Electoral Reform Committee on Aug. 30th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Hello, dear colleagues. Welcome to our meeting this afternoon.

We have three new witnesses. First, we have Mr. Louis Massicotte with us here. Ms. Melanee Thomas will be joining us by video conference from Calgary. We also have with us Ms. Katelynn Northam.

To begin, I will provide some biographical information about the witnesses.

Mr. Louis Massicotte is a professor in the political science department at Laval University. He is the first person to hold the Research Chair in Democracy and Parliamentary Institutions, which he held until January 2011. Professor Massicotte appeared before the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs in 2001, providing testimony about seat distribution. He has actively participated in the democratic development of over a dozen countries, most of them in French-speaking Africa.

Welcome, Professor Massicotte.

Melanee Thomas is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Calgary. Prior to this, she was the Skelton-Clark post-doctoral fellow in Canadian affairs in the Department of Political Science at Queen's University. Dr. Thomas' focus is on political attitudes and behaviour, elections, and public opinion in Canada, with special emphasis on the effects that gender and policy have on these topics. Many of her current projects are funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

Dr. Thomas is widely published, with some of her most recent works including a co-authored book chapter entitled “Women (Not) in Politics: Women's Electoral Participation”, a co-authored book entitled Mothers and Others: The Impact of Parenthood on Politics, and a journal article entitled “Barriers to Women's Political Participation in Canada”.

Welcome, Professor Thomas, from Calgary.

Last but not least, we have with us Katelynn Northam, who is a campaigner and organizer of electoral reform at leadnow.ca, a website dedicated to engaging and organizing Canadians on issues of national interest and concern. Ms. Northam has a master's degree in political science, with a focus on local government, youth engagement, and public policy, from Dalhousie University. She has participated as a youth advisory group member at the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, in addition to providing assistance and leadership with the Springtide Collective, which focuses on political renewal initiatives, and the Vote Smart Nova Scotia website, among other similar issues.

Welcome, everyone.

Each panellist will have 10 minutes to present, and then that will be followed by two rounds of questions.

During each round of questions, each MP will have the opportunity to engage with the witnesses for five minutes. Once again, the five-minute question period includes both the questions and the answers. If the five minutes are up and you have not had time to reply or give a complete answer, you may continue the next time it is your turn to speak.

Professor Massicotte, please go ahead.

[Prof. Louis Massicotte]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ladies and gentlemen, members of the committee, good afternoon.

I have published a book and several scholarly articles on electoral systems. When I worked for the Library of Parliament, here on the Hill, in 1983 and 1984, we were talking about implementing a proportional representation system to elect senators directly. As you can see, my interest in electoral reform is longstanding.

In the past 25 years, I have appeared numerous times before federal parliamentary committees and, as the chair indicated, also before special committees of Quebec's National Assembly.

From 2003 to 2005, the Quebec government required my professional services in connection with electoral reform, and my work influenced the design of the voting system set out in the government's draft bill.

I also served as secretary to the electoral systems committee of the International Political Science Association, and on the board of the Canadian Study of Parliament Group.

Finally, I would say in general that I am more of an electoral engineer than an advocate of the cause, in that I am used to analyzing electoral systems and their operational details, looking at all the methods available, and identifying their political consequences, all with a view to clarifying the political choices to be made by those with the mandate to make them.

I should have said I will make my presentation in French, but I am able to make an audible noise in this country's other official language, and I'll try to answer your questions in the language in which they are asked.

Rather than dwelling on the highly political issues of which system is best or what method should be used to make that choice, I will focus on the system that I know the best, the mixed-member proportional system, or MMP. It is the system in Germany and New Zealand, for instance. This system seeks to offer the best of both worlds, although it cannot please everyone simply because no system can do that.

Introducing MMP would have the following implications. I have identified 13, but there are certainly more.

