Electoral Reform Committee on Aug. 23rd, 2016

[Prof. Pippa Norris]

Deliberation takes time, especially since, as we've mentioned earlier, people don't know about other systems. The best answer is to have more flexibility to abandon the deadline, which was an early promise made, I'd argue, without a lot of thought about what the consequences might be. The committee in some ways is a little behind the curve in terms of setting things up and getting things going. Here we are in 2016, and we're still at the stage of working out the alternatives.

My ideal would be to delay the 2019 deadline and say that there has to be a proper process. This isn't the sort of thing that you can do fast and get it right, and you want to get the outcome right. These are also windows of opportunity. They open up now and then for you to change the system, and they don't change necessarily in 10 or 20 years, so you want to make sure that the decision reflects the Canadian public and what people would like and what Parliament would like.

Delay is better than to try to rush to an artificial deadline.

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

All right. Thank you.

The other thing I wanted to ask you is to turn now to another parallel, the Australian referendum on the republic in 1999. There was a process in 1997 and 1998 in which a constitutional convention was elected and then met to decide whether or not Australia should become a republic. Under the Australian constitution, a referendum is necessary, and the referendum necessarily is on the final product—that is, it's not on the concept of whether there should be a change, but rather on the actual proposal, which I think is a really good idea. The reason I think so is that while the idea of a republic might have been supported by the majority of Australians in principle, the specific model that the government produced ultimately was found to be unsatisfactory by a majority.

This is a version of the same problem we would face with a referendum, or indeed any mechanism, such as an election, to approve any new model: the details of the model would ultimately be decided after the fact by partisan actors, unless you actually have your approval mechanism on a specific piece of legislation that is pre-written, as was the case with the Australian model, and, for that matter, with Britain's Reform Act in the 1830s.

Do you have any thoughts on that particular problem?

[Prof. Pippa Norris]

You want to get rid of partisan interests to get this sort of consensus. For that reason, I might depart from my colleagues to say that an election that has to be on party grounds in the first place is a problem when you're dealing with constitutional issues. Backbenchers might not necessarily go along with the leader or might share different views, and you simply don't want each party to take whatever's in its own narrow interests and propose that. That's essentially a question of chickens voting for Christmas, the classic issue.

If you can get rid of party, that means a referendum that is open, where people can, as in Brexit, support whichever side they want to support due to values, due to their own interests and their own philosophy about how the electoral system should work—then a referendum, for me, would be better than an election. A referendum, again for the reasons that we've mentioned, that has enough time for deliberation and that has other elements of a deliberative poll, a deliberative assembly, or a constitutional debate outside of the Parliamentary constraints helps get to a consensus that's genuine, and it is the best sort of option.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thanks very much.

We'll go next to Mr. Boulerice.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I will have to quote a study in English, so it's going to be easier to make my remarks and questions in English.

However, first, Mr. Chairman, I would like to say that we have heard a couple of times that we have to keep our electoral system simple because, for example, immigrants or new immigrants don't know a lot about our system. I would say that most of the time it's quite the opposite, because they have to do their homework and they have to study it before they get the right to vote. A lot of Canadians don't study our electoral system in our schools.

I have here, Madam Norris, a study from a British organization called the Electoral Reform Society, a little report on the 2016 Irish general election about PR and the local link.

Let me quote the beginning of a chapter.

In Britain it is often the case that opponents of proportional representation cite the constituency link of FPTP as a reason for its support. Having a constituency link is indeed important to the democratic culture of Britain, giving MPs an insight into the lives of ordinary citizens, allowing for the championing of local issues on the national stage and giving people a sense of connection to their MP.

Yet Ireland’s political system demonstrates that PR and a constituency link can go hand in hand.

As Ireland has 40 constituencies of between three and five seats it is still possible for constituencies to fit local boundaries fairly well, covering a city...or a county....

We know also that in Germany, list MPs are doing constituency work and are meeting with local organizations, and in other countries the parties have quite an interest in having a diversity of list candidates from every region and every major city, for obvious reasons.

Do you think that PR and local representation can go together, as this study is saying?

[Prof. Pippa Norris]

They can go together, and what matters is the size of the district magnitude. If you have a small district—Spain has three-to-five, Ireland has five—then essentially the individual voter can find, in particular, not just an MP but a couple of MPs, perhaps from different parties, to represent their constituency concerns or to lobby for them or to do any other sort of service work.

