readjustment, section 51A, on the right of a province to have a number of members in the House of Commons that is not less than the number of senators it has, and section 52, dealing with the increase of the number of members of the House of Commons.

In the Constitution Act, 1982, I specifically examined section 3, dealing with the right to vote, and with subsection 52(2), which provides a definition of the Constitution of Canada. This is not an exhaustive definition that—and this should be specified right now—makes no mention of the Canada Elections Act. I will be coming back to this. I also examined the entire part V of the Constitution Act, 1982, which contains the procedure for amending the Constitution of Canada.

I also examined paragraph 41(a) of the Constitution Act, 1982, which deals with the office of the Queen and the Governor General. This office cannot be changed except by the unanimous consent of federal and provincial levels. I also examined paragraph 41(b), dealing with the right of a province to a number of members in the House of Commons not less than the number of senators it has. Unanimous consent is also required to make amendments to that. I also examined paragraph 42(1)(a), dealing with the principle of proportionate representation of the provinces in the House of Commons. That is subject to the 7/50 procedure, meaning the consent of the House of Commons and the Senate, subject to the Senate having only one suspensive veto of 180 days, and at least seven provinces representing at least 50% of the population of all the provinces.

Of course, I also examined section 44, which attributes a power to Parliament to exclusively make constitutional amendments. However, these amendments must be in relation to the executive government of Canada, the Senate or the House of Commons. There are, however, some important exceptions that apply in the case of section 44. What is interesting in this section is that Parliament alone can amend the Constitution of Canada. As I just mentioned, it can also make amendments in relation to the executive government of Canada, the Senate or the House of Commons, subject, of course, to sections 41 and 42 that I mentioned previously, among others. They require unanimity and the 7/50 procedure respectively.

As I examined the jurisprudence, the cases that seemed to me to be the most relevant are the following: Figueroa v. Canada; the Reference re Senate Reform; Ottawa (Attorney General) v. OPSEU; the decision of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in In re Initiative and Referendum Act; and the Reference re Secession of Quebec.

In the light of all that I have read, my analysis leads me to say that, in the eyes of the Supreme Court of Canada, the single member simple plurality system, the “first past the post system”, is constitutional, despite its weaknesses.

It's good to know that the current system is in conformity with the Canadian Constitution, although it has weaknesses, as we all know.

Second, and what I am saying here is still essentially from the perspective of the Supreme Court of Canada, the Constitution does not require any democratic electoral system in particular and does not view the system as immutable. In other words, the Supreme Court has shown itself to be open to a change in the way we vote and has mentioned that our Constitution does not require any particular voting method.

So, the first past the post system conforms with the Constitution, but it's not the only system that could conform with the Canadian Constitution and with Canadian values.

Canadians are committed to a democratic form of government. Democratic principles therefore must be observed. The Supreme Court has said that Canadians are politically and constitutionally committed to a democratic form of government. In other words, maintaining a democratic form of government is constitutionally protected in Canada without the Court specifying what form of government that might be.

The Supreme Court also seems to mean that the choice of one method of voting over another is a matter of choice between competing political values. The government has a fairly wide latitude in the matter and it is not for the Court to intervene when it comes to reforming the method of voting, or at least, it is not for the Court to intervene too much.

This is, in my view, something that is fundamental. What the Supreme Court says is that electoral reform is something that belongs to elected representatives, to Parliament, to the government. It's not something that the Supreme Court of Canada would like to intervene in.

Maybe, if the court ever had to, if ever some of the main principles that I will be speaking about in a couple of minutes are affected, it would, but the first desire of the Supreme Court of Canada is not to intervene. Its first reflex is not to intervene. And the Supreme Court, in fact, confirmed that all of this is mainly a question of political decisions instead of judicial decisions.

So what are the main conditions that Parliament must fulfill in terms of reforming the method of voting? As I list those conditions, I am saying that Parliament can act alone to reform the method of voting, providing that it does not affect any of the principles that I will mention in a moment.