First and foremost, because it is a proportional system, it would of course radically change the way politics works in Canada. It would make it very unlikely for a single party to win a majority in Parliament. I think governing coalitions will become increasingly inevitable. In Canada, as you know, we do not have a coalition culture. Coalitions are not viewed favourably by the political class and by part of the public. Political actors will probably adapt, but that adjustment will not necessarily be easy.

Second, introducing proportional representation will require painful adjustments in the established political parties, and strong resistance among your colleagues can be expected. To give you an example, a party that currently holds five out of five seats in a region would no longer win five out of five seats under a proportional system, but perhaps only two or three. For the five MPs in those seats, supporting electoral reform is almost an existential question because some of them will be left out, which will make the whole group rather nervous.

Third, designing the system will be very challenging, not only because it entails combining a proportional system with all its complexities, but also in terms of reconciling a majority system with a proportional system.

Someone has described it as the Mercedes of systems. That is a lovely metaphor, not only for geographical reasons, since the system originates in Germany, but for car lovers, it is so fitting.

Fourth, in Germany, Scotland and Wales, MMP was introduced in a vacuum, from scratch. That is often overlooked but I think it worth mentioning. At that time, there was no elected parliament. So the system was entirely new. This made for an easier transition, simply because those making the decision had no vested interest.

New Zealand—and this is important—is the only place, to my knowledge, where the system replaced a legislative assembly entirely made up of MPs elected as the sole representative in each riding. As you know, the system in New Zealand was not freely chosen by parliamentarians. It was imposed by referendums and parliament had to submit to the will of the people.

Fifth, MMP would be implemented in Canada where there are currently 338 MPs elected in 338 ridings. The total number of MPs to be elected will have to be decided, since there are two sets of representatives in this system.

Here are two scenarios.

Let us assume that the total number of MPs remains unchanged at 338. In order to make room for the list MPs, the number of ridings would have to be reduced to 160 or 200. As a result, none or almost none of the current ridings would be untouched by the redistribution. Almost every MP would have to accept that new voters would be added to their riding who might or might not support them; above all, they would have to accept that they would be representing much larger ridings in the future than what they currently represent.

Now another scenario.

To avoid these difficulties, you could decide to keep all 338 ridings as they currently are and to expand Parliament to make room for the list MPs. Depending on the ratio you choose, there would be 400 or 500 MPs. Without questioning the salesmanship of committee members, I don't think it would be easy to sell that to Canadians.

Moreover, the role and status of MPs will have to be defined. As you will note, reform proposals do not typically say much about that. They simply say that list MPs will help make Parliament more representative of parties' real strength, which is undeniable, and also more representative of demographic realities since there will be more women and aboriginal members, which is quite likely.

What is never spelled out since there is some uncertainty is exactly what the list MPs would do. Having studied various countries that have MMP, I can honestly say that there is no definite answer because it is not the same in every country. To simplify, I would say there are two different scenarios. The first scenario is the way it is in Germany, which is the same as in New Zealand. The second scenario is the way it is in Wales. Scotland is somewhere between those two.

The German scenario is preferable, in my view. The members are all equal in law because they represent the people as whole rather than a specific riding or party. There are not two classes of members, either in law or in fact. Some members are elected by different procedures, but they all have the same salary, the same status, and equal opportunities to join the council of ministers.

I will have to cut this short so as not to go over the allotted time.

The other possible scenario is the way things work in Wales, which is just the opposite. In Wales, a list member has virtually no chance of joining the council of ministers. Over the years, list members have truly become second-class members because the riding members refuse to accept them as equals. The seat assignment in Parliament is a real caricature: they are all relegated to the back benches, as though they were less important, so to speak.

I will now move on to the issue of lists.

Compensatory seats are based on the lists prepared by the parties. Nearly everywhere this system is in place, they are closed lists and people are elected based on their order on the lists. It is possible to have open lists where voters can change the election order decided by the party. I have noted that a number of you have expressed support for this. I could tell you about the implications of this system. Some are very attractive, while others, which you may not be familiar with, might be less appealing.

