Electoral Reform Committee on Aug. 31st, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

You have 30 seconds for a statement.

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

I won't make a statement but will wait until the next round.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Okay, thank you.

Monsieur Boulerice.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair,

Ms. Hilderman, Mr. Vézina, Mr. Gunn, thank you very much for being here today. I really appreciated your presentations, as well as your energy, your passion and your interest in young people and their civic and social engagement.

You are absolutely right; there are some deficiencies in Quebec and Canadian society regarding knowledge and understanding of our electoral system and our parliamentary system. Too many people we meet still think we have a presidential system. People think they're voting for Harper, Trudeau or Mulcair. We have to tell them that that's not the case, that they must vote for their local MP and the number of seats won by each party is calculated to determine which party will form the government and whether it has a majority in Parliament.

Mr. Vézina, I support most of the five points in your program aimed at improving youth voter turnout. One thing that I really want to emphasize, because I want it stated publicly, is that I strongly support the idea of offering an introductory course on citizenship and democracy in high school. That is probably the best path to take. However, before our Bloc Québécois friends overreact, I want to clarify that neither this committee nor any federal legislation will interfere in the prerogatives of the National Assembly regarding education. I can come out and say that what you're proposing is a good idea, but it will not be part of our recommendations, for reasons that you are familiar with and understand very well.

You said that young people feel as though their vote won't make a difference. Indeed, it is more than just an impression. All too often, that is the reality in our voting system. Many members are elected with 30% or 32% of the vote in their riding. This means that 70% of voters are seeing their votes tossed out.

Your fifth point is about introducing a semi-proportional voting system. How would that help solve the problem identified earlier?

[Dominic Vézina]

That's a good question. I'm not an expert on electoral systems, but I can tell you that in all of our discussions with young people over the past five, seven or eight years in our citizenship schools, they all said the same thing. If we look at the last few elections, for example, majority governments have been formed with only 32% or 33% of the vote. As a result, young people no longer see the party in power as legitimate. A mixed member proportional system would automatically allow for more diverse perspectives.

Many young people have told me they think it's important that the parties work together to improve our existing system. People have to work together at school, at home and at work, so why not in our democratic system? That may be a simple example, but I think it's a good one.

I'll give you another example. Many of our schools have cooperation councils. If there is a problem, it is discussed on Fridays and they try to come up with solutions. When it comes time to vote, if only 32% approval is reached, there is no change.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you.

I should point out that NDP supporters in Edmonton officially supported a resolution on lowering the voting age to 16. Our colleague Don Davies also introduced a bill to that end. We are pushing for the same thing.

You had five proposals, but one thing that is missing is online voting. That surprised me a little, because we often hear that if online voting were available, young people would participate more. In fact, over the past few weeks of this committee's meetings, we keep hearing that interest in politics is the main factor. Anyone who is going to vote online is likely already interested in politics. As for those who aren't interested, even if we tell them it's going to be easier using their device, they are not more likely to become engaged.

Why didn't you include this aspect in your proposals?

[Dominic Vézina]

A few years ago—in 2011, if I'm not mistaken—the Chief Electoral Officer of Quebec asked INM to conduct a study among 16- to 34-year olds. If I remember correctly, 84% of young people indicated their interest in electronic voting. However, in all our discussions over the past few years, it's not something that keeps coming up.

I do think, however, that a better understanding of politics is key. We are talking about the fundamental issue of understanding the system in order to take more effective action in the future.

I want to emphasize another thing that could be important. Studies done in the past also show that young people who don't vote the first time they're eligible will not vote in the future. The numbers are very high, which is why it's so important to lower the voting age from 18 to 16 and introduce a civic rite of passage at school and in our institutions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

Mr. Thériault, go ahead, please.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Gunn, Mr. Vézina and Ms. Hilderman, I want to begin by saying how pleased I am to hear your remarks. I believe your actions are going to progressively improve democracy and people's understanding of it. I want to talk about a few aspects that you didn't mention, Ms. Hilderman, but that I think need to be addressed.

According to the Supreme Court decision in the Figueroa case, electoral fairness requires fairness in the electoral financing regime. A strict taboo currently exists that might correspond to dissatisfaction with political institutions.

