Electoral Reform Committee on Sept. 21st, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you so much.

Mr. Clutterbuck is not here, I presume? I'll invite Ms. Spooner and Mr. Reimer.

Go ahead, please, Ms. Spooner.

[Lorena Spooner, As an Individual]

Hello, everybody. Thank you so much for being in southern Ontario. I truly appreciate it.

I'm your Twitter geek and democra-geek. I'm here as an individual, although I do work with a variety of groups.

I am a product of the past 28 meetings you had with experts. You heard a lot about education and the need for it. I am one of the lucky few who had civics 101 in the fifth grade. I was engaged in having an election. I ran for prime minister. I lost to somebody because I didn't promise the voters what they wanted to hear. I've been engaged in politics ever since.

Right around the Mulroney years with NAFTA is when I became pro PR. That is when I found out about it. I didn't like chapter 11. The more I've watched it all these years, the less I have liked our majoritarian system. PR is the way to go, you all know that. My reason isn't to discuss all the statistics of 39%, blah, blah, blah. I want to see consensual politics. I want to see civility, real civility. I want to see that members of Parliament are working together, like the ERRE committee has had to. I think that's what we need to grow this country the way it needs to be.

Having been married, had kids, and everything else, and being a grandmother always fighting for PR, I now live in a nation of what I see as electoral system laggers. We are the tail end of OECD countries that are willing to move to consensual politics with no more policy lurches and just people working together.

The last point I'd like to make is that while I appreciate how much has been discussed about civics 101, we also need to remember that parties and the MPs, who have had handbooks that have been written over the last 150 years...those need to be rewritten, and citizens need to support that, as well.

Thanks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much.

I would invite Mr. Gnanasabesan.

Go ahead, Mr. Reimer.

[Boyd Reimer, As an Individual]

Hello. There's been a lot of talk about whether we should have a referendum on whether to change our system and which system to have.

In referendums, the government that phrases the question can do a lot to shape the result. The government can also shape the result by either educating or not educating the voters. If the voters don't have an informed choice, then they have no choice at all. Huge budgets need to be set aside for Canadians to learn about proportional representation before we even vote on it. With that kind of power, the government must be legitimate.

In my eyes, the only legitimate government is one that has been elected with a system based on voter equality. You see where I'm going with this. There's a catch-22. The current government is not elected with a system based on voter equality, and they do not have legitimacy to establish a referendum to find out whether the results of that referendum will be legitimate.

The Conservative Party has said, “okay, we need a referendum to legitimize the results of that referendum“, but if the government that phrases the question of the referendum is not legitimate, then we have a catch-22 situation, and we go in a circle.

Here's my solution. You, as a committee, make a recommendation that we switch to a system based on voter equality. We have one election with that system in place. After that one election, then that government, which is based on voter equality, will phrase the question of the referendum. You can have your referendum and carry on like that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thanks.

I'd invite Mr. Mark Thompson up to the mike.

Mr. Gnanasabesan.

[Sam Gnanasabesan, As an Individual]

Thank you for giving me the chance. I wrote out some points to speak about here tonight. About 10 minutes ago I saw it didn't matter. I've been deceived. I find we have nothing in common. I have read about various countries having these new systems of elections—Poland, Germany, New Zealand, Australia, lots of countries. I think new systems of elections, where PR is involved. Now, I find it hard for what I wrote here is in deceit.

I will talk about balance now. This is the one I quoted from the front desk. I think it's from government, the House of Commons Special Committee on Electoral Reform, page 3, mixed member proportional, that's the one that appears to be very sensible.

But first of all you have to remember you may be having a very high reform of the electoral system. People who vote must understand it.

I invited a friend of mine to come today; he refused. He likes Usain Bolt's type of race; run and win the election. PR, what nonsense, he just wants to vote. That's it. Many people are like that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Are you saying then, sir, that you favour mixed member, or you think that the voting system is....

[Sam Gnanasabesan]

It is not my thinking, but what I see is there are voters out there. They are the people who are going to decide. You may be talking about a very high level of discussion. They must accept. Then you put a highly complicated system of PR to a referendum. Through confusion, it may be rejected.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

If I understand correctly, you're saying you're not in favour of a referendum?

[Sam Gnanasabesan]

I don't have a personal opinion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Yes, but you're giving your sense of how people are feeling about different voting systems.

Take 10 seconds, please.

[Sam Gnanasabesan]

I see you for the first time. Thank you very much.

I am a Green Party supporter because I always think about the future of the earth: clean air, no pollution, good food, and this party is the one that is fighting for that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Thompson, please, it's your turn. After that it will be Ms. Elwell.

