Thank you.
We'll go to Mr. Rayes.
Evidence of meeting #25 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 good.
Evidence of meeting #25 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 good.
2:20 p.m.
Conservative
Alain Rayes Conservative Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I echo my colleagues in thanking the witnesses for joining us today.
My first question goes to Mr. Koop. You talked about the importance of local representation. I am one of those who believes in that deeply; it is a priority for the public. I have actually asked people that question and most, if not all, would like to be able to vote for their member of Parliament.
Personally, I am very concerned about any other voting system. I feel that you highlighted it well in your remarks. You say that you would be in favour of a proportional system if it could protect local representation. However, to achieve that, according to what all the experts tell us, we would have to substantially increase the number of members of Parliament. My constituency contains 40 municipalities. It takes me an hour and a half to drive from one end to the other. I cannot imagine having a larger territory to cover and being able to serve my fellow citizens equally well.
So, in the best of all worlds, do you know of a model that would allow that? Mr. Kidd seems to have presented one, but do you know of another one?
2:20 p.m.
Associate Professor and Department Head, Department of Political Studies, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
You've identified the central challenge of this. How do you get proportionality while maintaining local representation if you're not willing to add more members of Parliament? That's the unavoidable solution. I said, for example, to just add a bunch of list MPs, but don't take away constituency MPs, and that's the answer. If people don't want to add more MPs, more politicians, then you have to make one choice or the other. It's going to be really hard to get those two outcomes at the same time.
2:20 p.m.
Conservative
Alain Rayes Conservative Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
My understanding is that, to get to the mixed-member proportional system as you see it, without sacrificing representation, you would automatically have to substantially increase the number of members in order to keep that close relationship. Is that correct?
2:20 p.m.
Associate Professor and Department Head, Department of Political Studies, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
I don't know about many more MPs. The more list MPs you have, the more proportional outcomes you'll get, but that's a choice that can be made. It doesn't have to be perfect proportionality. If you have a certain number of list MPs, you're going to get more proportional outcomes. I'm not sure of the exact proportion.
2:20 p.m.
Conservative
Alain Rayes Conservative Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
Thank you.
My second question is for you too. If I am not mistaken, you are saying that any proportional system would increase the participation rate of those voting in an election. Last March 12, in Parliament in Ottawa, I attended a presentation by Professor André Blais, an expert in voting systems at the Université de Montréal. He was with Antonia Maioni, from McGill University. He answered a question from the audience about whether proportional voting would lead to a higher rate of participation.
The answer that he gave, based on a number of analyses he has conducted from around the world, is that there is not really a direct effect on the voting percentage, plus or minus 3%. So it may even go down. He talked about New Zealand, where there has been a drop of 10% since a system of that kind was put in place. He said no, the effect of that model is often to increase the number of parties and to reduce the participation rate. This is not my position; here is what he said: “Studies show that the proportional model has no effect in increasing the voting rate among minorities in the way that the Liberals would like to change the trend. Generally, however—and, it is true, we see it in comments from the public—the word proportional inspires confidence in people and is perceived as more equitable.”
Do you have any documents, studies or research that you have done and that you could provide to us, to confirm your statement that any proportional method that we might put in place would increase the participation rate?
2:20 p.m.
Associate Professor and Department Head, Department of Political Studies, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
There are two ways you can address this question of turnout. First, you can compare a turnout between proportional systems with what we have with non-proportional systems. What you see is that turnout tends to be higher in proportional systems. That is there. That doesn't necessarily mean that if Canada moves from a non-proportional to a proportional system, then we'll get a higher turnout. It's highly suggestive of that.
The problem with looking at it is that not many countries have gone from a non-proportional to a proportional system. The number of cases is fairly low, so it's hard to make that case. I'm comfortable saying there's probably a high likelihood that if we moved to a PR system, over time our turnout rate would increase. There are good theoretical reasons for thinking that.
You are right; people are not atoms. Voters are not atoms. We can't predict with certainty what they're going to do, but I think there are good theoretical reasons for thinking that turnout would increase if we moved to a proportional system.
2:25 p.m.
Conservative
Alain Rayes Conservative Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
I was asking if you have any documentation or research that confirms your perception.
2:25 p.m.
