Electoral Reform Committee on Aug. 31st, 2016

[Andy O'Neill]

Yes. What we tend to find is that although we have long-term information on our website, and we share with other people in various ways, the time when the electorate is most engaged is near the electoral event. We would normally issue a public voting guide about two weeks before the close of the registration deadline—that's 12 working days before the electoral event—so we can get registration messages through to people.

We will also have the TV ads starting then, and we'd ramp up towards the electoral event and move from a registration phase into a how to vote phase, so that the messaging changes.

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

On that—

Go ahead.

[Mary Pitcaithly]

The only thing I was going to add was that our schools have recently taken a role in making sure that young people, who now have the vote in Scotland at age 16 and 17, meaning students in schools, colleges, universities, have a clear understanding of the importance of registering and then casting their vote. Schools have been very positive about doing this, and that's been a very successful part of the process. When you're bringing 16 and 17-year-olds into the franchise for the first time, I think it is important that we dedicate some time to that. They would not necessarily read these sorts of leaflets, but they'll certainly pick up on the stuff that's online, the Twitter messages and Facebook messages. All of that social media material is very important as well, as well as the more traditional printed leaflets.

[Andy O'Neill]

Yes, we go big on social media and digital advertising now. Over the years we've moved much more into that as people become much more Internet-based.

Mary was talking about the #ReadyToVote campaign. We got nearly 80% of all schools to run registration and how to vote sessions with young people ages 15 through to 18, who can vote now in Scottish Parliament and local government elections.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

We will now begin the second round of questions and answers.

Mrs. Romanado, go ahead.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

I didn't have enough time to ask our colleagues from Germany some additional questions in the last round.

You mentioned in your proposal that because of the fewer number of seats in our territories and two of our Atlantic provinces, they would actually maintain the current system of first past the post. Is that correct?

[Prof. Friedrich Pukelsheim]

That is correct. That was our proposal. And we called our proposal a “model”, because we just wanted to point out that one needs to make a decision on that question.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

It's actually quite helpful, because what I'm trying to understand is the application of something. One concern here in Canada is that if we were to tell two of our Atlantic provinces that their vote was not going to be counted the same way as their sister provinces', I don't know if it would fly, to be honest. So I'm not sure how applicable that would be, given the current culture.

[Prof. Friedrich Pukelsheim]

Absolutely, I can understand the problem. Another solution would be to put the two Atlantic provinces together with the other eight provinces. That would be an option. But since we just wanted to make a proposal, we did not want to draw the line between the provinces and territories, because we wanted to indicate that there were other options. But, as you say, the decision is political at another point.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Okay.

Actually, my colleague next to me just made a cute comment, that we could put the three territories with Nathan's riding, my colleague from B.C., and he'll have a really large one.

We did talk about education, but I want to drill back a bit. I know there's outreach through the electoral commission in Scotland, and you did talk a bit about your schools, the 15-year-olds to 18-year-olds who are coming up to an election.

Could you explain, both Scotland and in Germany, the education in your schools? What kind of civic literacy is there? Are there specific courses that children in grade school or middle school are being subject to, so that right from a young age they have some civic literacy? Or is it strictly the role of your electoral officers?

[Mary Pitcaithly]

I would say that over the last two or three years schools have taken on much more of a role in this area.

Particularly, we've engaged with the directors of education for each of the local authorities, with School Leaders Scotland, who represent head teachers, and with the educational establishment. They are very keen not to get involved in anything which could be construed as party political or less than impartial. They are very keen not to get involved in who people should vote for. They are absolutely focused on making sure that people understand the importance of voting in a democracy, that people know that before they can do that they have to register, that they understand the whole process.

It's very much about, as you say, civic literacy: understanding the rule of voting and how it happens. Equally, because these are educationists doing this, we are very clear that they can't get involved in anything at all that would tend to suggest they favour one party or one side over another, for example.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Okay, perfect.