The first principle is well established in jurisprudence. This is the concept of effective representation. The Supreme Court mentions a relative equality between voters. This is not therefore total or perfect equality. But there must be relative equality in terms of the weight of each vote in Canada's overall political system. If the principle of effective representation were overstepped, it would probably lead the Supreme Court to intervene.

But as long as the principle of relative equality is respected, the Supreme Court of Canada is not interested in intervening.

Here is the second principle. Reform must not change the office of the Queen or the Governor General. As I said before, the office of the Queen and the Governor General are subject to the rule of unanimity, the procedure that requires amendment by unanimous consent.

Is it possible to have an electoral reform that does not affect the office of the Queen, or that of the Governor General? The answer is yes. The main functions of the Governor General and the Queen have to be respected if there ever is electoral reform, whatever it is, in Canada.

Parliament cannot infringe on the right of the provinces to have a number of members of the House of Commons that is at least equal to the number of senators.

This is a very interesting limit. At this moment it only applies to very small provinces that don't have many MPs and that have more senators than MPs. It allows them to have as many MPs as the number of senators they have. But if ever there is a change in the number of seats in Canada, we have to make sure there is no change that goes below the number of senators attributed to each province at this moment under the Canadian Constitution.

Of course, Parliament cannot affect the principle of proportionate representation of the provinces in the House of Commons because that it covered by the 7/50 formula. But here we come up against something much more delicate, probably as a result of the jurisprudence. I believe that the preamble to the Constitution Act, 1867 protects a British type of parliamentary system and the principle of responsible government.

There is jurisprudence from the Supreme Court of Canada that says that the preamble to the act of 1867 entrenches or protects the Westminster model of government and entrenches and protects the principle of responsible government.

Here the question is, how far does that go, first of all? How far does that protection go? I cannot say, to be frank, and no one could say. It would be for the Supreme Court of Canada itself to specify what it really means eventually, if ever there were litigation, a problem, or a reference, on this subject.

The first question therefore is to find out how far that protection goes. It comes from the preamble of the Constitution Act, 1867, but not explicitly so. It is implicit.

because the preamble says that we want a constitution that is based on the same principles as the constitution of the United Kingdom. The jurisprudence took that affirmation and found in it some kind of protection for the Westminster model of government and responsible government.

The first question therefore is to find out how far that statement of the courts goes and the second question is to find out what is the content of—

Westminster model of government. What's the content of that concept?

There is a risk in wishing to define a concept like that, but it seems to me that the Westminster type of government involves a certain number of principles.

The first principle is that executive powers are officially and theoretically conferred on the head of state and that they are concentrated under his purview.

Under the second principle, those executive powers are exercised in practice by the prime minister and the ministers.

Under the third principle, executive power is part of the legislative assembly. In other words, not only does the executive contribute to the exercise of legislative power, but it is also an integral part of the legislative assembly.

According to the fourth principle, executive power must be accountable to the legislative assembly. It must answer for government policies before the legislative assembly.

The next principle says that the democratic legitimacy of the executive power depends on, and is granted by, the legislative assembly.

Under the final principle, which goes back to the principle of responsible government, the prime minister must tender the resignation of his government to the governor general or must ask for the House to be dissolved if he does not enjoy the confidence of those the people have elected.

In my view, this is the definition of British parliamentary democracy that I give. Clearly, of course, other experts may wish to refine or add to this definition.

One final constraint on the Parliament of Canada results from a 1919 decision of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. This is In re Initiative and Referendum Act. It was referred to in 1987 by the Supreme Court of Canada in Ontario (Attorney General) v. OPSEU. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council was referring to the provinces and the same principle probably applies to the Parliament of Canada. Parliament cannot bring about profound upheaval by introducing political institutions that are foreign to and incompatible with the Canadian system. In English, we would say that—

Parliament could not introduce political institutions foreign to and incompatible with the Canadian system.

You are going to ask me what that exactly means. Now, it is worth redefining it through jurisprudence. What we know is that Parliamnet could not, for example, entrust the people with all the legislative powers. Referenda could not become the only way in which laws are passed. The fact is that, beyond that, we do not know what the expression means.

