Evidence of meeting #26 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 please.
9 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Could Ms. Shona Rae Boris come to the mike.
Now we'll hear from Erin Keating.
9 p.m.
Erin L. Keating As an Individual
Thank you for coming to Winnipeg.
I want to start by talking about the last federal election. I was involved in working with a strong group of youth with Leadnow. We worked immensely hard to deal with the emergency situation we felt we were in. I believe we truly did have an impact on voter turnout. Our message was that we were begging you to vote strategically to get out of the emergency we were in, and then we would never do this again because we were promised a change in our electoral system. It would be very interesting to me to find out how many people voted for the first time last time with the idea in mind that this was the last time. It was embarrassing to knock on doors and ask people to strategically vote. It was really hard. It was not something I felt proud to do, but we were in an emergency.
I work in sustainability, and from what I can see when I'm doing research every single day, the countries that are sustainable—and when I speak about sustainability, that's environmental, but that's also social, community, and economic; I'm actually an accountant—are at the forefront of that work within a PR system. That, I believe, is the truth for the most part.
I do actually hope that you're going to fact-check some of what Mr. Thomas was saying. I lived in Scotland in 1996 and 1997. I don't believe it was a very progressive place at that time. I'm shocked to see the stuff that's coming out of there right now, and I do believe it has something to do with the change in their system.
As I say, I'm an accountant. We're talking about federal politics with federal issues, so when we're counting votes, counting them at a federal level and making that work makes sense in this system.
9:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Thank you very much.
Mr. Harney, please.
Go ahead, Ms. Boris.
9:05 p.m.
Shona Rae Boris As an Individual
First of all, I would like to say that every vote does count.
I'd like to make a recommendation for people with disabilities. I am a former heath care aide for over ten years. I've worked with paraplegics and quadriplegics, and I would say it is very difficult to get out and vote. My recommendation is to have the nurse or the health care aide go and do the vote with them and then put it in an envelope. I think that would be a good recommendation.
For mothers with young children as well, it could be really difficult to get out to vote, so on mandatory voting, I would say no. This is Canada, and we all have our rights to vote. In addition to that, I believe voting is important, but it's not who we're voting for; it's what changes we are voting for.
I believe we are here to work in collaboration as a team together.
I want to add that I have done some petitions about families staying together. I really appreciate the people who have signed my petition because I'm still making progress with the changes. To me, that is a vote.
I believe that when we stand together, we're working together for a better change and for a brighter future.
Thank you.
9:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Thank you very much.
Ms. LaTouche, please come up to the mike, and we'll hear from Mr. Harney.
9:05 p.m.
Niall Harney As an Individual
My name is Niall Harney. I'm another community organizer here with Leadnow.
I wrote these notes with a bit of a rhetorical flair that seems misplaced at the end of such a long meeting. I'll try to keep it short and take just a few points out of what I wrote. Like most people here, I'm here to voice my support for proportional representation and immediate change to our electoral system.
To the Liberal MPs in the room, I, along with many other Canadians, have reserved judgment on this government until you've had a chance to prove yourselves on your progressive politics. This is now the time to prove yourselves.
I also want to echo Joe's comments. I urge this government to take this opportunity to put forward real change for this country, not more incremental change like Mr. Thomas was calling for, but real system change. I know that young people will be behind you 100%.
9:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Mr. Andrew Park, please come to the front.
Ms. LaTouche, go ahead, please.
9:10 p.m.
Ann LaTouche As an Individual
My notes are kind of all over the place; I was making them as I was listening. I have a few points.
First I want to comment on the response of Paul Thomas to a question about voter apathy. I don't think it's enough to talk about mandatory voting and accessibility. Carlos Sosa touched on it. Poverty is a big problem. People in desperate circumstances are worried about immediate needs: food, clothing, shelter, or some means of escaping the mental and physical anguish. This needs to be addressed first, and then literacy, teaching people what governments and elections are for and why they should care. You talked about a decrease in participation, and I think it's partly due to the increasing problems of poverty and illiteracy. It's no accident that revolutions aren't started by the poor.
I have another concern. It's the influence of corporations over government, especially corporations that undermine our social, health care, and welfare systems, and destroy the environment. I would hope that some form of proportional representation would mitigate those kinds of problems and the negative effects of corporate influence.
At any rate, I would feel somewhat re-enfranchised...and I think such a system would make politicians less inclined to abandon their partisan ideologies, racing toward the centre in order to attempt to steal votes from rivals.
9:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Thank you.
Mr. Bailey, to the front, please.
Mr. Park, the floor is yours.
9:10 p.m.
Andrew Park As an Individual
I feel like some sort of Tragically Hip cover band. Everything has already been said by people with a lot more talent than me. Nevertheless, here we go.
When I dropped into these committee proceedings, I felt like I was dropping into some sort of alternate universe where actual decisions were as illusive as the infamous Higgs boson.
Ladies and gentlemen of the committee, you were chosen to make a decision. The Liberal government, which is enjoying a huge majority in Parliament, was elected to make a decision, and it promised that it was going to enact a system of proportional representation.