Double candidacy has been raised and will have to be considered. Under MMP, it is usually possible for a candidate to stand for a riding and to be on a list, for a very simple reason: the more successful a party is in a riding, the fewer names it has on the list. As a result, it is better to to try both avenues because when members declare their candidacy, the final outcome is not known. That is the beauty of democracy. Otherwise, if you think you will be very successful and run in a riding, but things change and you are defeated in the riding, you have lost the security that the list affords.

I must simply point out—as you have been told—that double candidacy is perfectly legitimate, although it will meet with a great deal of resistance among the public and among MPs. Mr. Benoit Pelletier also spoke about this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Mr. Massicotte, have you nearly finished?

[Prof. Louis Massicotte]

Just another 10 seconds or so.

In conclusion, since this is a federal parliament, the compensatory seats will have to be allocated by province. Otherwise, a national list is not realistic.

In answering your questions, I can tell you about other technical aspects, such as “overhang”, or überhang in German, representation thresholds, the open party lists that I mentioned, and provincial or national lists.

Thank you for your patience.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you, Professor Massicotte.

We'll go now to Professor Thomas of Calgary, for 10 minutes, please.

[Professor Melanee Thomas, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Calgary, As an Individual]

Good afternoon. Thank you for the invitation to present.

I am coming to you today as an expert in gender representation and politics as well as an expert in Canadian politics. Broadly speaking, there are four points I would like to convey to the committee.

First, there are arguably many good reasons that we might want to introduce proportionality into our existing federal electoral institutions. Many of my colleagues have already spoken directly to this point, so while I am happy to answer questions on that, I am going to restrict the bulk of my comments to other things.

Second, my professional interpretation of the current Canadian political context is such that I can't help but conclude that introducing more proportionality into our electoral institutions on its own will probably not meaningfully increase representational diversity in Canadian politics. By representational diversity I mean the representation of women, the representation of visible minorities, and the representation of indigenous peoples as defined by the Canadian Constitution.

Every single one of these groups is present in electoral institutions at a rate that is so much lower than their demographic weight that they would be better represented if we populated our electoral institutions by random chance. That this reality exists means there are powerful, informal barriers that work to keep women out of politics, people who are not white out of politics, and people who are indigenous out of politics. Simply changing the electoral system is not going to address any of these informal barriers that are in place. I think we actually do ourselves a disservice by suggesting that simply increasing proportionality actually does anything meaningful for these informal barriers.

Third, there is some evidence linking proportional representation to increased diversity and representation. I'll outline this evidence in a moment if I have time, but I will also outline why arguably it won't work in the Canadian case.

There is absolutely no evidence, or very little evidence, to support three things. First, there is no evidence to suggest that changing the electoral system leads to a corresponding change in the diversity of elected representatives. This is New Zealand's experience. There is no evidence to suggest that a preferential ballot—that is, the alternative vote, mandatory voting, or online voting—will have any effect on representational diversity. To be frank, my fear is that by focusing on such processes as preferential ballots, mandatory voting, and online voting, the committee is not committed to or especially interested in addressing our representational diversity shortfalls in a serious manner.

Fourth, and I think the point I want to make most forcefully, there is simply no good reason now that we cannot have a House of Commons that adequately represents the Canadian public closely. By that I mean that it would be 50% women, about 20% visible minorities, and at least 5% indigenous. When I say that, I also want to cue that in 1996 the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples suggested that indigenous Canadians ought to have their own Parliament. I would defer to that particular recommendation on that point.

To be frank, to suggest that somehow historically under-represented groups or groups that have been told in the past that they shouldn't participate in politics—this would be women, visible minorities, and indigenous peoples, again—somehow need proportional representation or need some kind of major institutional change to have representational fairness is deeply problematic.

When we talk about proportional representation, there are a few reasons that people seem to think that PR leads to better representation for such groups as women, minorities, and indigenous peoples.