I repeat that the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council was talking about provincial legislatures and referred back to subsection 92(1) of the 1867 act. The parallel also holds true for former subsection 91(1) of the 1867 act and the Parliament of Canada.

Finally, I would say that maybe there will be some experts saying that Parliament cannot affect the fact there are electoral districts in Canada. Section 40 of the Constitution Act, 1867, refers to electoral districts. Some experts may say that electoral districts are entrenched and cannot be affected by Parliament unilaterally, but I don't share that point of view. I think that Parliament can abolish or diminish the number of electoral districts unilaterally by virtue of section 44 of the act of 1982.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much, Professor Pelletier.

We have heard two testimonies that were extremely helpful, interesting and clearly expressed. Thank you for that.

Now we start our first series of questions. I remind members that that their five minutes also includes the answers. On occasion, I have noticed very complex questions being asked, leaving only 30 seconds. If that happens, the answer will unfortunately have to come in the form of a question from another member.

We will start with Mr. DeCourcey, for five minutes.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

It is good to be back in school with all my colleagues. My thanks to our witnesses for the presentations they have given us today.

I would first like to turn to Professor Lijphart.

Dr. Lijphart, in your submission you talked about the need not to consider aspects of our federal system of government. That struck me as a bit of a unique view given a lot of the testimony we've heard from other academics and experts, who have said that we must certainly consider the electoral system within the context of the greater system of government and political culture, that they're all tied together.

I wonder if you can just expand on why, in a country as large and unique as Canada, with constitutional considerations such as were just presented to us today, you think it's okay for us to just consider the electoral system without considering the larger effect it has on the system of government and our political culture.

[Prof. Arend Lijphart]

I think that is an excellent question.

Certainly the federal system in Canada and in several other federal countries is an important aspect to take into consideration. But I think that proportional representation is compatible with both federal systems like Canada and unitary systems like Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and the Netherlands. I think the main thing to consider is to look at other federal countries that do use proportional representation. Germany is, of course, a federal system; it's not as large geographically as Canada, but it has a much larger population than Canada, and it uses proportional representation. Switzerland is a federal country and uses proportional representation. Austria is a federal country and uses proportional representation. And I've mentioned Australia already as an example of a country that's both vast and does not have a very large population—it's much less than Canada. It uses proportional representations for senate elections.

So I think these two factors really can be considered separately and I see no reason why a federal country cannot do well with PR.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Pelletier, do you believe that we can discuss the electoral system without talking about constitutional considerations? We know that smaller provinces, like New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia, have guarantees providing a certain number of seats. Do those considerations present challenges in terms of proportionate representation?

[Prof. Benoît Pelletier]

The principle of proportionate representation implies that provinces have a right to representation that is equivalent to the weight of their population overall in Canada. That can be done by various electoral systems. It can be done by electing people directly in the constituencies. It can also be done by designating representatives in other ways. I am thinking, for example, of members of Parliament who, in a mixed proportional voting system, would come from lists.

In my opinion, to the degree that each province has the right to a number of representatives in the House of Commons that is more or less equivalent to is demographic weight, the principle of proportionate representation is safeguarded. It is quite interesting that the section I mentioned a little earlier talks about the principle of proportionate representation and does not deal with the question of the modalities of that representation.

That said, I am convinced that another voting method—mixed proportional voting, for example—would also be compatible with the federal system. Federalism is a Canadian characteristic, just as the constitutional monarchy is. The British type of parliamentary system is one, just like our voting method. There can be a combination of those various characteristics, or a change in those characteristics, without affecting the federal nature of the Canadian state.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

Now we move to Mr. Deltell.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Chair, my friends, it is always a pleasure to see you again.

Perhaps Mr. DeCourcey was referring to school because we have two eminent professors with us, but it is a good analogy, I find.

I would also like to welcome the professor from California.

Welcome to our committee.

Of course, I have to extend a more personal greeting to Mr. Pelletier, a former colleague at the National Assembly. I was a reporter when he was an MNA and a minister. A few months later, I sat in the same place as he did.