If you get a large district, however, that dilutes. Many countries will have districts of, say, 16-20, and there is no constituency service when you get to a very, very large constituency. The classic cases are in Israel, where you have the whole country as one constituency, and in the Netherlands. In those countries, there are very weak links indeed between the members of the Knesset in Israel and individual voters. At that stage it's broken.

It really depends on how you draw your boundaries as to how you actually create an incentive to have constituency service. It's not about an either/or system, PR versus single member.

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

Some people here are saying that maybe we should have a Canadian system for our really big ridings, which are bigger than most European countries, and that we should still keep a first past the post system because it's impossible to merge them. It would be crazy. In the urban areas or suburbs it's easier, as there is are communities of interest that we can find there. Is it possible to have a mixed proportional representation system combined with some first past the post representation in certain areas?

[Prof. Pippa Norris]

You don't want to create a new cleavage between urban voters and rural voters. That could create all sorts of problems where some have one set of representation and the others have another set. You can think about the boundaries and be more imaginative about how you would draw the boundaries around different districts, so you can make sure they're somewhat even across the different sizes of the current ridings that you have. I wouldn't recommend having two or three different electoral systems for different areas of the country. That would create all sorts of distortions in representation and many other complications for members as well.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

You have 30 seconds.

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

Ms. Norris, we heard earlier that a proportional system could improve the representation of women in parliaments. Would you also agree that there should be quotas in this regard? Or as my colleague Kennedy Stewart has suggested, would you agree that monetary penalties should be imposed on political parties that do not have enough women candidates?

[Prof. Pippa Norris]

I'd go along with all three. PR normally increases the number of women automatically through the incentive that we mentioned. Quota systems are also good, although sometimes difficult to implement under first past the post, but they can be done. For example, they've been used in the U.K. Financial penalties to make sure that if you introduce any sort of positive or affirmative action, parties have an incentive to go along with that through, for example, incentives from campaign funding or party funding, which are also very good. Having it in the law, but having an incentive with it, strengthens the work you can do.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you.

Mr. Ste-Marie, you have the floor.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Our electoral system is based on values such as stability, but there are also problems with distortion. In this committee, we have heard from experts who have told us which system might be most suitable, being based on the same values or other values. We are wondering about that.

Mr. Axworthy and Mr. Harrington, during your presentations and exchanges, you mentioned a few times that the Senate, an important political institution in Canada, has a role to play. Unfortunately, since senators are not elected, there is a legitimacy issue.

In reforming political institutions in order to enhance democracy and ensure greater representation, should we consider reforming the Senate so that senators could be elected on an ad hoc basis?

[Dr. Thomas S. Axworthy]

No, I don't. The two houses of Parliament have differing virtues. Partisanship is critical to our party system. It's the cockpit of the House of Commons, and it has democratic legitimacy. I've used David Smith's term about the people's parliament. The role of the Senate is more for deliberation, checking abuses, and improving legislation. I think, for the overall good, one should combine the virtues of each of those institutions and not replicate the good and the bad of the House of Commons in the Senate itself. The Senate had problems, and serious ones, but changing the nature of the appointment process with a non-partisan, merit-based, much more representative Senate, leading....

By the way, these will be huge changes, as they continue with future Prime Ministers who will now take these as a convention and not go back to just appointing partisans to the Senate. We are working out the system. There will be huge changes, as we have independent senators using their expertise on a series of legislation and, hopefully, improving it and referring it back to the Commons. Our House of Commons has democratic legitimacy, and our Senate, through the new system, can have a pointed policy legitimacy.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Harrington, would you like to elaborate?

[Prof. Matthew P. Harrington]

I agree completely. I think that the Senate does not necessarily suffer from structural problems. The problems of the Senate can be solved by appointing better senators. The fact that the Senate is not elected is a puzzling objection to me, since the Supreme Court itself is not elected and we defer in a great many, I think, unhealthy ways to the Supreme Court.

The fact that a body is or is not elected does not seem to mean that it doesn't play an important constitutional role. I would agree completely with the idea that an election of senators would create a body in competition with the House and that if one wants to see the fruits of that, one merely has to look south. The United States Senate used to have its members appointed by the legislatures of the states; it truly represented the regional interests of the states. Now we hear all the time about gridlock and you can see that gridlock is rampant. In fact, there's a joke—I used to work in Washington—that the Senate is a place where good bills go to die. It's because the Senate does not defer to the House.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Ms. Norris, as you know, there are 338 federal MPs and each one represents about 100,000 Canadians. If the voting method is changed to a proportional system with lists, do you think it would be better to increase riding size and maintain the number of MPs or to increase the number of MPs? We already have 338.

