Thank you.
Evidence of meeting #21 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 change.
A video is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #21 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 change.
A video is available from Parliament.
3:10 p.m.
Liberal
John Aldag Liberal Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
I'm going to start with a couple of questions for Professor Johnston.
I always find it interesting to get people's written submissions, and as I go through them I grab things that jump out at me. The first one from yours that grabbed my attention was in your paragraph 9, where you say, “Proportional formulae require 'engineering' to get to an electoral result.”
It's the first time I've seen—I guess it's implied.... We've seen these mathematical computations and other things. The question I have is simply whether Canadians are ready for a more complex system. We heard about a system this morning from Germany, which was designed for us and that had a number of computations. When I saw the term “engineering”, I thought that's really what it is. It's taken from a straight kind of count and applying something else to it.
Do you think we're at a point in Canada where Canadians are ready for something more complex than a majoritarian or plurality system?
3:10 p.m.
Prof. Richard Johnston
I don't feel comfortable answering the question straight-up. British Columbia bought a system that was in some ways actually the most complex, from the point of view of the voter, in the sense of a preferential ballot with a long counting mechanism. I would hope that whatever is proposed, the lead discussion of this does not actually focus on its complexity.
When I say “engineering”, I don't mean that as a pejorative term. I simply refer to the fact that the only self-executing system is first past the post, just in the sense that it guarantees a result: that's all. To go any distance beyond that, because there is almost never a, quote, “natural majority” anywhere anymore, if you're going to have a majoritarian system you need to have some engineering. Then the very idea of proportionality has a whole conceptual framework to it. It presupposes, for one thing, that the thing that is represented is political parties, the very thing that voters claim not to like; and that if you're going to achieve proportionality, in and of itself, but also given the rules of arithmetic, you need to have a set of counting rules that in some sense represents electoral engineering.
I think that is the thing that makes it a tough sell. I understand why people who want to make the sell are concerned about the referendum. Indeed, as Gordon can confirm, the discussion of the sell was important in the B.C. citizens' assembly. They happened to prefer STV anyway, but they concluded that MMP was a tougher sell because of the stuff in it.
3:10 p.m.
Liberal
John Aldag Liberal Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
Okay, good. Thank you.
Another one that jumped out at me and which you didn't go into a lot of detail about in your comments was in your item 13. Contrary to what other witnesses have said, you wrote that it's a bad idea to have “different combinations in different places”, such as rural versus urban. We have heard some compelling arguments made for why that might be the best in Canada.
Would you like to take the remainder of my time to give us your thoughts on why you think that's a bad idea?
3:10 p.m.
Prof. Richard Johnston
Well, I accept that we do a delicate balancing in the federation. Why do we have the Senate floor for representation? Why are rural constituencies smaller in population than urban ones? We do a fairly delicate balancing, but I assume that it's the product of a process that takes all the interests into account. To actually go out there and engineer a system that....
This was, I think, Nelson Wiseman's particular pet from his days as a young lad in Winnipeg, I guess. There are memories of the way in which Alberta and Manitoba in particular were carved up, in which you had single-member districts outside the cities and multi-member districts inside the cities, when it was pretty clear in the Manitoba case that the whole point was to mute the impact of Winnipeg on the province of Manitoba even as you augmented the impact of rural Manitoba on the overall framework.
If you have, for example, the alternative vote outside the city and STV inside the city, then whatever else you're doing with the size of constituencies, you are putting in place in the cities an electoral mechanism that more or less does not augment differences in powers. Outside the city you are creating the prospect in which, say, a large minority could have its power amplified.
August 31st, 2016 / 3:15 p.m.
NDP
3:15 p.m.
Prof. Richard Johnston
Absolutely.
3:15 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Our system does, the American system does, the German one does, etc. It's interesting, because we heard from German witnesses this morning. They were asked if it were too complex, as my Liberal colleague just said. They said, no, people understand it, as they did in Ireland and Scotland.
Is it unstable? That's another myth around proportional systems. The results from all of our evidence that we hear at committee, from people who know, is that, no, it's not more unstable.
Is there not a local link, if proportional means that voters lose their local link with a direct representation? As Mr. Gibson and other experts have told us, that's also a myth.
All these myths get added up to create this somehow construed cloud that proportional systems would disenfranchise somebody somewhere and that voters are not going to like it, despite the evidence showing that people like it. I don't recall any evidence around the world of anyone going from a proportional to a first past the post system.
I have a question, Mr. Bricker, about your survey. I was a bit confused. You took a survey in May, and you asked a straight question on whether or not they wanted a referendum. The result was around 70%?
3:15 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Then you asked a second question this past week and said, this is what's going on. There was not a lot of awareness, but you said this is what's going on, and then that number of people desiring a referendum dropped?
3:15 p.m.
CEO, IPSOS Public Affairs, As an Individual
Yes, because we gave them two choices.
3:15 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Right. So suddenly there is a process. This question about validation and about how this is seen and what we attempt to do in this Parliament with this mandate is valid. “Legitimate” may be a better word for it by voters.
Is that the question you're seeking in your service?
3:15 p.m.
CEO, IPSOS Public Affairs, As an Individual
No. The question I'm seeking is where we want a process.
3:15 p.m.
CEO, IPSOS Public Affairs, As an Individual
If we're going to go through the process of changing our system, what is required in terms of consultation?
3:15 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Okay. So when people know that there's something going on....
I'll put a question to you before you've probably surveyed it yet. I'm going to ask you to speculate here. If only one party were to stand for a new system, I would assume that its credibility, its validity, would go down, as opposed to a scenario in which, I and many of us hope, we can achieve some sort of consensus here.
3:15 p.m.
CEO, IPSOS Public Affairs, As an Individual
What would happen is that Canadians would go to motives.
3:15 p.m.
CEO, IPSOS Public Affairs, As an Individual
Then the question is, why are they pursuing this change when other people don't agree?
3:15 p.m.
CEO, IPSOS Public Affairs, As an Individual
We actually saw this happen in Canada after the 2008 election when the Prime Minister made changes to the financing system for political parties.