One is that people just make an ecological fallacy. They look at places like Sweden, they look at Scandinavia, and they look at places that have a different electoral system, and they say overall those systems tend to elect more women, which means that if we had one of those systems we would elect more women too. This is asking the wrong question, essentially, because these are systems that haven't actually changed the system; they have different norms, and so on and so forth.

Another of the reasons that people say women do better under PR is that there are more political parties to choose from. The idea is that if you have more parties, you have more access points for historically under-represented groups. The difficulty with this argument in the Canadian case is that Canada has always had more political parties at the federal level than our electoral system would predict. Given our electoral system, we really ought to only have two parties, similar to what the Americans have. You don't need to know much about Canada's political history to know that we've always had more. I don't think this is an issue of not having enough access points or not having enough political parties to choose from.

Second, one of the arguments that is made is that in proportional systems, or in more proportional systems, there is usually a party that acts as a contagion. This is usually a smaller party, it's typically left-leaning, and it typically starts making its candidates' slate more diverse and more representative of the population. Once that small party does that, one of the things we see in places like Norway is that larger parties follow suit. It's that small party acting as a contagion that brings the larger parties that elect more representatives online with more women, more minorities, and so on and so forth.

This was studied a long time ago in Canada. There is a party that has had a nomination policy on the books since 1984 for gender parity in representation, and for ethnicity and indigeneity in representation as well. This is the NDP.

Because this nomination policy has been present for a while, we can say with confidence that there is no evidence to suggest that having one party in the system that's committed to representational diversity and equity does anything to any of the other parties, so there is no evidence to suggest that this contagion that we see in proportional systems would transfer over to the Canadian case, because thus far it hasn't.

The other thing that's unfortunate to note is that there is no evidence to suggest that parties that actually make a step to increase their representational diversity actually stay there. I don't want to necessarily call out every party, but in this particular case—the one case I can't help but comment on—it is the Conservative Party of Canada between 2006 and 2008. There was a considerable increase in the number of women who were nominated in 2008 for the Conservatives, and it seems as though that was deliberate, but this hasn't helped: in the most recent election, the number nominated for that particular party fell back below 20%.

We can make these representational gains, but in the Canadian case, one of the things that's clear is that there is no reason to expect that we will actually keep them and no reason to expect that it will change if we change the electoral formula.

A third reason that people say proportional representation is good for women and for diversity is that proportional representation facilitates the introduction of quota systems, or one of the things that is said is that our particular system—single-member plurality—makes applying a quota difficult. I'm happy to speak to this point in greater detail in the question-and-answer period, but based on a survey from spring 2016—so if there had been an election this summer, it might have changed things, though I doubt it—there is no reason to suggest that a proportional system with a quota does any better than a proportional system without a quota.

The one system that seems to actually do well with quotas and does best with quotas happens to be ours. The difference between a voluntary party quota and a single-member plurality system for women's representation is considerable, compared to our system without voluntary party quotas, but quotas in other systems don't necessarily move the marker very much at all.

I would like to speak to New Zealand, and I hope somebody asks me that in the question-and-answer period because I think their experience is illustrative.

What I want to finish on, though, is what it means for us to have representational equity now.

In the 2015 federal election there were three political parties that at one point were at the top of the polls, so I'm using three parties that could conceivably win a majority of seats in the Canadian system as my reference point.

Any political party that's fielding 338 candidates simply needs to recruit 169 women from coast to coast to coast to run a candidate slate that is gender balanced. I would challenge anybody to convince me that those 169 women don't exist at any point on the ideological spectrum, because I am deeply skeptical of that. That means those three parties would simply need to recruit 507 women across three political parties from coast to coast to coast.