[Prof. Pippa Norris]

Normally under PR, you'd increase the number of MPs per district, which means that the size of the ridings would have to be consolidated. You might have, for example, a district that now would be, say, Montreal versus different parts or particular cities in Toronto. Normally you would have to have multi-member districts to have any sort of PR system. That would be the easiest way to do it, but it would depend on the boundary commission and how they would think through what would be a natural constituency and what would be the conventions of drawing boundaries.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you.

We'll have to move on to our next questioner, Ms. May.

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

I'm drawn to a terminology that you've used, Professor Norris, in talking about fairness to smaller parties. I will confess that I am the leader of the Green Party of Canada and I'm not actually interested in fairness to parties at all. I think our goal has to be what's in the best interests of voters and citizens, and in fairness to them we're looking at changing our voting system. Again, I appreciate that it's about values, but how do you, in looking at your research, assess the role of parties in dictating voting systems and the fairness to the voters, which I think has to be our top concern?

[Prof. Pippa Norris]

Fairness to voters is normally understood by everybody as a share of the votes going to a share of the seats. So any system that is majoritarian systematically penalizes the parties that are in third, fourth and fifth place, and always gives a winner's bonus, an exaggerated bonus, to the party in first place, whoever that party is.

The majoritarian system is not designed to have fairness per se in that regard, at the heart of it. It's designed to produce a strong majority, to get decisive decisions with a strong executive. That can be a fundamental problem because over the years, particularly since the 1950s, there's been a dealignment, progressively, in nearly every country in the western world and a proliferation of many more parties because people aren't necessarily seeing themselves in class terms as supporting the parties on the left and right. They have many other interests, like the environment—and also, it has to be said, like populous parties on the right. Party systems are fragmented and first past the post majoritarian systems try to squeeze what the voters actually want to do in terms of their party preferences into a system that doesn't allow that sort of representation. That's really a very strong argument to say that some sort of reform in Canada is very appropriate.

Majoritarian systems work proportionally if you're a two-party system. If you're in the United States and you can only vote Democrat or Republican—by and large the libertarians and the Greens are going to get, at most, 5% of the vote—then you get a roughly proportional share of votes to seats. If you get five parties, if you get 10 parties, if you get 15 parties, as increasingly most countries are having, then even though they get a share of the votes, they don't get full representation, so a large part of the population is not represented through the electoral system. It's the classic argument in favour of some sort of reform. It also will affect, on my projections, the NDP. It won't affect the Bloc Québécois so much, because they're concentrated in particular areas. But the Greens, who are spread across different parts of Canada, will always lose out from the current Canadian system.

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

Perhaps I can turn to you, Professor Axworthy, on this fundamental question of whether we're better off having a strong majority government or some risk of smaller parties exerting their particular agenda. I ask because you were paying a lot of attention to politics at the time. I'm thinking about the minority Parliament of Lester B. Pearson, in which if it hadn't been for a strong, smaller party, the NDP and Tommy Douglas, we wouldn't have our health care system, we wouldn't have the Canada pension plan, we wouldn't have student loans, we wouldn't have unemployment insurance. All these things were created because of pressure from a smaller group of seats.

In contrast, in the false majority situation of our most recent Parliament, we had policies that worked against any action on climate change, inaction that was not supported by the majority of Canadians, but was executed by, one might say, a “smaller party”, in reality, which exerted its influence 100% because of our voting system.

I wonder if you see a risk. How do you tease out the differences between concern for effective government and a majority? How much do we actually not have a risk, but a benefit from those other interests having a seat at the table, as they did in the minority parliament of Lester Pearson?

[Dr. Thomas S. Axworthy]

It depends on how the executive responds to the minority parties. Are they in fact accommodative, or is every party competitive, or are they antagonistic? When I first came to Ottawa, which was in the Jurassic age, my minister was Walter Gordon, then president of the Privy Council. One of my first jobs for Mr. Gordon was to go to listen to parliamentary debates to see who had good ideas so that the Liberals could steal them. That's what Liberals like to do, but it was indicative of an approach to Parliament to try to learn from it. So, yes, the Pearson government was an enormously creative one, a little disorganized, but enormously creative, and that was because of the mindset in dealing with accommodation among parties. We've lost a lot of that accommodation ethos as I've seen politics develop in the country.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

That actually uses up that time exactly to the second.

Mr. DeCourcey, it is your turn.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. You're looking quite spry in that seat.