Electoral Reform Committee on Aug. 30th, 2016

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Maskin, the equation is simple: power rests in the people, and they transfer their power in nominal ways, through their vote, to elected representatives.

You said there's no system that allows everybody to have a seat at the government table. I don't think that's necessarily the point, is it? Is it not the point that everybody should have their vote reflected in Parliament under our system? Right now, if you looked at the last election, nine million votes that Canadians cast at their polling stations are not reflected in our Parliament under the current system. Is that a fair statement?

[Prof. Eric Maskin]

I think that's a fair statement.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

So no more is that true under your system than in the version proposed by the Prime Minister. How satisfied am I meant to be if my first choice is not reflected in Parliament and my second choice is not reflected in Parliament, but I should be content that my third choice is nominally reflected in Parliament? I'm not sure the experience leaves me feeling all that more content, no more than when a person trying to buy a hybrid ends up with a pickup truck. I did get a vehicle, but I didn't get what I wanted, and I did get to vote, and my vote was partially reflected, but it isn't the vote that I wanted to be reflected, and it wasn't for the policies I wanted or the representation that I wanted.

Why is it so “radical”—the term you used earlier—to suggest that voters should get the vote that they want?

[Prof. Eric Maskin]

At the risk of repeating myself, let me repeat an answer from before: under proportional representation you may get precisely the MP or the party you most prefer, but that party may have no power.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Oh, right—but they're still reflected in our legislature, which is a form of—

[Prof. Eric Maskin]

Yes, they're in a legislature without power.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I would argue that some of the greatest things that have come about in our legislatures have not originated with those who happened to win government at the time, as is healthy.

I want to go to Professor Loewen for a second.

On the stability question, I heard this from a Liberal colleague. We've gone through the numbers in the OECD, at least, and in developed countries in the world there's virtually no difference since the Second World War in the number of elections that have been held between proportional systems and majoritarian, winner-take-all systems.

[Prof. Peter John Loewen]

That's not the relevant metric, or rather, that's not the only metric in this case—

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

That's not the only metric, but in terms of stability of voters going.... It's suggested that if we go to a proportional system, we're going to have to vote again and again and that governments will fall all the time. In terms of the voter experience, you cast a ballot for a set of policies that you hope for, and some of them end up in opposition and some of them end up in government. We go on. There is no great instability in terms of the voters' experience and having to go to the polls over and over again. In fact, in the developed world's experience, according to the OECD, which I trust, under proportional systems there has been slightly more stability.

[Prof. Peter John Loewen]

Sure. My claim is not that there are more elections under PR. I've never said anything of the sort. My claim is that there are more changes in government because there—

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Right.

[Prof. Peter John Loewen]

Hold on. Excuse me; sorry. It's because there are more—

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I was agreeing with you. It's weird to get interrupted.

[Prof. Peter John Loewen]

Okay. Isn't that nice?

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Yes.

[Prof. Peter John Loewen]

It's because there are frequent negotiations. It's not that you're changing governments every six months, but there are more frequent negotiations.

The result is the following. You can have a change in government in essentially in three ways. You can have an election that changes the composition of Parliament under government reforms, or you can change a leader, the head of a coalition, or you can change the parties that comprise a coalition. Especially that third type of government change is one in which you inevitably get more distortion between what voters voted for and the policies that result, because you end up having policy bargains that weren't in the discussion in an election, but instead are the backroom negotiations among parties to try to cobble together another government.

All I'm saying is—

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Allow me to interrupt—

[Prof. Peter John Loewen]

—that this is the empirical regularity. Now, whether you think that's normatively desirable, again I'm open to it, but it doesn't suggest to me a system of stability; it suggests a system of constant bargaining.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

You would not suggest that the previous government we just had was not internally a coalition of sorts, or that the Mulroney government of the past was a coalition of nominal federalists in Quebec who turned out not to be so federalist in the end—

[Prof. Peter John Loewen]

Not at all. I concur—

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

It's the idea that somehow the open negotiation between parties, in that we seek to form a coalition with X, is somehow worse than the real behind-the-scenes coalitions that have happened within the two large parties in Canada since Confederation.

I guess my question is for the voters who are simply looking to have policies promulgated that they wish for. To have that choice and to see that choice represented as a voice in Parliament is what proportional systems seek to do.

I wondered if you could help us with Professor Maskin's earlier comment that proportional systems don't allow a link between voters and direct representation. Under pure proportional, that is maybe the case, but no one's suggested that.

[Prof. Peter John Loewen]

I think the trouble, Mr. Cullen, is that you're conflating two things. You're conflating the composition of Parliament and then the composition of government and the policy that results.

It is true that if we have a PR system, we'll have a composition of Parliament that more accurately reflects the party preferences of voters. That's a normatively good thing. I take no issue with it at all. The principle of good is another issue.

But then governments are formed. The point is that it can be a single-party government, as is now the norm in New Zealand, or it could be a coalition.

By the way, since New Zealand changed to MMP, it's now a single party that typically rules. They don't even have supply motions supporting them anymore, so that's worth noting.

The point is that the policy output is something else entirely. That's a debate in the academic literature, on which I think the evidence is actually relatively muddled, about whether the policy that comes out of government is closer to the preferences of voters under PR or first past the post. The principal reason in majoritarian countries is that single parties can move to the policy median swiftly, but they're not able to when they're bound by coalition agreements.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

But our experience in this country has been that in those minority governments—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Mr. Cullen, we're at six and a half minutes.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

—we've produced some of our most progressive and enduring legislation.