The question that has to be asked is why this isn't happening now. If it sounds ludicrous to suggest that we somehow can't find those 507 women, it gets worse for other historically under-represented groups. In the case of visible minorities, I understand visible minorities are a very diverse bunch of Canadians, but if you just wanted to find candidates who are not white and are not indigenous, a party would simply need to find 68 to run a representative slate of candidates who roughly match the Canadian population. This is 203 across Canada for three major parties.

As I said, I would never suggest that indigenous Canadians ought to be satisfied with only 4% to 5% of the House of Commons when the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples recommended their having their own parliament, but the one thing I would say is that if we're talking 4% to 5%, this would be 15 candidates out of 338. Why we can't find them I don't know. That's a mere 45 across three political parties.

I can't help but conclude that to suggest a change in electoral systems is needed to give women, Canadians who aren't white, and indigenous Canadians anything close to representational fairness—to suggest that we need electoral system reform for that—is giving the people who are recruiting candidates a pass.

The one thing I should be very clear about as well is that we have no evidence to suggest that voters discriminate against candidates on the grounds of gender or race. There's simply no evidence in the aggregate at the voter level for that, which suggests that those informal barriers that are really powerful happen somewhere else in the political process.

I don't think that political parties, the institution that's doing most of this recruitment, deserve a pass on this particular front.

I will conclude again by saying that the suggestion that Canadian women, Canadians who are not white, and indigenous Canadians need major institutional reform to achieve representation in anything close to fair numbers is completely indefensible from my professional point of view. As a Canadian woman, I find that assertion deeply troubling and borderline offensive.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We'll go now to Ms. Northam, please.

[Katelynn Northam, Campaigner-Electoral Reform, Leadnow.ca]

Thank you to the committee for inviting me to be here today and for taking your summer to work on this important and challenging issue.

I'm the campaign lead for electoral reform at an organization called Leadnow. We represent hundreds of thousands of Canadians from coast to coast to coast, and about 19,000 of our members live in one of your ridings. What our members have in common is that they want Canada to have a fair economy, a safe climate, and an open democracy.

Leadnow is a fundamentally member-driven organization, which is to say that we always start from what our community thinks is important and then we work to bring their voices to the people with the power to make an impact on those issues. I'm here today to do just that. I'm not speaking on my behalf; I'm speaking on behalf of the thousands of people who think it's absolutely vital that Canada replace our broken first-past-the-post voting system with some form of proportional representation.

To put together this presentation, we surveyed our community to make sure we were representing them accurately. Nearly 10,000 people responded within 48 hours to our call for input. They wanted us to share some key messages with you today.

I wanted to start by reminding us all what it is that we're solving.

The Leadnow community strongly believes that our first-past-the-post voting system is broken. It does not allow people to adequately and fairly express their preferences, and that, in turn, takes away power and choice from the voter.

It makes elections a game of riding-by-riding math and strategy. This is an issue that impacts our relationship with democracy. It impacts one of our most basic rights as Canadian citizens, and it shapes our relationship with our elected officials. It makes it difficult for people to accurately and fairly express what they really want at election time.

The fact that millions of people at each election cannot effectively exercise that right is not something to be taken lightly. It's not an unfortunate side effect, and it's something that affected nine million people in the last election.

Canada is, quite simply, behind the times when it comes to having a modern voting system. We're one of the few OECD countries that still use first past the post, and we are the only OECD country that uses it at all three levels of government. We are outliers, and we're using a fundamentally unfair and unjust way to run elections, and that needs to change.

As a little context, Leadnow's involvement in democratic reform didn't start with the election of this new government. We've been working hard to improve Canadian democracy since our founding in 2011. Over the years, we've held hundreds of events, meetings, and consultations where the topic of electoral reform has come up time and again. We've made thousands of phone calls, we've knocked on thousands of doors, and we've stood in the snow and canvassed until our pens froze. We were all waiting for this moment when we would have an opportunity for change.

Our campaign for proportional representation is called Vote Better, and so far over 24,000 people have signed on in support. About a third of those people have come from volunteers going to festivals, going out to street corners, and talking to people on their doorsteps, listening to their stories about why we need a fairer voting system.