[Mary Pitcaithly]

That was particularly [Technical difficulty--Editor] during the referendum. If any teacher or educationist had been able to be accused of promoting votes for or against independence, I think their career might have been over. It would have been a very difficult area for them to get involved in.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Perfect.

And in Germany?

[Prof. Friedrich Pukelsheim]

In Germany, the political system is certainly part of the subjects which are treated in school, including the elections. Of course, that's only the election for the particular state where the school is located.

Also, the federalist election authority produces a lot of material for the federal elections. Each state has a state electoral authority, and they produce the material for the elections of the state parliaments. I think that the efforts in Germany are very similar to Scotland's.

[Prof. Joachim Behnke]

I would add some special experience, which refers to the referendum and the electoral system change that took place in Bremen after a referendum. The other thing that was changed simultaneously was lowering the voting age to 16. This provided a very interesting opportunity. The teachers were able to teach the new electoral system to the pupils, and this had the effect that the turnout of youth was significantly higher than normal.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Mr. Reid.

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

Once again, I'm going to ask Professors Behnke and Pukelsheim a couple of questions. One follows up on Ms. Romanado's question. She asked about Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island. You did not attempt to run your simulation in those two provinces for either the 2011 or the 2015 elections, but I get the impression from looking at the numbers that had the mixed member proportional system been in place in those two elections, the actual seat count would have been very similar to what it actually was under the first past the post system.

Is that a generally correct statement? I know I'm asking you to say something without the ability to calculate it, but does that seem like a generally correct statement?

[Prof. Friedrich Pukelsheim]

It's generally correct.

The results would have been similar—albeit slightly different. We didn't include it in our brief because we didn't want to swamp you with too many prints. Of course, you can do it easily, and we did it. What we presented to you shows the option of including small provinces with low district magnitudes into the first category group, but whether to do so or not needs to be decided at another point.

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

All right.

[Prof. Joachim Behnke]

We have made the calculations, and the seat distribution would have changed from 7, 0,0 seats by party, to 5, 1, 1 seats by party in Newfoundland and Labrador, for example.

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

That is helpful to me. I realize you don't want to make political comments, but I think it is correct that in Canada people would feel most comfortable with a single electoral system across provinces, even if its implications were less proportional in some of the smaller provinces than in the larger ones.

I want to ask as well about the issue of overhangs. You mentioned the example of one of the Länder in former East Germany and how one party had 35% of the vote but 50% of the seats. We have some very extreme vote swings in Canada, and I want to give you some examples.

In the elections of 1993, 1997, and 2000, in the province of Ontario, the Liberal Party won, almost literally, all the seats. When I was elected in 2000, for example, I was one of three non-Liberals elected in Ontario, out of 103 seats. They had 50% of the vote. Similar results, in fact even more extreme results, were obtained in 1993 and 1997.

Similarly, in Quebec in 1980, if my memory serves me correctly, the Liberal Party won all but one of the seats—maybe all but two. There have been similar examples where the Conservative Party has won all the seats in Alberta.

Does your model deal with that? How do you deal with that kind of extreme disproportion—one party gets half the vote but literally all the seats? Would that be corrected for in your model, and if so, what would the list-versus-seat total look like in one of those provinces?

[Prof. Friedrich Pukelsheim]

The two past elections that we looked at did not show any problems like that. Maybe former elections would. The system we propose does not produce overhang seats, but if a party is overly successful with constituency seats, then the seats will be transferred from the competing parties to the party with the excessive success in constituency seats. By the way, this is the same provision that is used in Scotland. It is defined with different wording in the law, but with this provision you do not have overhang seats. When you do not have overhang seats, you are in a position to honour the constitutionally mandated number of seats per province and territory.

Whether there are problems.... One should probably look at older elections, too, but we had only a limited amount of time, so we restricted our evaluation to the last two general elections.

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

Thank you very much, Professors.