Evidence of meeting #20 for Electoral Reform in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was constituency.
A video is available from Parliament.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Thank you to our guests.
This is incredibly informative. I share my colleagues' admiration for your work.
I have one question for our friends from Scotland. In terms of the percentage of first past the post and proportional seats—I think you had it at 57% to 43%, if I am not mistaken—how is that decision made? Was it based on some research, or was it simply a political decision?
Convener, The Electoral Management Board for Scotland
This was a political decision. It was entirely the decision of the Parliament.
It was based on the intention that the new parliament would be proportional but without going as far as 50/50. When they set up the Welsh Assembly, they went for a slightly different percentage between constituency and list seats. It was purely a decision of politicians.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
I would like to get a sense of the sequence of time. The act was passed in 1998, and that brought in this new proportional system. If I am not mistaken, you ran an election in 1999 under that system. Is that right?
Convener, The Electoral Management Board for Scotland
We did, and we had a referendum to determine whether there would be a parliament in 1997, so it was a very hectic period of time. It was a time of a very fast-moving process of devolution. Yes, we did have the legislation in 1998, and we then had to run the election in May 1999. It actually went very well. There were no issues. We had to do a fair amount of voter education, as we sometimes call it, informing the voter about the type of system there was, trying not to get too bogged down for the voter in how we would then count those votes and allocate the seats. As you can see from the slide, it was relatively complex. My experience is that most voters are content to leave that to us. The information the commission was giving out was very much about how the voter would vote and what the voter needed to understand about how the new parliament would be constituted.
I would just go back for a second to the previous question about the status of the two different sets of MSPs, members of the Scottish Parliament. It was an issue for us in the first election. There certainly was a bit of a status issue, and constituency MSPs were held to have a slightly higher standing than the regional list MSPs, but that was ironed out very quickly, and very quickly all the parties were making statements to confirm that every MSP was to be regarded as having exactly the same standing and the same status. That needed a political statement.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
That is interesting to me.
In the current status, right now, there isn't a political party in Scotland that suggests that there are two classes. It doesn't break down under any partisan lines. In terms of the Scottish voters' perspective, they don't perceive two classes of representation.
Convener, The Electoral Management Board for Scotland
No, absolutely not. As I say, it was an issue. It was actually quite helpful that that surfaced quite quickly and we were able to be very explicit about it. But it required the major parties to make those statements and to make it absolutely clear that they regarded their MSPs, regardless of how they had been elected, as having the same status. I suppose in some of the parliaments, Labour has been the main party and in other parliaments it's been the Scottish National Party. Everybody is entirely clear that it doesn't matter how you're elected. Whether you're a constituency MSP or you represent a wider region, you've got the same standing.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
That's helpful.
I have a last couple of questions, one around that question of complexity. Sometimes those who are seeking the status quo will suggest that complexity would overwhelm the voter and there will be mass hysteria and—
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
—terrible consequences. The education component is to walk to the voter through not only how they vote, but also how their vote will be represented in Parliament. That's the focus, as opposed to the complexity of how the votes are then tabulated.
First, is there a level of confidence with how those votes are tabulated? Do any of the political actors try to take a shot at that piece, suggesting unfairness?
My second question is around size of constituency. My riding right now in northern British Columbia is four times the size of Scotland, so there are sometimes concerns about any system that would enlarge rural representation even more. How has Scotland gotten around that?
Those two questions are my final ones.
Convener, The Electoral Management Board for Scotland
On the first point, in relation to voter understanding, I wouldn't suggest that everybody has a deep understanding of how the D’Hondt method works or the weighted inclusive Gregory method works, but people have a level of trust in it because we've explained it to those who want to know—mainly the academics and some journalists, I have to say—and the public has as much information available to them as they choose to access because it's all out there available to be seen. The biggest thing that we've been able to do through electronic counting is to make all of that information available, not just what the totals were, but how people voted: whom they gave their first preference to, whom they gave their second preference to, etc. That's at the level of local government elections obviously, but making that level of information available whatever the election is really important just to give the voter confidence that it's all done properly and correctly.
Bloc
Luc Thériault Bloc Montcalm, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Pitcaithly and gentlemen, thank you for your generous and rigorous contributions to our work.
Mr. Behnke and Mr. Pukelsheim, in your brief, you talk about reducing the number of ridings. I know that it's a hypothetical model.
In Quebec, we tried to implement a reform based on the German model. The idea was to automatically go from 125 ridings to 75. At the time, there were 75 federal electoral districts and people found it quite normal for it to be done that way.
However, it was a major challenge, particularly for the Quebec regions. Quebec is huge. Quebec is a number of times bigger than France. The people did not accept this proposal.
If you had to think about your hypothesis in a different way, without reducing the number of ridings by 50% in such a draconian manner, but by increasing their number, what would be the breakdown? Which model would you come up with if the number of our ridings were to go up? What threshold would be needed to maintain proportionality as well as the territorial integrity and connection of the MPs?
Prof. Friedrich Pukelsheim
We tried to argue from our German experience, which mixes the constituency representation with proportional representation of parties and requires that a certain number of seats are available for the proportionality component.
If these seats are not available, then I simply cannot see how proportionality can be injected in your system—not even in a low dose. If all seats are filled via constituency plurality, or even more constituencies, I wouldn't know how to do it other than increasing the size of the House in Parliament. If there are no seats available for proportionality adjustment, then I have run out of ideas of what we could suggest.
Bloc
Luc Thériault Bloc Montcalm, QC
If there were 78 ridings, we would not divide them by two because that would make no sense.
In your view, by what percentage would the number of ridings need to be increased to achieve proportionality?
Prof. Friedrich Pukelsheim
I think the eventual decision is a political decision, because it is a question of how much weight you give to constituency representation and how much weight your committee or Parliament gives to the proportionality component.
We can offer sample calculations if you wish, but I cannot give you the certain percentage or number that that you are asking for.
Liberal
Green
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
While we were discussing matters with you, Professors Behnke and Pukelsheim, I noted that you've given us a very helpful paper on how members are elected to the Bundestag. But in contrast to our friends from Scotland, you didn't mention how you elect members to the European Parliament. Do German voters, like Scottish voters, have different systems they utilize at different levels of election?
Prof. Joachim Behnke
Indeed, the election for the European Parliament is a pure list election.
Green
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
So it's a list system just like in Scotland.
Do you have any way of sensing whether voters in Germany express a preference for one of their electoral systems versus another, or are they equally comfortable with both?
Prof. Friedrich Pukelsheim
We have different systems. We have 16 states, because we are also a federal republic. All state parliaments have electoral systems that are, at face value, very similar, but when you look at the details they are different.
There are 16 different systems in each of our 16 states. There is a different system for the Bundestag, there is a different system for the European Parliament. All systems, however, I would subsume under the description of proportional representation combined with the election of persons.
However, you can mix the two components in a different way and what we've tried to do is to mix them in a way that we understand is an issue in your committee work, or is an issue in Canada right now.
Green