I have to point out that at present there are 13 members around the table and seven of them are from Quebec. So Quebec has the majority today. That should make my Bloc Québécois friends happy. All the same, I must remind us that we are not here to play for Canada—to paraphrase a commercial we have seen a lot recently—but to work for it. I assume that my Bloc Québécois friends will be making some comments later. It will be interesting to hear what they have to say.

Mr. Pelletier, I would like to talk about your experience. You have studied these matters a lot and you are now a constitutional lawyer. You are one of those rare political scientists who have worked as a politician. You have been a witness to and an observer of political life, as well as a participant in it. That allows you to form judgments on the two roles. There are not many like you. We know another one well, the current Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Hon. Stéphane Dion. I may have the opportunity to refer to that later today.

Mr. Pelletier, the government is inviting us to consider an important change. In your view, must this kind of change be supported by Canadians? Must Canadians be consulted about it? Do we have to hold a referendum if we are to change the method of voting?

[Prof. Benoît Pelletier]

Mr. Chair, I have to tell you that I am very much in favour of holding a referendum on the matter like this. One of the main reasons is that, if we want to reform the method of voting, it is for the benefit of Canadians themselves so that they have more confidence in their democratic institutions. In that sense, I have a hard time seeing how we could carry out a reform in the method of voting worthy of the name, in other words something significant and substantial, without asking Canadians for their opinion.

In Quebec, we had some draft legislation. It was examined from all angles between 2003 and 2007. Even when I was a minister, I personally would have supported holding a referendum on the matter in Quebec if the process had gone any further, which was not the case.

That said, I am only expressing my personal opinion here. I had no mandate on the subject in cabinet. In addition, we did not discuss the question because it was never raised. The attempt to reform the method of voting essentially failed in 2006. That did not change the fact that I always kept in mind the possibility, the importance, of holding a referendum on the matter. It could have been held at the same time as a Quebec election, or at another time.

We also have to remember that the reform we had in mind in Quebec was a significant one. I am talking about mixed-member proportional voting, implying two kinds of elected members, those from constituencies and those from a list. That was a major change in political culture. In that context, I was in favour of holding a referendum.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

We share that point of view, of course. In our institutions, nothing is more important than the electoral system. That is what determines who is in a position to make decisions. Nothing is more vital. Everything stems from the way in which people are elected, whether it is foreign policy, budgets, taxes or anything else. We take to heart your remarks that the people absolutely must have the final word on that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

We now move to Mr. Boulerice.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon, everyone. I am delighted to see you again in this magnificent August. My thanks to our witnesses. Two eminent professors have taken the time to join us today. First, I would like to turn to Professor Lijphart in California.

As I am sure you know, in Canada, we have only had one voting method in 149 years. We use the term first-past-the-post to describe the system. Personally, I am inclined to use the expression “winner takes all”.

This method of voting distorts the picture in very important ways. As we have seen here, the two most recent governments have been elected with fewer than 40% of the votes but they have obtained more than 50% of the seats. In the last election in the United Kingdom, Scotland voted 50% for the National Party, but it obtained 95% of the seats. For Scottish Labour, Conservative or Liberal Democratic voters, that caused a little problem with representation. Representation is also a problem for us here. My talking about Conservative voters in the centre of Toronto or even in Montreal will surprise people.

In your opinion, how could a proportional voting method correct the distortion that suppresses the will expressed by the voters? How could we make sure that we have fairer and more equitable representation?

[Prof. Arend Lijphart]

The main aim of proportional representation is to get proportional outcomes so that parties, or groups of representatives, are representing roughly equal representations of the voters. PR systems differ in terms of how proportional they are. They may use systems that are not completely proportional and that raise barriers for smaller parties, and so on. When you look at outcomes of PR systems, there is not one that is completely 100% proportional. In fact, proportional representation systems do a great deal better than FPTP systems. FPTP causes extreme distortions between the vote and the number of seats that parties get.

