Electoral Reform Committee on Aug. 29th, 2016

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Yes, Professor Dawood.

[Prof. Yasmin Dawood]

I think one of the challenges with trying to come up with a substantive proposal is that you have both advantages and disadvantages for every electoral system. They all involve trade-offs of various kinds in terms of values, outcomes, and so on. I think it would be helpful to get a sense from Canadians as to what kinds of things they would prioritize over others, depending on the kind of electoral system that is chosen.

That's always, I think, the harder kind of question. It's not that they're all bad systems; it's just that some systems do a better job at certain things than other things. It would be helpful to know what Canadians care about and which of those values they prioritize over others.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

My next question goes to Mr. Broadbent.

One value that you prioritize is fairness and having every vote count. In the mixed system that you prefer, you would have first past the post for the local representative. In that system, does every vote technically count? You would still have strategic voting. You would still have someone elected against the popular local vote in that area. You wouldn't avoid some things.

[Ed Broadbent]

As I said, in these questions and in the whole discussion, it's not black and white. There are advantages and disadvantages. One of the advantages for me in retaining first past the post at the local level, as long as it's profoundly affected by PR, is that Canadians would more readily accept a new system without too many changes. They're accustomed to electing their local MP by a certain traditional method.

You could also have, at that level, a preferential vote for the local MP as well. Some people would favour that as being more democratic, and I can see the argument for that system. I could accept either approach for electing the local MP.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

My next question is for Mr. Charbonneau.

You had mentioned that we shouldn't just have a majority agreement in Parliament, if it came to a vote in Parliament, and that we should also have the popular vote. How exactly would we calculate that? Would we go back to figuring out which MP got how much of the vote in their riding, and then figure out from there whether we have the popular vote, or is there another approach?

[Jean-Pierre Charbonneau]

If your parties have received identifiable popular support and we calculate that support by multiplying it by the number of parties who make an alliance or agree on a mechanism, part of the population would be represented in Parliament and would express its support through these political representations.

As I have said, we do not govern by referendum every day. This has been clearly stated earlier. No referendum has been needed on a whole range of major issues, and MPs or political leaders have not had to question whether they could morally and legitimately take action on those issues. They have acted on the basis of their majority in Parliament.

What is more legitimate: governing with a minority of the population and a majority in Parliament, or forging consensus?

Ms. May talked about a preferential ballot. The real question is determining which of the two, either preferential ballot or mixed-member proportional representation, can provide better political representation. That is the key. No system is perfect, but there are principles to be followed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Go ahead, Mr. Richards.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Thank you.

Professor Dawood, I have a question or two for you in this round.

In your opening remarks you talked about consulting with citizens or hearing from citizens in this process, and you talked about the town halls that are being conducted and said you wouldn't see them as providing the degree of consultation or legitimacy that a few other options you mentioned would provide, such as a referendum, a citizens' assembly, or some kind of commission that involves citizens. You mentioned all those as other options that would certainly meet that test at a far greater level.

In these town hall meetings that have been taking place, a number of issues have developed that would lead people to question them to some degree, I would think.

First of all, there was a town hall being held, published on the Liberal website, in which they were asking for an admission fee to be charged and paid to the Liberal Party. Now, that was—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

No, that was not a.... I don't think that was an MP.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Mr. Chair, is the floor not mine?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Well, I think I'd like to answer this, because my understanding is that it wasn't—

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Mr. Chair, the floor is mine, is it not?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Mr. Richards, I have precedence at this moment. I would just like to clarify a point.

I don't think that was a town hall—

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

I didn't think we were here to debate with the chair, but thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Pardon me?

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

I said that I didn't realize we were here to debate issues with the chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

No, I'm not debating. I just want to clarify something.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

It sounds like it, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

For the witnesses as well, it was not a town hall. My understanding is that it was not a town hall within the context of the invitation we sent to the 338 MPs. That's all I have to say about it.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

My understanding is that there certainly was a town hall being held and there was an admission fee being charged. To the Liberal Party's credit, when attention was drawn to it, they did pull the ad from their website.

Subsequent to that, we've had reports of people being turned away from town halls because they weren't pre-registered.

We had an opinion piece appear in The Vancouver Sun—and I'm not going to name the MP, because I don't feel that I want to make this personal in any way—about a town hall that was held in that area, and it indicated the majority of the people who had spoken during the open mike portion had been in favour of having a referendum before any changes. Then it went on to indicate that the member was asked repeatedly by speakers if he would go back to the Prime Minister and tell him that people of his riding think they should be consulted by referendum before our electoral system, which has served us well for centuries, is overturned and replaced by something else. Then he goes on to say, “We didn't get an answer.“

There have been a number of things—and I could point to others, but we only have so much time—that would call these into question to some degree.

You stated in your opening remarks, Professor Dawood, that:

Electoral reform differs from the passage of ordinary legislation because it sets out the very ground rules by which political power is attained. For this reason, the process of electoral reform must be held to a higher standard of democratic legitimacy.

You also had indicated in a paper that you wrote for the McGill Law Journal, and I quote here again:

If it were possible for the government to unilaterally reform democratic institutions, then it could unilaterally reform them in an anti-democratic direction as well.

In a paper you wrote—an editorial, I guess, for Policy Options earlier this year—you said:

...a change to the electoral system should not simply be pushed through by whichever political party happens to have a majority.

This is all to make the point, and you had indicated this as well, that there needs to be something that involves citizens beyond simply a majority party in Parliament deciding to push through a change.

My question is, first of all, do you believe that's an important value, and that it must involve citizens in some way beyond this town hall process and beyond simply a number of politicians proposing some option? Would you agree that citizens need to be involved in this process in some way, whether it be a referendum, whether it be a citizens' assembly, or whatever it might be?

[Prof. Yasmin Dawood]

I guess I should clarify that in all the research you cited, the point I was making was that there must be a number of items. I'll turn to citizens in a moment, but the bigger point was that it's much better if there's consensus among the political parties. It can't just be the majority party, whatever that party happens to be at any given moment, pushing through major reforms. A lot of the writing you cited was in reference to the Fair Elections Act that the previous government tried to, and in fact did, push through.

The ideal process, to my mind, is one that involves everybody. All the political parties have a say. Elections Canada has a say. Citizens are consulted, and they also are involved in the process, as are other kinds of groups and interests.

As I said at the beginning of my remarks, I don't think there's any single process that's mandated. It's much more of a contextual analysis in terms of whether it is democratically legitimate in terms of those three norms, which are non-partisanship, consultation, and deliberation. I don't think there's any one thing that must occur for the process to be democratically legitimate as a whole.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

You didn't lose any time because of my intervention.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I even gave you a bit of extra time to make up for the inconvenience of my intervention, but we have to go now to Mr. Aldag.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Fair enough.