A how-to-vote card.
Evidence of meeting #14 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.
Evidence of meeting #14 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.
7:15 p.m.
Professor of Political Science, University of Lethbridge, As an Individual
A how-to-vote card.
7:15 p.m.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
A how-to-vote card. That's right. If you're Labor, it states that you should make sure that your second choice is...whatever.
Is the distinction in Alberta and Manitoba versus Australia historically the fact that there's mandatory marking of all candidates in Australia, or else your ballot there will be tossed aside?
7:15 p.m.
Professor of Political Science, University of Lethbridge, As an Individual
What has tended to happen is that there's coalition between the Liberal and National parties. In places where they have been strong, they wanted to bring in compulsory preferences to maximize that preference exchange. For example, there was an incident in the spring in Queensland where there was debate over reapportionment of the legislative seats, and then the Labor Party brought in an amendment to bring in compulsory preferences, because they had been bleeding votes to the Green Party and others and wanted to make sure they'd recapture those votes. Parties that think they're losing try to maximize that.
Australia also has really complicated deals, because the senate uses STV, where the larger parties will make a deal with the small parties to make sure that on their how-to-vote cards, they put them as second choice, and in exchange they'll tell their supporters to indicate the small parties on the senate ballot. There's a very complicated system of deal-making that goes on between the two houses. The compulsory preferences are a very big part of what makes that work.
7:15 p.m.
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
It's fascinating. I don't think we've heard that perspective before. You've just opened my eyes. You're right, it's very hard to look back at previous elections, because we've been told, well, had this last election happened with the AV model, this would have happened. But so many other people may not have felt coerced into voting for one party over another because maybe they're not strategically voting in that case.
Do you think that an AV model would always favour the Liberal Party, or under certain circumstances in other places that have used it, does one party tend to always win?
7:15 p.m.
Professor of Political Science, University of Lethbridge, As an Individual
The problem is that we don't have a lot of cases. We really just have Australia. That's why I was bringing in Alberta and Manitoba. It provides a useful other set of cases that give us some other evidence. I don't think there's anything that would preclude other parties from doing well.
The thing that I think we have to remember is that the other parties would adjust their behaviour in response to the system. My observation is that the Conservatives very much tried to polarize themselves against the Liberals, NDP, and Green Party. That's not a very good strategy under an AV system. You want to reach out for second preferences. Would they have campaigned that way? Would they have structured the government that way over the last...? I suspect not, if the incentives were a little bit different. It's very, very hard to predict. This is based on how they behaved this way, so, if you look at the polling data, there weren't a lot of party second preferences. That was a deliberate strategy they took. They might have behaved differently.
7:15 p.m.
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
Perhaps we wouldn't have as many polarizing issues if we tried to find consensus-type politics.
7:15 p.m.
Professor of Political Science, University of Lethbridge, As an Individual
That's the hope, but as I said, I didn't see a lot of evidence of that. The closest we got to a preference exchange is in Alberta. Most of those cases happened in 1955. There was a scandal about Social Credit, and the CCF, and Liberals suddenly figured out after 30 years, “You know, if we exchange preferences, we can defeat them”, so they defeated four Social Credit candidates through an exchange of preferences. In 1956, Social Credit brought the legislature back and banned preferential voting.
7:15 p.m.
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
Once a system is in place, people figure out very quickly how to work within that system. My little bit of exposure to it was in my nomination. I didn't really know what system I was going into, but we quickly learned how the nomination happens. They do it this way, and then you quickly think about it, and there was a lot of talking to each other. The different candidates were trying to come up with common ground, and even help each other at times if they thought it was to their benefit.
Anyway, moving on from that, the only thing that troubles me is this. I just had a town hall yesterday on this issue, and somebody got up and talked about how he felt—it was kind of off-topic a bit—that MPs should also be required to live in their riding. They should live in their boundary, because if they lived in their boundary, people would maybe even have stronger connections to their MP. I often hear this kind of stuff from people; they want to have this connection. I know that some experts say there's a connection through the party somehow, but by having these lists through MMP, I truly feel that we will create two classes of MPs, one that's responsible to the party, and one that's responsible to their constituents.
Right now, with the system we have, I think, as an MP, you feel this balance that you have to create between party and constituents and to try to come up with what's best for both. They elected you under a platform, yet the constituents also voted for you, so you are answerable to them. What system do you think still keep that accountability in place?
