Electoral Reform Committee on Sept. 20th, 2016

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Thank you very much for your presentation.

If I understand correctly, you are proposing the status quo. In your presentation, you say that electronic voting would be too dangerous. Basically, your preference is that we keep the status quo, the current system.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Very briefly, unfortunately.

[Prof. Bryan Schwartz]

In Still Thinking I argued for PR light. My current position is not definitively settled until I see the different arguments and see what's happening at the provincial level.

With electronic voting, I'm not against it; it's just that I meant literally what I said. I think initially we underestimated the risk to democracy of tampering and so on and so forth. It's very serious and it has to be dealt with very carefully.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

Ms. May, please.

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

Thank you to the witnesses for being here.

I'll start with you, Professor Schwartz. I read your paper before you reconsidered, but I'm still looking forward to hearing you.

No offence, but we sometimes get this from academics that somehow everything is okay because the system somehow adapted to it, that political parties figured it out and they're all fine now. If we're looking at the current situation in Canada, and this is one of the things that comes through from many academics, it depends on what you value; if you value how the parties are doing, then you're more sanguine than if you're concerned with how the voters are feeling. This question of parties have adapted to policy lurches and false majorities, but have the voters adapted? Isn't the case you made when you wrote—for which I can't find the date—on proportional representation for Canada or some of the work you did with the Law Commission—isn't the case the same for voters even if parties have figured it out?

[Prof. Bryan Schwartz]

[Technical difficulty—Editor] adapt, voters have adapted as well as parties. Parties are responding to the way people vote. When right of centre parties got together to form the Saskatchewan Party, eventually they won. The voters of Canada decided it was a good idea for the right of centre parties at the federal level to unite, and they elected a Conservative government. There's no sharp separation in adaptation between what the parties do and what the voters do. The parties are worried about getting elected and the voters are deciding who to vote for, so I think both have adapted.

We've had plebiscites in Canada on voting system reform. It lost with a high rule in B.C. It didn't quite get the 60%, but it did not succeed in Ontario. I would think the problem is the opposite. Academics are full of really good theories and insufficiently sceptical of reality testing them and asking what people actually think. I think the academic tendency is toward too much emphasis on abstract thinking and “I came up with a new plan”, rather than seeing what's field tested, what works, what Canadians think, and how they conduct themselves.

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

With the time I have, I want to turn to our Unifor witnesses.

In terms of my sense of how people feel about voting—and this is not to leave you out of this, Professor Schwartz, since you just made the comment—Conservative voters may have been pleased that Reform became Alliance and cannibalized the Progressive Conservative Party, but it still only commanded 39% of the vote which led to a majority government that did some rather radical things that were never in the Conservative Party platform.

I'll take it to an academic level again in terms of the case for PR as a way of looking for political consensus and trying to find ways so that when one prime minister and his or her cabinet leave office, their successors don't take the whole ship of state and turn it 180°; they are more or less on the same course because all of the policies came from a place of greater political consensus as a result of our voting system. That's certainly what I've heard from a lot of our witnesses.

I'll turn to Mr. Gibson and Ms. Smoke, and then if we can fit in your comment as well, Mr. Schwartz, I'd appreciate that.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

When I was looking at the numbers there, like the 39% of the vote, where's the other 61%? That's 61% of the electorate that has no representative. That's a clear majority. Where do their interests lie? Where are their interests being held? What minority group are they from? My biggest concern is that large percentage that is not being represented. Where are they, who are they, and what are their concerns?

[Gina Smoke]

The communities I worked in for the first time lived in poverty, for whatever reason. I knocked on so many doors. They said to me, “Why should I vote? What can they do for me? Everybody is the same.” It's really hard to try to convince people why they should vote. There were sometimes days when I felt like I didn't even know what to say to them anymore.

You're trying to tell them that everybody will make a difference. I didn't tell people how to vote. I'd just say to look at everybody and look at what they stand for. If it's people who have been in office for a long time and they haven't made a difference for them, then maybe try another one, because the only way they can make a change is to change it, and they can't change it if they don't get out and vote.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much.

We'll go to Ms. Romanado.

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

I'd like to thank the three of you for being here with us today.

I say this often, so my colleagues may also get tired of hearing it. We've heard that there is no electoral system that will treat all that ails us. For instance, increasing voter participation can be addressed by mandatory voting. Removing some of those barriers for our first nations communities, you brought up—and my colleague Gabriel brought it up as well, and I'm glad you did—the identification, the language issues, and the remoteness of the community.