Several years ago I wrote an article that was titled Who Really Practices Majority Rule? I looked at FPTP countries and PR countries in terms of the amount of support that cabinets, governments, and executives have. Proportional representation systems tend to have governments that are supported by the majority of the voters, or close to a majority. In the examples that you mentioned, in FPTP countries, the winning party often wins with only between 30% and 40% of the vote, and that is not the majoritarian outcome.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Lijphart.

Sometimes, the opponents of proportional or mixed-member proportional voting make the argument that those schemes, those types of democracy and those electoral methods would lead to a lot of political instability, to endless elections, and to some inefficiency in government. Then they throw out a very loaded word, a word they drop like a bomb. That word is “Italy”.

How would you respond to those people?

[Prof. Arend Lijphart]

I think that is a good question because it's an argument that is used frequently. It is true that governments in majoritarian countries, or FPTP countries, tend to be more stable in the sense that they last longer than those in PR countries. The assumption is that these longer-lasting, more stable cabinets perform better in terms of policy. What I have found—and I should say that I was a supporter of that argument for a long time—is that now we can look at outcomes. We can see that those governments, which don't last as long as some of the FPTP governments, perform better in terms of policy. While it is a reasonable thought that more stable, or less unstable, governments perform better, when we look at the facts, this is not the case.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much.

I am now going to give the floor to Mr. Thériault.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My thanks to Professor Lijphart and Professor Pelletier for their presentations.

I would like to talk to Professor Lijphart first. Then I will turn to Professor Pelletier.

I would like to talk about the question of consensus democracy.

When all the regions of Quebec were consulted, the main question that people brought up was not so much the mechanics of election—with the exception of some insiders and experts—but the way of doing politics. That came up constantly.

People are very irritated about the “party line”, as we call it. How can a system of mixed-member proportional representation lead to more consensus democracy? Could it be done structurally? How is it that our current system would not, or could not, contain that form of consensus democracy?

[Prof. Arend Lijphart]

I think that proportional representation and coalition governments and these aspects of consensus democracy work better because there is more negotiation and compromise. Therefore, it builds stronger consensus. If you have a majoritarian government, let's say a one-party government, that is based on between just 30% and 40% of the voters, this government actually struggles constantly with the fact of being a kind of illegitimate majority government, because it is not a majority government. It is a government supported by a minority.

In the long run, I think it is better that the principle of majority rule works in democracies. It may seem ironic or paradoxical the fact that with proportional representation, you have better majority rule than in so-called majoritarian governments with FPTP, where the governments really represent only a large minority.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Thank you.

In principle, people vote on the basis of election platforms, but what happens to them in a system where establishing executive authority depends on the deals that are made after the elections? Is that not a political distortion of the will of the people?

The current system in Canada includes a phenomenon that is called “political alternation”. The people can throw a government out. We saw that in the last election.

With a coalition government, what is the value of election platforms after 20 years? After 20 or 25 years, do we not tend to want to form a coalition in order to take power, which in a way is turning our back on ideological pluralism?

[Prof. Arend Lijphart]

I think it is a legitimate complaint that in proportional representation systems, where you have several parties and need a coalition of two or more parties to form a government, in the negotiations the different parties have to compromise and may not be able to stick to the promises they've made in their platforms. I think the people who negotiate are elected by the people. They try to be as faithful as possible to the promises they've made, but as minority parties, they are of course aware that they may not be able to have their way entirely.

What should also be pointed out is that in mature multi-party systems—and I'm thinking of, for instance, Germany—it is often clear prior to the election which parties are going to work together in a government. In the last election, there was clarity for the voters, that if they voted for one party, they were in fact voting for its coalition with other parties.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

We'll go to Ms. May now.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Thank you.

Professor Lijphart, everyone around this table knows how enormously I respect your work. I've been talking about it for months and I'm so grateful that you're here, so dank je vel.

I want to ask you very specific questions that have come to me from Twitter, but before I do that, it occurs to me that my colleagues from the Conservative Party generally ask every witness about what they think about referenda. To save them the trouble, I wonder if you have any thoughts on that. This tends to come up quite a lot in our committee discussions.