Good morning, everyone, and thank you for your invitation to appear before you today. Let me begin by wishing you, first of all, every success in your work on this important matter that will affect all Canadians.
I'm here as an individual with some expertise and knowledge of electoral reform deliberations, and as a deputy minister to the New Brunswick Commission on Legislative Democracy from 2003 to 2005. It is in this capacity that I'd like to share some observations and conclusions I hope will assist you in your own deliberations and recommendations.
The New Brunswick process and report was the most extensive democratic reform exercise ever conducted in that province. Electoral reform was a central but by no means the only focus of the commission's work. Specifically the commission was instructed to examine and make recommendations on how to strengthen and modernize New Brunswick's democratic institutions and practices in three main areas: electoral reform, legislative reform, and democratic reform.
Electoral reform is about changing our voting system, drawing electoral boundaries, setting fixed election dates, and boosting voter turnout. Legislative reform is about enhancing the roles of MLAs in the legislative assembly, and opening up the appointments process for agencies, boards, and commissions. Democratic reform is about involving the public more in decision-making and proposing a referendum act.
The commission's goal was to present recommendations that would bring about fairer, more equitable, and effective representation in the legislative assembly; greater public involvement in decisions affecting people and their communities; more open, responsive, and accountable democratic institutions and practices; and higher civic engagement and participation of New Brunswickers.
Our final report, which I have here, is over 200 pages long with some 100 specific recommendations. It provided research, analysis, policy recommendations, and even specific legal text in a process of just over one year of meetings. The driving mission animating the commission, which I commend to you in turn, was fostering a more citizen-led democracy.
This focus on citizens led the commission to develop three themes from which our recommendations flowed. Common to each was how democracy can be made to work better for “you, the citizen”. Those three themes were making your vote count, making the system work, and making your voice heard. When we were in doubt about our approach, or faced trade-offs and choices, as you undoubtedly will, this focus on citizens kept us grounded and focused.
I want to highlight three areas of our work germane to the committee's mandate: democratic values and principles, electoral reform, and citizen engagement. The commission began, as you did too, with a focus on democratic values. When it came to deciding the best electoral system for New Brunswick, we had to make trade-offs based on which of those values mattered most. You will, too.
The key principles we used to decide upon a new electoral system included local representation, which is the principle of all geographic areas of the province having a particular representative in the legislature to represent their interests; fair representation, ensuring all New Brunswickers' voices were fairly represented in the legislature; equality of the vote, ensuring each voter's ballot had equal influence in determining the election's winner; and effective government, the ability of the system to result in the easy selection of a stable government that is able to govern the province.
We used those principles to consider the strengths and weaknesses of various electoral systems and specific design features. These principles are similar to your list of values, with perhaps one notable difference: effective government. Your focus is on effectiveness within the electoral system. We also considered that, but the commission felt strongly that the outcomes of that electoral system had to include the notion of producing governments that could govern. Instability of legislatures and governments was much on our minds.
We recommended a mixed member proportional system as optimal for the province, based on a consideration of all the alternatives in relation to the roster of democratic principles. Animating New Brunswick's discussion most was a peculiar outcome of provincial politics: big majority governments and small, weak oppositions. Between 1987 and 1999, you may recall, the opposition never won more than 20% of the seats in the legislature, despite the combined opposition parties winning between 40% and 52% of the vote during this same period. MMP would fix that.
MMP also proved appealing when considering the regional nature of urban and rural communities in the province. It also proved viable—and this was important to New Brunswick, as Canada's only officially bilingual province—to ensuring equality of representation between the English and French linguistic communities. MMP's ability to create regions mapped to linguistic boundaries, with party seats for topping up votes in a two-vote system, was deemed attractive.
We recommended a 56-seat house, with two-thirds single member seats elected via the current first past the post system, and one-third PR seats, choosing five MLAs from closed party lists in one of four multi-member regions on the basis of the party vote received within the region. The two-thirds:one-third split enabled us to both ensure necessary local representation while introducing a sufficient degree of proportionality to be meaningful in translating votes into seats.
A minimum 5% threshold in the separate party vote on a province-wide basis was required to be eligible to win any list PR seats. This was necessary to avoid a proliferation of single-issue parties with undue influence in the legislature.
Candidates would be required to choose to run as either a single member riding candidate or a regional PR list candidate, but not both, as a way to avoid perceptions of gaming the electoral system.
Engaging New Brunswickers in our process and the eventual decision on a new electoral system was central to our consideration. Frankly, despite best efforts with a dedicated website, the social media technology of the time, regional open town hall meetings, online questionnaires, an interim report, academic conferences, and partnering with civil society organizations, interest and participation in the commission's work was low.
We were of no doubt that we had done our own work thoroughly and fairly, but an electoral system is not the politician's or party's property. We felt strongly that a referendum was necessary to legitimize such a change. Our recommendation was for a double majority, comprised of 50% plus one of votes cast by at least 50% of eligible voters, in a binding province-wide referendum vote.
To ensure fairness and impartiality in the referendum process, we recommended a new referendum act for the province with extensive provisions for governing such a process to be held at the time of the next provincial election. It contained spending and contribution limits, establishment of referendum committees, registration of groups, voter education, and a new independent Elections New Brunswick agency to administer it. We also recommended a legislative assembly study committee to review the new voting system after two elections and report any improvements that might be necessary.
There were two conclusions from our work that may assist you in yours.
First, FPTP has good features and is both familiar and legitimate to most voters. After all, we do accept election night results, and Canada has progressed. However, it does have clear drawbacks and inadequacies that an MMP system could mitigate. MMP, we know, is more reflective of the democratic values of fairness, inclusiveness, choice, and equality of vote. However, MMP at the national level has never really been modelled or analyzed in a comprehensive way that I've seen, except for one Law Commission of Canada report. There are real consequences that we found in outcomes, based on the specific design of that system, that you will need to research and consider should you decide to recommend it.
Second, public legitimacy of a new electoral system is highly desirable and surmounts party and politician interests. It is about the citizen and voter in a citizen-centred democracy. A referendum is the simplest, clearest, and most acceptable way of conferring legitimacy for the long term, not just on the system but more importantly on the outcomes it produces.
I know this is contentious, so let me offer a second best but still viable option to you: provide for a validating referendum after two elections, based on a Parliamentary review of the system, and give Canadians the chance to accept it, perhaps with improvements, or revert back to the previous system.
I'd be happy to take any questions you might have. Thank you for the invitation and for listening.