Are there other currently existing barriers we could address which may not necessarily get addressed by a change in the voting system? I'm not at all against PR. Right now I'm not for or against anything. I'm just trying to poke holes to see where everything lands. Are there other barriers to voting for our first nations? What are they, and what would you recommend for us to address those barriers?

[Gina Smoke]

I think everybody should know why it's important to vote. I don't know why we don't have it in our school systems, because it's something that we all have to do when we become old enough to vote. On the reserves we don't talk about it. Why would we talk about it, because our vote doesn't count. It's just been ingrained in people for years.

I do think it's slowly changing, the more that we do PR. I think it's important to get out there and explain to them. My mother was able to speak three different languages, so she was able to talk to the elders in the community about voting.

There are still a lot of issues around the residential schools that make it somewhat difficult to know why being involved in politics is important.

But my mother never backed down on that, and never taught us to be judgmental or to hate anybody. It was just about trying to make a change, and it's all based on education.

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

Okay, thank you. That's a good point.

I didn't know that it's not talked about. It's important that we know that. As you said, maybe candidates should go to the communities and speak to the elders, and not just at election time.

[Gina Smoke]

Exactly.

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

Mr. Gibson, you look like you want to add to that.

[Darren Gibson]

I lost my thought on that one, sorry.

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

Professor Schwartz, do you have anything you'd like to add?

[Prof. Bryan Schwartz]

It's not a good idea to try to think of voting systems in terms of resolving politics as though we won't have ongoing disagreements, which is not a good thing. You can address a lot of problems within the system through the open government initiative. If there's an issue with, for example, demographic representation, there are a lot of ways to deal with that, within the parties and at other levels, without changing the voting system.

If you want to change the voting system, let's think first and foremost of its inherent issues in terms of the framework, but not as a substitute for politics. We should not dictate, “Okay, I'm on the left or the right, so I want to somehow get a system where I would win.”

I keep coming back to alternation. I've heard nothing ever changes in Manitoba, where people lost safe seats, where cabinet ministers in seats that would never change, changed at the last election. Every election is a signal to the current government, which is potentially affecting the next election.

Did I waste my vote because sometimes I vote for the guys who didn't win? No. Maybe it's sending a message, and maybe my team will win the next time. People say, “Oh, my view didn't prevail,” but I am in favour of parties and ideologies having office when I don't agree with them.

I'm in favour of alternation. I like the idea of different people, different voices having a turn. I like the idea of policies being evaluated and given a fresh thinking. I like the idea that one team of patronage seekers doesn't always win.

I like the idea that people who disagree get a turn in office, and they can live with the problem. If you think national security is easy because it's all about privacy, well, you try being in office and actually having to sign papers in which you're dealing with a terrorist threat, or you try being in office as the “we're all security” party and think of the consequences on personal privacy.

I like politics. I like alternation. I like disagreement. I like vitality. Anything that says we're just going to put in place the same bland majority coalition indefinitely or that doesn't allow that sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, that you might change your mind, that you're not always right, and that other people should get a turn, I don't agree with. I like the vitality of legit politics.

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

Thank you.

I think Mr. Gibson just remembered what he wanted to say.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Go ahead.

[Darren Gibson]

On the education component, I'm [Technical difficulty—Editor] familiar with the Fair Elections Act, but it was amended so that we could not talk about education and we could not promote elections. I'm not sure if it's in this committee's mandate to make a change to that, so that we can talk about elections, and educate and promote.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thanks very much.

Okay, Monsieur Rayes.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My thanks to the three witnesses, and to the people in the room, for joining us.

My question goes to Mr. Gibson and Ms. Smoke. It's a very simple question to start with.

After the committee has tabled a report, would you agree that its recommendation should be put to the people in a referendum, so that everyone can express their opinion one way or the other?

[Darren Gibson]

I don't think a referendum is necessary for a number of reasons. First of all, as I said in my brief, Mr. Trudeau has already said that that will be the last election under our current system. A lot of MPs have agreed with that. Also, I've submitted in my brief an article from the Ottawa Citizen dated September 18, 2016, where there's no overwhelming desire to have a referendum. I think right now Canadians are just looking for a system that they can use.

This year is the 100th anniversary of the right of women to vote. I would imagine that in the 1920s, if we had held a referendum on that, most men would have voted against it, and maybe women still wouldn't have the right to vote today.

I do not think that it is time for a referendum. I think it's time for change.

Maybe I could propose a question. How much would a referendum actually cost, and what would be the time frame on that referendum?

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Ms. Smoke, do you agree with Mr. Gibson's position?