7:20 p.m.
Dean, Faculty of Law, Civil Law, Ottawa University, As an Individual
This was actually a big issue in the report. I think that different parties would have different rules, but it was quite possible—and as is the case in Scotland and in New Zealand, they divide the work for different constituencies. The list MPs are not sitting out there doing different things; they are sharing the work, offering different services, and so on. Among parties, they developed rules to do that. The electorate would see that, in the sense that if your MP is not there, then you can go to the list MP and so on. So there were lots of things. It was interesting, but this didn't seem to be an issue.
Here I'll just briefly mention the three values that came up when we were doing our work. First, voting counts. I think the three values were fairness, the translation of the votes. By fairness, people mean that if I vote for this, I want my vote to count, I want votes to be reflected in the elections. Stability was another value.
Representation,
I have to say, did come. We are no longer a society that tolerates inequality. The reason that we have
universal suffrage is
that everybody should have the right not only to...but to also be elected. Those are the values.
7:20 p.m.
Liberal
August 22nd, 2016 / 7:20 p.m.
NDP
Matthew Dubé NDP Beloeil—Chambly, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
In both the questions and the testimony, I have heard statements that are a bit worrisome. As my colleague said, we are talking about working within the system, looking for an outcome, and so on. In my opinion, our work here, as we heard earlier, should allow us to make a sound choice that represents our values rather than looking for an outcome or working within the constraints of a system.
Mr. Dufour, I would like to go back to your reference to voting out a government. On the contrary, I think our electoral system should allow us to not vote out but rather to engage a government or an MP. In both the questions and testimony, we heard that we have had the same system for 150 years. Things have changed a lot in that time.
I am thinking of the way a student on a university campus in another province interacts with people from his riding in 2016. That has changed a lot since the 1970s or 1980s.
Moreover, when canvassing, we sometimes hear that people appreciate our work at the local level or what a certain leader or party is doing. I have no doubt that my Liberal colleagues had the same experience during the campaign, and that my Conservative colleagues heard the same thing. Yet much is said about the public's understanding of the system.
In my opinion, the public wants all of that. They want to elect a prime minister. They also want a party and a good local representative. I have trouble imagining what kind of system could do this better than mixed-member proportional representation. This system includes a local representative, a representative of a political party, and through the party, a prime minister. In my opinion, that is the challenge.
It is often said that the public does not understand the political system but I think it is more a question of aspirations than ignorance.
How can we bring these aspirations into line with the new and changing reality of social and other media, and align the work of a local MP or of a prime minister, who represents everyone, with a party that has a national platform?
I would like to hear from all three of you on this. I might interrupt you though with other questions. I apologize in advance.
7:25 p.m.
Dean, Faculty of Law, Civil Law, Ottawa University, As an Individual
We had recommended mixed-member proportional representation because we had reached the same conclusion. We found that this system allows for a link at the local level, which a lot of people want. It also allows for these new forms of political participation. The prime minister, the party, and the local representative are the reason people vote. They don't really know what to choose. So this system reflects that ambiguity to some extent.
We were initially struck by the fact that new democracies never chose a first past the post system, due to these distortions. It is true that this system has been used for a long time, but is there no place for changes in the thinking and knowledge about democracy? Determining whether that was possible was our key mandate. The system we recommended was meant to address this to some extent.
7:25 p.m.
Professor of Political Science, University of Lethbridge, As an Individual
There's a book on mixed member proportional systems called The Best of Both Worlds?. What the authors found is that basically there were some countries with PR systems who wanted that element of local representation and had moved in the direction of MMP. New Zealand is probably the textbook case of this. It came from a very similar system to ours, but wanted that element of proportionality. Of the options out there, it probably is the best at melding those together.
On the broader question about social media and how that fits in, I have a whole other pile of research I can show you, which would take more than five minutes.
7:25 p.m.
Liberal
7:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Mr. Dufour, we have to go to Mr. Richards.
You will, however, have the opportunity to speak again when you answer Mr. Richards or another MP.
Go ahead.
7:25 p.m.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Professor Jansen, first of all, as a fellow Albertan, welcome. I have a few questions for you.
Your research that you summarized in your opening remarks, and have referred to, focuses on western Canada, which made it interesting to me in particular as a fellow westerner. You did talk about the changes that were made to revert to the previous system, but I didn't get a sense in the research, which you had gone through in doing your paper, of the rationale or the reasons why the changes were made.