The reason we've done this is simple. Our community believes, as I know everyone in this room also agrees, that having an open and transparent democracy is absolutely foundational to moving forward and addressing the really big, pressing issues of our time. We need a democracy that's fair, inclusive, and collaborative.

Some of you might be aware that we have, in the past, also run a strategic voting campaign, and that in the election before that, we advocated for inter-party co-operation. We did so because our community was frustrated by the distorted results produced by first past the post.

Our preference would be that people would not have to work around the pitfalls of first past the post in order to express what they want. Strategic voting, as you know, happens when voters vote for who they think can win instead of who they might truly want. It happens when people are afraid to vote for their first choice lest it split the vote and empower their least favourite choice. Canadians have been doing it for a long time. Without good local information, they're often guessing at what the most strategic choice actually is. Expressing their true preferences and seeing that preference reflected in an outcome should not require strategy or access to polling information.

We believe this frustration with first past the post is commonly felt. I personally have spent a lot of time going door to door for both our election campaign and this campaign in various ridings around Ontario, although my colleagues have done so in other provinces, including Manitoba, B.C., and the Maritimes. I did not encounter very many people who were unfamiliar with the tough choices that first past the post forces them to make: should they vote with their hearts and accept that it may split the vote in their riding, should they vote for the candidate they think is most likely to win, or should they just not bother to vote at all because the conclusion seems forgone?

We know that first past the post can lead to big changes in the power structure of Parliament, even when the popular vote doesn't change very much. You see situations in which parties increase their share of the popular vote only moderately, a couple of percentage of points, but actually make huge gains in seat count due to how those votes are concentrated in key ridings. This can have the impact of propelling parties into majority governments without a majority of the vote, as we know, which we know can also give a party a tremendous amount of power. It also means that voters in those key swing ridings may get more attention than voters in the safe ridings. These are symptoms of a broken voting system in action.

Democracy is not a finished product, but something that we have to constantly refine. Fortunately, one of the things we have going for us in Canada is that we're a country full of people who really believe in democracy. Leadnow is a community full of those people, and this room is full of such people. The question, then, becomes what to do as the next step.

When asked this question, the Leadnow community overwhelmingly told us that they want to see PR replace first past the post, with 85% saying it was their preference, because it's the only way to address the fundamental flaws with first past the post.

We prepared a brief—which I don't believe you have in front of you today, but which you will have shortly—that presents more detailed reasons for our preference for PR. I believe many of the other experts who have been before this panel have already summarized many of PR's benefits, but we'll summarize a couple of the things that we think are most important.

First, it's fundamentally more fair. First past the post is what's known as a winner-take-all system. It gives the people who did not vote for the winner no voice. It also creates wild distortions in seat count, to the point where governments often receive majorities without a majority of the popular vote. In contrast, PR would make every vote count and give voters greater choice, without having to resort to strategic voting. Whether you're a Conservative in downtown Toronto or an NDP voter in rural Manitoba, you deserve to have your voice heard.

Second, it is more inclusive. We have seen some evidence that it is more diverse, although I appreciated Professor Thomas' comments on that today. We feel that it would help to prevent parties from focusing only on the regions of the country that are seen as winnable and instead produce policy that considers the entire country.

Third, it's collaborative. It would make politics less of a zero-sum game and force parties to work together across party lines to address those big issues. Our community has told us that they're tired of adversarial politics and they want governments to take the time to compromise and craft solutions that will stand the test of time, rather than spending their time undoing or amending previous policy decisions by previous governments.

I will end by relaying our appreciation and thanks from our community for taking on this issue. As I said earlier, I believe we all share common values of appreciation for democracy and we want to do what we can to be more inclusive of everyone.