Associate Professor and Department Head, Department of Political Studies, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
Do you mean that turnout tends to be higher under a proportional system? Yes, I could find that.
2:25 p.m.
Conservative
Alain Rayes Conservative Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
Is it possible for you to send that to the committee?
2:25 p.m.
Associate Professor and Department Head, Department of Political Studies, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
Yes, definitely.
2:25 p.m.
Liberal
Matt DeCourcey Liberal Fredericton, NB
My thanks to our witnesses.
On behalf of my fellow Acadians in New Brunswick, I thank everyone in this small community for the opportunity to visit you today.
I want to start with Professor Koop on this idea of local representation. Do you have any study data evidence to suggest what might be an ideal number of constituents or electors a representative could effectively represent?
2:25 p.m.
Associate Professor and Department Head, Department of Political Studies, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
No, I'm not aware of any studies like that. It could be done. You could test people's satisfaction with democracy based on the size of the riding. I could look for those riding statistics, but I'm not familiar with them.
It's also not just a single question, of course. There is also this question of equity built into it for some citizens and for their representatives, as well. If you live in a rural riding in Canada that has just about the same number of people as an urban riding but which is huge, the quality of representation must suffer. Your MP is going to be less accessible. It's harder to get in touch with your MP. It's harder for the MP to get in touch with you. They have to travel around to learn about the needs and preferences of the constituents.
It's hard to say an exact number, but what we can say is that it will get worse as the constituency gets bigger or it gets more populous.
2:25 p.m.
Liberal
Matt DeCourcey Liberal Fredericton, NB
I can feel that rather acutely in the riding I represent, which is not even close to comparable to the size of the riding that Nathan has to represent.
We touched a little on the relative merits and drawbacks of the current system, MMP. I wonder if you could share your thoughts on what the alternative vote might offer Canadians.
2:30 p.m.
Associate Professor and Department Head, Department of Political Studies, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
The alternative vote doesn't really affect what I was talking about with local representation. There would certainly be a local representative. That would be preserved, so it would be a real plus of the alternative vote as well.
We would perhaps see that people feel like they have more input into the choice. Because of the ranking nature of the ballot, more votes are included in the overall result. We might see increased democratic satisfaction as a result of that, but beyond that I am not sure. It wouldn't be a huge change. It is a relatively innocuous change to the electoral system compared to some of the other alternatives that we are talking about today.
2:30 p.m.
Liberal
Matt DeCourcey Liberal Fredericton, NB
Before I end this conversation about local representation, would it be fair to say that there is an element of the local representative affecting the way someone goes to the polls to cast a vote, but perhaps what you are touching on more is the political culture that exists right now, where constituents, after the election, expect to have someone to hold accountable vis-à-vis their relationship to Parliament or to government? Is that an equally important aspect of the conversation we are having right now?
2:30 p.m.
Associate Professor and Department Head, Department of Political Studies, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
Yes, sure. It is certainly part of the political culture in Canada that you have a local MP. You know who your MP is. There is one of them. They are defined on the basis of geography. You have your storefront constituency office, and if you have problems, you can go to that MP and have them dealt with, hopefully. MPs show up at local events and functions. This is all built into the experience of politics in Canada, and it would certainly be changed by electoral systems that either get rid of single member constituencies or create multi-member constituencies. Yes, definitely.
2:30 p.m.
Liberal
Matt DeCourcey Liberal Fredericton, NB
Mr. Kidd, I was listening to the conversation between you and Mr. Reid. I understand that what your system, in your view, resolves, which is not resolved under the current system and also causes issue under MMP, is the idea of vote weight ratio.
2:30 p.m.
Liberal
Matt DeCourcey Liberal Fredericton, NB
I am not sure whether I have heard that directly spoken about so far—maybe in a glancing way by others—but can you, in 30 seconds, give me the elevator pitch on exactly what you are resolving with this idea of figuring out the right vote weight ratio?
2:30 p.m.
As an Individual
Okay.
We want all votes to be equal in value, but in mixed member systems they aren't, because the losing votes don't have as much weight as the winning votes. In MMP, the vote weight ratio tends to be about 3:1. In my system, it is lower. It can be made 2:1 or even better. The only system in which you are going to get exact equality among all votes is PR, where everybody's vote counts and there is no local representation. It works that way.