[Mark Thompson, As an Individual]

Hello, my name is Mark Thompson.

I have thought of what I think is a really good idea for a new election system. It's a very simple system. We run the election the same way we do now. We elect the first 338 members as is. We then add 33% more seats to the House of Commons. We then fill those seats with candidates who received a high percentage of votes in their riding but didn't win. We fill them based on their party and which province they're in, in a way that the overall result matches the popular vote as closely as possible.

What makes this a good system is that it is, one, very simple, I explained it in 30 seconds. Two, it involves very little change from the voters' perspective. There are no changes to the ballot; there's no change to the ridings; there are no lists. From the voters' perspective they don't even have to learn the system. They don't have to learn any new way of voting. They can vote exactly the way they vote now; all that changes is the result.

If you're planning a referendum, I think it's very important that whatever system you choose is very simple and easy to explain to Canadians. If it's overly complex people are going to reject it just because they don't understand it.

I'm going to suggest that you choose my system, which I call first few past the post because in some ridings you'll have two members of Parliament.

Are there any questions?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

It's pretty clear, actually. It's pretty elegantly simple.

[Mark Thompson]

There you go.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much.

I would invite Ms. Jane Garthson to come up to mike number two, and we'll have Ms. Elwell provide us her comments now.

[Christine Elwell, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My name is Christine Elwell. I live in the University—Rosedale riding.

Thank you for coming here.

I believe that the most important issue facing us is climate change and the crisis that we're facing for my and future generations. I was very happy that Justin Trudeau agreed to address this issue. He also said that 2015 was the last first past the post election. I don't think a referendum is needed. I think he has the mandate.

My concern is, I'm struggling with which PR system is the best to effectively and quickly address climate change. I'm asking this special committee, in your final report and in your recommendations, could you please screen for climate change when you're looking at the various models? I don't have one in particular in mind, but would like you to view it through the lens of climate change to assist the public and politicians in figuring out which will most effectively address this crisis.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much.

We'll hear now from Ms. Garthson.

[Jane Garthson, As an Individual]

Thank you very much for the opportunity for individuals to be respectfully heard.

I'm Jane Garthson. I'm a Toronto resident and a governance consultant to public benefit organizations.

I care who represents me in Parliament. I'm here to support the single transferable vote, which I think can produce a Parliament very close to proportionate without the downside of list-based proportional representation.

In Ireland, STVs produce mostly stable governments, highly proportionate outcomes, and representation for small parties and independents while leaving power in the hands of individual voters. It's even helped figure out with whom to form a coalition, if need be.

I want all MPs to be directly accountable to a constituency—I've seen that constituency work matters—not to a party back room. We need to reduce party control, not increase it. I don't know a single Canadian outside of party back rooms who thinks we should increase the influence that parties have on who represents us in Parliament. Don't let lists put un-electable people into Parliament. STV will greatly improve civil discourse and positive campaigning. That matters to me. Candidates can't afford to alienate the supporters of other good candidates. That is not a benefit we would get from list-based systems.

With regard to simplicity, one of your values, I have experience with ranked ballots and found people understood them very easily. I think the same will be true for STV. Software can enable fast calculations. Just pick a system from an existing jurisdiction that has it working. Don't waste time and money developing from scratch.

I'm not an expert, but I've heard that list-based PR can be the crack that opens the door to the election of extremists, which almost all Canadians would find abhorrent. I know that many proportional representation supporters are thinking about environmentalists, but they might be skinheads instead.

Just about anything you choose would be better than the unfair and unrepresentative results we sometimes get from first past the post. I never want to be out promoting strategic voting again. I ask you to make a quick decision so that I never have to do that again. I trust you, the committee, to choose wisely for all Canadians.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

Is Mr. Hill here? No.

Ms. Vandermeer and then Mr. Stewart.

Go ahead, Ms. Vandermeer.

[Elizabeth Vandermeer, As an Individual]

Thank you very much to the committee for letting me speak. My name is Liza Vandermeer and I drove four hours from North Bay to be here.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you for coming.

[Elizabeth Vandermeer]

I consider myself non-partisan from a political perspective, although in full disclosure I did run as a Rhinoceros candidate in 1980.

I absolutely support the need for electoral reform in Canada. I absolutely feel that we need proportional representation. I do not support the concept of ranked ballot. I really hope to see the end of the first past the post system.

I want the composition of our Parliament to reflect the total votes cast. As an example, I believe it is indefensible that 3% of Canadian voters voted Green and only one Green MP sits right now. There should be at least nine, although our current one does the work of about 50.

[Voices]

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