We know that changing our electoral system is a big step. You've been hearing a lot of different arguments over the last couple of weeks, and you will be hearing more as you go out on the road. The Leadnow community believes that this is a time to be bold. This process has opened an amazing window of opportunity to leave a lasting legacy and give Canada an improved electoral system. The truth is that we lag behind the rest of the world in using an unsophisticated voting system to try to represent a population that is growing increasingly more diverse. It isn't meeting the challenges of representing everyone's voice, and that has impacts on real people. It's not just an abstract question of which system is best, but a question of whether we want to be committed to ensuring that everyone is included in our democracy. There is clear evidence that PR is the best way to rectify that problem.

I want to end with a quote from one of our community members in Toronto, who wanted us to share this message with you:

Political systems evolve. Let us not assume or be lulled into the belief that our system is a static and 'finished; done' project.

Rather, let us always and continually find ways—sometimes small, sometimes major—to better manifest democracy and representation. Let us never fear new ideas. Our current system has shown its flaws; it would be irresponsible to not try something new now.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much.

I have a feeling we're going to have a great discussion this afternoon.

We'll have Mr. Aldag lead off that discussion, please.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

I'd like to thank all of our guests today for the excellent testimony. I believe this is the first time we've had more women witnesses at a session, so that's great to see.

With that, I'm going to start a discussion with Professor Massicotte. I know that the questions are going to go around and there's been great information.

When I was reading your brief, three pieces jumped out at me. The first was your very first point, which was about not having “a culture of coalitions here in Canada”. As I've been out talking to constituents, the point that people are afraid of the idea of minority governments, and even more so of coalition governments, has really come up.

I would like your thoughts. You've identified it as an issue. How much of a barrier to moving forward to this kind of system in the Canadian culture would it pose?

[Prof. Louis Massicotte]

Thanks for your question.

Yes, I said that Canada does not have, indeed, a culture of coalitions. I will cite two examples.

In 1999 in Saskatchewan, the NDP government—the incumbents—were reduced to a minority status, and a few Liberal members decided to go into a coalition supporting the NDP government. These gentlemen were both expelled from their party and treated as traitors.

Of course some of you will have a recollection of the second one I will mention, the 2008 coalition dispute—or crisis, depending on the version—in which for some people the very idea of a coalition was something totally immoral.

I said we don't have a culture, but we had a practice of coalitions in the past. This is forgotten. I don't know if this has been mentioned in your proceedings, but Ontario had a coalition government under Ernest Drury in 1919-1923. It lasted a full term. Manitoba had a coalition, under Bracken and his successors, from 1932 to 1950 or 1951. British Columbia had a coalition from 1941 to 1952. Saskatchewan had a coalition government under Anderson from 1929 to 1934.

The interesting thing is that these coalitions were quite lasting. We have the impression, based on the experience of some European countries, that coalitions, by definition, are short-lasting. These coalitions lasted for the full duration of the legislative term. However, we haven't had such coalitions recently because there is seemingly an assumption, I'm afraid, that if a party goes into coalition with another presumably stronger party, they are absorbed by this other party, and no party, of course, wants to lose its individuality.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Perhaps I could make a comment.

We've heard a couple of things. One is that in the case of coalitions, the smaller party can actually have a disproportionate share of the power. The second is that I think there's a bit of a mix-up between coalition and minority governments.

It's true that we haven't seen coalition governments in recent decades. It's been more of minority governments, and people equate that to instability. In the conversations I'm having, there's unease that any change from a majority system may create more upheaval. I know we've seen evidence that says that's not the case, but as I say, we're up against this Canadian culture and these attitudes. How difficult of a sell is it going to be that this move is in the right direction?

[Prof. Louis Massicotte]

The standard reaction of Canadian politicians, when they are facing minority Parliaments, is to opt for a single-party minority government. I suspect this has to do with this being the way they are used to governing, with all fellows from the same party sitting around the cabinet table.

