Electoral Reform Committee on Sept. 20th, 2016

[Richard Kidd]

Yes, they would.

One of the knocks I have on MMP, and I personally like the MMP system—I think EVC is better, but the MMP system is good.... I think if we had it in Canada, you would never get a majority government because you're not going to get any party, at least in the present political climate, that's going to reach the 50% mark in terms of the party vote side.

We're condemned to perpetual minority governments and not only that, you have to consider this business of vote weight ratio that I was talking about. If you tried to reduce the number of proportional seats, which is possible, you can cut it to two-thirds—they do in some South American countries that have 80% or 75% of the constituency seats—you raise the vote weight ratio and you make it much less fair. The final results are much less fair than they would be if it were fifty-fifty.

I think MMP has some flaws. You can't do that. You can't reduce the number of proportional seats to two-thirds easily without bad vote weight ratio, and also, you can't have a majority government. Under my system, you can have it; it's possible, but it's not easy, as anybody who has read my documents knows. However, you can do it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

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

I have one last thing, if I could.

Mr. Kidd submitted the document to some of the members of the committee, but I wonder if he would be willing to leave one copy with the clerk.

[Richard Kidd]

Absolutely. I have extra copies.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

Mr. Cullen.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

It's a pleasure to be here in this beautiful town. You have very fine baked goods. We all can confirm that, and that's important.

I represent a rural constituency in northern British Columbia, and questions of representation are very important to all of us. It looks different, depending on where you're standing in the country. My riding is a little bigger than Poland, so I take challenge to your comment, Mr. Koop, that we have relatively small ridings in this country. We have a bunch of relatively small ridings and then we have a whole bunch of massive ridings.

I want to perhaps leave you confident that one of the committee's guiding principles is direct representation. We are considering models and proposals right now that have to go through that lens. I don't think the committee has heard about too many models that have suggested wiping out direct representation, or not that I can recall. There's maybe been one or two, but certainly not the majority.

Mr. Kidd, thank you for the innovation. It's part of what we're doing here as well. There's a whole library of systems out there, but looking for a made-in-Canada solution is something we're very interested in.

Have you seen the Elections Manitoba study that is just out today, I believe? It will be good for the committee to look at this as well. They looked at the last Manitoba election. The turnout was 57%, I believe. They interviewed people who voted and people who didn't. Of those who didn't vote, 50% said they would vote if their votes counted and if all votes were treated equally. That's as opposed to some of the comments you've made.

Does that result from Elections Manitoba surprise, confirm...? What does it do for you?

I'll start with Professor Koop and then Mr. Kidd.

[Royce Koop]

They're finding that people would be more likely to vote if they thought their vote would count.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

They talked to the non-voters and they were asked why they didn't vote. The two leading reasons were that some votes were seen as less valuable and that votes were not seen as counting; their effort wasn't counting.

[Royce Koop]

It's completely expected that under the electoral system we have there are psychological and mechanical effects that create disincentives for people to vote under certain conditions. If you live in a riding in which the Conservative is going to sweep it and you're an NDP supporter, what's the point of voting? It's not a big surprise at all, so some options for reform would address these sorts of things.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Do you have a system that you prefer?

You mentioned a few in your testimony. You said you were open to ranked ballot, AV, or MMP. Do you land on one side or another?

[Royce Koop]

Any system that produces proportionality would address that. If you feel you're not going to produce a wasted vote, then you're more likely to turn out to vote. Any sort of proportionality will lead to that.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

You fall into the proportionality camp?

[Royce Koop]

I don't feel it's my job to lecture MPs on this. I did have....

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

You don't want to go there. Why not? Goodness, go ahead. We don't mind.

[Royce Koop]

You're quite right about the riding. I worked for the B.C. Citizens' Assembly and followed it afterwards. It was in those northern B.C. ridings where local representation was a huge issue to an extent that it wasn't in the Lower Mainland. People were perfectly fine combining three ridings together, whereas in your part of the province, it was a huge issue. Yes, it is something we should keep in mind.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I wonder if Mr. Kidd had a comment.

[Richard Kidd]

I welcome this question. Why don't people vote? There are two reasons. One is that their votes are going to be wasted losing votes because they reside in constituencies where their candidates can't win, and so their votes are going to be wasted losing votes, and two, they live in ridings where their candidates are going to win handily, so their votes are going to be wasted winning votes.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Why bother?

[Richard Kidd]

This is exactly the problem, and this is exactly the problem that EVC solves because it eliminates the fact that losing votes and superfluous votes don't count. They all count in my system, and that's why I invented it.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I don't want to challenge this too much, Professor Koop, but we heard some damning testimony about how important we are as members of Parliament, in the sense of why people voted for us. Many MPs think it's because of our sheer brilliance and good looks, but evidence shows us increasingly that party leaders, or parties themselves, or a brand are much more deterministic and have become increasingly powerful in why voters choose to put their vote behind one candidate or another.

Do you have evidence that counters that? If so, I'm sure our egos would love to hear it, because it's been quite a bashing at some of these meetings.

[Royce Koop]

It doesn't counter it, but it tempers it. What we know is that there are two measures. The number of volunteers in a local campaign and the amount of money that a campaign spends are both related to increased vote shares. In the end, local campaigns can affect about 5%, and they can increase by about 5%.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

They can change the results, 5% one way or the other.

[Royce Koop]

Yes, that's the maximum.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

That's not much.

[Royce Koop]

Look at the last election. A lot of seats were close calls, so candidates, if they can push that and they end up in a close race, it could have a big effect. The big thing is that candidates can do a lot to help themselves, and MPs, between elections, can help themselves as well.