Could you give me a better sense as to why those changes were made, first of all, and then whether those changes to those different systems helped to solve whatever problems they were seeking to solve? In particular, with the idea of reducing the spread between popular support for a party and the number of seats it wins, did the changes have any affect on that?
I think you did touch already on the idea of turnout levels. You said it didn't seem to have any impact on turnout levels, but the ballots would be slightly more complicated, at least in that scenario. Did the number of rejected ballots or spoiled ballots increase? Could you give me a sense of that in the broad question I just asked you?
7:30 p.m.
Professor of Political Science, University of Lethbridge, As an Individual
The lead-up to this was that in the decade of 1910 to 1920, there were big discussions on the Prairies on this. A lot of the complaints they were having about their electoral system were exactly the kinds of things you've been hearing here and we've been talking about today, around the lack of fairness in terms of representation. The single transferable vote was seen as the British form of PR, so it had a particular popularity, but there was this a populist element to western Canada. The idea that it was candidate focused was attractive.
When the liberal progressives came in—actually the Liberal Party in Manitoba brought it in in 1920—they were facing farmers suddenly becoming active, and they figured that if they gave them this one demand, then that would help. So they brought it in to Winnipeg. The other thing in Winnipeg was that there had been the general strike. It also helped, they thought, to contain some of the labour radicalism a bit because the labour parties might have absolutely swept Winnipeg.
In 1922 the United Farmers of Manitoba came in, and they extended AV to the rural areas, which was a bit of a betrayal because everybody had argued about STV. This helped to preserve their power base, and it was a blend of idealism and political self-interest. It was the same with the United Farmers of Alberta. They brought in STV in Edmonton and Calgary. They lifted whole parts of the legislation from Manitoba and just copied it in Alberta. It was the same thing. UFA was strong in the rural areas and weak in the urban areas. This fragmented their opposition, but they were partly keeping their promise. Everybody saw that eventually this would get better and that it would switch. This was a stepping stone to STV everywhere, and it never happened.
The big concern was over the size of the districts. At that time, where you're travelling by horse and buggy to places, that's a big concern. You can't use Skype.
The reason it ended was slightly different in each province. In Alberta it was strict political self-interest for the Social Credit. They were starting to lose. The Liberals and CCF finally figured out that they could use this to defeat Social Credit.
Manitoba is a little more complicated. In Manitoba, the big issue was about the rural overrepresentation. There was a bit of a trade-off. If they solved this problem and started to bring in independent boundary commissions, then they would get rid of this. They had another big complaint, and this is a very important one, because I've seen people come before you and suggest that we should adopt this model. If you do AV in the rural areas and STV in the cities, the problem is that going from 30% to 40% in a group of 10 single-member districts is going to pay off big time in seats. Going from 30% to 40% in Winnipeg, which had 10 districts, is going to get you one more seat.
Where did parties spend their efforts and focus their attention? In the rural areas. Winnipeg complained they were being ignored.
My time is up.
7:30 p.m.
Conservative
7:30 p.m.
Liberal
Matt DeCourcey Liberal Fredericton, NB
Thank you, Professor Jansen, for addressing the question about not necessarily being able to onlay past results onto future elections. I think it's tied into the whole commentary that I've heard many times, which is that the electoral system is situated within a larger system of governments' larger political culture, with political actors who necessarily adapt and change the situations.
Ms. Des Rosiers, I would like to ask you about the Commission's analysis of the issue of constitutionality and the guaranteed seats in the Maritimes.
I don't think that is necessarily impossible. Moving to proportional representation in a province such as Prince Edward Island would be somewhat of a challenge. There are four guaranteed seats, while New Brunswick has ten. Local representation is very important there. How was this analyzed? What kind of questions were you asked in your work?
7:30 p.m.
Dean, Faculty of Law, Civil Law, Ottawa University, As an Individual
Our mandate was to see if it was possible. After evaluating various systems and determining that mixed-member proportional representation was a potential solution with respect to values and rebalancing, we had to determine whether it could be used in Canada. Our conclusion was that it is possible to use it by creating lists. It would also be possible to add an extra seat. The only question was how many additional seats would be needed. That was another matter. Should additional seats be created or should the decision be that there would be no benefit to having additional seats and that seats should instead be distributed differently?
In a sense, we tried to find a solution with the minimum additional seats possible.
7:35 p.m.
Liberal