Second, these minority Parliaments are typically short-lasting; 18 months is the average duration. It is understood by most partners that the Parliament will not last its full term, and it is understood also that at the earliest possible opportunity, the government will push the button and get what they seem to believe is due to them, that being a majority.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you. We're at five minutes, so we'll move to Ms. Rempel.

Please, as I said, introduce your thoughts on the next round or at the next opportunity. That would be appreciated.

Ms. Rempel, welcome to the committee. We're happy to have you here today.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Dr. Thomas, it's a pleasure to see you. I'm a big fan of your work, as you know, and I appreciate your introducing the concept of barriers today.

With regard to your work, there's one piece that I want to look at, and it's a paper you wrote called “Barriers to Women's Political Participation in Canada”. In it you note that at the federal level, regulating nomination and electoral campaign financing and spending limits through Elections Canada has mitigated some of the issues related to financing as a barrier to entry for women in politics.

Since we have a young woman here who's very passionate about the democratic system in Canada, I'm just wondering, Ms. Northam, if you would agree that fundraising can be a barrier to under-represented groups in Canada.

[Katelynn Northam]

Honestly, I'm not an expert on that topic, but, yes, absolutely, I can see that being an issue.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

One of the barriers I wanted to bring up today with regard to this committee's examination of changing our political system is the political financing situation in Canada.

Right now I think we have a very strong system, in that we have capped individual donations, we have banned corporate donations, and we have set spending limits. When we compare the Canadian system, especially to what's happening in the U.S., I would argue that our system is pretty good.

There's one thing that concerns me, in that there's a significant loophole in this process. In Canada an individual corporation or group can register as a third party for election advertising purposes and then make expenses to “oppose” the election of one or more candidates. As opposed to the laws for financing political parties or candidates, corporations can spend money on elections via this route, and corporations can therefore influence candidates.

There are also no limits on the donations that a group can receive from an individual, and individuals can therefore in effect exceed their political spending limits and influence candidates.

Further, a third party has to register with Elections Canada only once an election is called, which makes it difficult to track the activities of these groups with regard to their influence on our electoral process. Also, they only have to report donations that came in during the six-month period prior to the election, and there's no requirement to state which candidate a third party promoted or opposed, making it difficult for the public to know if members of Parliament are compliant with ethics guidelines on conflict of interest.

In the 2015 general election, over $6 million was spent by third parties on election advertising. To put this in perspective, the entire spend of the Green Party of Canada on the election was $3.9 million. There are examples in which individuals have given a large amount to an electoral district association registered as an individual third party and then spent considerably more on opposing or promoting a particular candidate in an electoral district. For me, this is a loophole of concern in this whole barrier situation.

I would ask both Dr. Thomas and Ms. Northam, given that there's agreement that this is a potential barrier, if they would agree that one of the recommendations from this committee should be that there should be tighter and more significant mirroring of federal election financing laws for political parties to third parties in order to reduce this barrier?

With the time I have, I'll go to Dr. Thomas first for a yes or a no.

[Prof. Melanee Thomas]

Sort of.

When I look at barriers that specifically affect women, it strikes me as implausible that this third-party.... We call this third-party advertising in the literature. This third-party advertising is going to be directed primarily at political parties; I would be surprised to see it directed at any individual women.

If I were looking at how—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

If I could interject, I actually have a specific example.

In Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo there was only one woman candidate running. She gave $400 to a specific electoral district association, which didn't have the woman running, but then she registered as an individual for a third party and donated approximately $2,300 to her third-party entity, and then spent that entire amount promoting or opposing a candidate that wasn't her.

There is one example. I'm sure there are many more specific examples showing how that actually does impact a woman.

[Prof. Melanee Thomas]

That's going to be secondary.

Most third-party advertising is going to be directed at a national campaign that would be geared towards parties or party leaders.

This is why I'm skeptical that—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

If I can just interject—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Let me interject for a moment—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I have such little time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Actually, you do have a little time. Perhaps we could—

[Prof. Melanee Thomas]

I'd like to actually answer the question.