Now, I too am waving around my copy of Irwin Cotler's 2004 law society report, and in it they came out solidly in favour of a mixed member proportional system. That isn't necessarily my favourite system, but I can live with it because it has the elements of true proportionality.
Ranked ballot and alternative vote systems are another form of majoritarian system, and they will lead to more false majorities. They may ensure a majority within a riding, but they cannot ensure a majority across the country. Please, Liberal Party of Canada, and with all due deference to the ladies in the room, it's time for the federal government to grow a pair, make a decision, enact the legislation, educate the voters, and let us all move forward together by the next election.
Do I have any time left?
9:10 p.m.
As an Individual
In that case, I'll generously donate 15 seconds to my friend Alon Weinberg, who clearly needed them.
9:10 p.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
9:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
The last person after Mr. Bailey will be Shauna Lei-Leslie.
Could Shauna Lei-Leslie come to the mike?
We'll hear from Mr. Bailey now.
9:15 p.m.
Michael Bailey As an Individual
You got my name right. It is Bailey like Baileys Irish Cream. If you want to increase voter turnout, behind the voter screen you'd have those little pencils, a big bottle of Bailey's, and those little shot glasses. Actually, never mind shot glasses; go with beer glasses. Voter turnout: 125%, guaranteed. Vote early; vote often.
At any rate, the problem with our system does not lie with how we select our MPs. At least, that's not the biggest problem. The problem is what happens to those MPs once they get to Parliament Hill. They cease to be representatives of the people of their constituency, and they become representatives of the party whip, the PMO, and the party leader. That's where the democratic deficit lies.
Our MPs should not fear the reprisals of their leaders, but they should fear the reprisals of their voters. My MP is Doug Eyolfson, a swell fellow. I didn't vote for him. I like talking to him. I have no doubt that if 20,000 people came to him and said, “You know what, we don't like this party line; we want you to vote against it”, he'd be happy to do it, except that the government whip is sitting there ready to crack the whip if he doesn't do as he's told.
It doesn't matter how we select who we put there. If they're not representing the members of the riding, there's no difference, whether it's proportional representation or first past the post.
So I will put to you that the first step should be to make our Parliament functional. The government is the cabinet. The entire rest of the Parliament is the House of Commons. They are representing the commons, and they should be holding the cabinet to account on behalf of the people who elected them, whether we voted for them or not. I didn't vote for Doug, but I have absolutely no doubt he would represent our wishes if he could. He's not the person I voted for, but he's my MP, and I'm happy to have him as an MP.
Am I done?
9:15 p.m.
As an Individual
Then, I actually have very little else to say, other than...it's kind of odd to hear that thing about “my voice wasn't heard; democracy is in danger; don't have a referendum”. That is very backwards thinking. For this kind of major change, we must have a referendum. Why do we not want to hear from the voices of the people who are going to be affected most by this change?
Thank you.
9:15 p.m.
Liberal
September 20th, 2016 / 9:15 p.m.
Shauna-Lei Leslie As an Individual
This is not part of my presentation, but the town hall meeting for the sitting member for Brandon-Souris is this Saturday, the 24th, at Trails West. Someone has said it wasn't happening.
I'm in the minority, here, because I do not understand all these methods of voting. I have read and researched, and I still don't understand.
I attended a town hall meeting for an MP in Winnipeg. That's not my riding but I attended, thinking that these methods were going to be explained to me. They were not. He had a slide presentation. He told us he was doing the Coles Notes version. When he got to proportional voting, he said it was too confusing to explain. Mixed proportional representation is more confusing and it's very complicated.
When and how are we going to learn how a new system would work? Low voter turnout has been talked about. I would think that if people do not understand how the system works, they will not even bother to show up to vote.
From what I have read, in my riding I could end up with an MP I have never heard of, let alone met. This person could potentially know nothing about the area or the makeup of the riding. How can that be good for the local riding? I think this would further increase low voter turnout.
As for mandatory voting, Canada is still a free country, and I think that would go against the charter of rights. However, aside from the charter, I believe that if people are forced to vote, you will see a lot of rejected and spoiled ballots because people won't want to participate.
Online voting is an issue that scares me. If someone can hack the CRA website, how do you think they're not going to hack our voting and skew all the data that might be in it?
9:20 p.m.
As an Individual
Okay.
New computer programs are run in parallel with the present system, so how would you do this to make sure that the bugs are worked out?
9:20 p.m.
Conservative
Dan Albas Conservative Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC
My recommendation—and this is only going to take me a couple of seconds—would be to slow down this whole timeline, do public education over the next three years, set up and promote a website that's strictly for the education. You can do that by TV and print media. Then ask the Canadian public through a referendum, after they have been educated, and hold it in conjunction with the next election.
9:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Thank you very much.
[Applause]
That brings us to the end of a really great evening, a very lively open-mike session. It was great. The people, I thought, were very to the point and told it like it is, and that's what this process is about, so I thank you all for participating.
We're off to Toronto tomorrow morning to hear from people there. In the meantime, your comments have been recorded. The analysts have also made notes. You have made an impression, so thank you very much.