The Chief Electoral Officers of both Quebec and Canada do not promote the legislation every year when political parties are trying to raise funds. When the legislation isn't promoted, it's as though giving more and more money to one political party were illegal, or as if it could lead to recognizing that someone might be partisan. Some people don't want their name to appear on any lists, for example.

Given that laws on the funding of political parties are based on public donations, does it not make sense to educate the public about the importance of seeing this as a duty and civic action? If we want to reform democratic institutions in a way that allows for ideological pluralism, shouldn't every vote count once again based on the amount of money put in the box?

In other words, if someone votes for the Green Party, for example, their vote isn't totally wasted, because the party will have some resources during the election and for the next four years to express their ideas in the political debates of a so-called democratic society.

[Jane Hilderman]

As I understand it, you are inquiring about the idea of the per vote subsidy, that every vote cast is worth something, as a donation to a political party that you're casting your vote for, in order to make your vote count. I understand that this has only recently been phased out.

I think your point is a good one: parties, in doing their job, have a unique place in our democracy. It's a very important job: to compete in elections, to be the vehicles for political participation, to sit in Parliament if they're elected, and then help make decisions. It does take resources to do that effectively. I don't think Canadians have a very good understanding right now of how party financing works in Canada. In fact, everyone who pays taxes subsidizes political parties today, because anyone who makes a donation can get a tax receipt, and that tax receipt how we Canadians are subsidizing political parties as entities.

The challenge then, of course, is if we subsidize the largest donations more than the smaller donations. We know that very few Canadians, relative to the whole population, make donations to political parties. I think that is the appeal behind the notion of a per vote subsidy, in that everyone at least gets to make some donation to a party. It's compelling as an incentive to think that your vote counts for something more. I also think it helps parties maybe think a little differently about their fundraising direction.

It might be interesting, then, how we might step back and consider the whole system of electoral and party finance. It's time we thought a bit more about what we want from parties in exchange for support from the public, which I think is necessary, as I said, for strong political parties to play their role in our democracy.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Mr. Thériault, you have only 30 seconds left.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

I would like to hear Mr. Vézina's thoughts on that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Mr. Vézina, I would ask you to give a brief response, please.

[Dominic Vézina]

Young people—I'm still talking about the audience I work with—express their views in different ways, so this should also include the financial aspect in order to encourage this collegiality and diversity of opinions. That goes without saying.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

Ms. May, go ahead.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses for being here with us this evening. I also want to thank them for their hard work and for everything they do every day in relation to these issues.

I know all three of your groups, and I appreciate the work you do.

Taylor Gunn, I want to let you know that when Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand testified before us, even though you thought it might be a little out of our mandate, he didn't think it was. He made a point of saying that the changes made by the Fair Elections Act to Elections Canada's role in elections must be reversed and that there should be funding. Did you receive funding from Elections Canada to do the work in schools? How was that partnership with Elections Canada carried out?

[Taylor Gunn]

It's evolved over the years. In 2004 they gave us, from what I can remember correctly...the model was they didn't pay for our work. They covered some costs of printing, ballot boxes, voting screens, etc. If you go back to how our relationship started with Elections Canada, it was an all-party motion on, I think, February 10, 2004, 10 years to the day when Pierre Poilievre announced the Fair Elections Act's details, which is kind of funny. It's evolved now to where they'll cover the full cost of the program, but the cap at the last election was meant to be at a million dollars. We budgeted for about $1.4 million or $1.5 million. The entire project last year was about $2 million, and I think we ended up with $250,000 in-kind, a million dollars cash. It's not a wealthy type of project. Then we raised an additional $750,000 to go out to community foundations and donors to go toward our teacher training.

They don't fund us. What they like to remind us, and maybe everyone else, is that they don't have what they call a “granting and contributions stream”. Should they have one? Should they not? I'm not sure. I will tell you that they put out an RFP last summer very shortly after the Fair Elections Act, and we told them that we wouldn't be responding to it, so they then decided to sole-source with us. We thought that we didn't need to respond, because no one else does the work that we do—

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Right.

[Taylor Gunn]

—among other details.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

I was just curious, but when you said I was number five, number five of what?

[Taylor Gunn]

It was in terms of the total number of ballots cast by kids under 18—

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

You mean across the country?

[Taylor Gunn]

Yes.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

That's nice. I was wondering, because I didn't think that had happened in my own riding.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!