Evidence of meeting #28 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 elected.
2:10 p.m.
Conservative
Alain Rayes Conservative Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
I would rather have a comparison with the current system. Would people still vote the same way under your system?
2:10 p.m.
Consultant and Tutor, Université TELUQ, As an Individual
There is no difference.
2:10 p.m.
Conservative
Alain Rayes Conservative Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
If there are four or five candidates, people vote and the candidate with the most votes is elected.
2:10 p.m.
Consultant and Tutor, Université TELUQ, As an Individual
There is no difference.
In terms of the vote, the Chief Electoral Officer tallies the votes the same way as he does now. In converting the result to the number of MPs, he considers all the votes cast. I will not go into more detail about the algorithm, but it is a formula used to balance the matrices. For example, there must be enough Liberal MPs in order to have proportional representation. For the Liberals, for example, the person with the most votes gets a ratio of 1. The Conservatives, who placed second, get a ratio of 1.2. For the NDP, the ratio is 1.27, and it is 3.32 for the Green Party. Then all the local elections are calculated. It could happen that the party that places third in a constituency is ultimately elected. That is the unpleasant part, from a psychological point of view.
2:10 p.m.
Conservative
Alain Rayes Conservative Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
That means that, on election night, the candidate who won the most votes is not necessarily the one who is elected to Parliament.
2:10 p.m.
Consultant and Tutor, Université TELUQ, As an Individual
Exactly.
There is a combination of factors. It is the best compromise between having a local representative and a national representative. The more votes a candidate garners in the constituency, the greater their chances of being elected.
There is something else I mentioned that in my brief but did not have the time to tell you. All the candidates who win 50% of the votes can be excluded from the calculations, because it would not make sense to bump them after they had won. This method, which has the benefit of absorbing all the distortions by balancing the factors, was simulated for the United States where arbitrary constituency boundaries is a major problem.
2:10 p.m.
Conservative
Alain Rayes Conservative Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
Consider my case, for example.
I was elected with 32.7% of the votes. On election night, I beat my closest rival by more than 5,000 votes. Depending on the calculation method, I might not have been declared elected by the Chief Electoral Officer. I imagine that calculation is not done instantly.
2:10 p.m.
Consultant and Tutor, Université TELUQ, As an Individual
It takes just a few milliseconds to calculate.
2:10 p.m.
Conservative
Alain Rayes Conservative Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
Milliseconds because there is a machine that calculates the algorithm. The new result is announced and my closest rival is declared elected.
2:10 p.m.
Consultant and Tutor, Université TELUQ, As an Individual
It makes for interesting elections. I have lived in Spain before ...
2:10 p.m.
Conservative
Alain Rayes Conservative Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
Very nice! I do not have any more questions about this voting method. I will stop you here.
2:10 p.m.
Consultant and Tutor, Université TELUQ, As an Individual
It is a secondary effect of the proportional system. The elections are incredibly boring. I experienced that in Spain. A certain number of representatives are elected and the night is over.
2:10 p.m.
Conservative
Alain Rayes Conservative Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
In your opinion, with respect to the issues that concern people and that you have surely heard before you made your calculations, are there other methods that would yield better representation and generate more public interest in voting, without necessarily changing the voting method?
2:10 p.m.
Consultant and Tutor, Université TELUQ, As an Individual
From what I have read, there are many myths surrounding proportional system. Even in Europe, in the countries that have the system, public interest is dropping off. In political economy, we wonder why people vote because, statistically speaking, the chance of being able to change something is infinitesimally small. People rationalize it all by saying that it will be a catastrophe if they don't vote. In other words, people rationalize about going to vote.
I think a better way of generating interest in the right to vote is through education. In northern Europe, they have achieved high rates of voter turnout. People visit schools to tell young people how the system works. It starts at all levels, municipally, provincially, and at the other levels.
2:15 p.m.
Conservative
Alain Rayes Conservative Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
I have one final question for you.
If I understood correctly, you said that your studies and the documentation available to you do not necessarily indicate that proportional representation has an impact on the equitable representation of men and women.
Did I understand that correctly?
2:15 p.m.
Consultant and Tutor, Université TELUQ, As an Individual
That information comes from a master's thesis from the early 2000s, as I recall. The author was Rob Salmond, from the University of Southern California. I have it somewhere in my notes. He compared all the states.
As I recall, the Scandinavian countries were the first to give women the vote.
2:15 p.m.
Conservative
Alain Rayes Conservative Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
I would like to know if that information could be provided to the committee. It does not necessarily correspond to what we have heard.
September 22nd, 2016 / 2:15 p.m.
NDP
Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to thank the two witnesses for being here with us. They are very interesting, if not somewhat upsetting.
I have a brief anecdote for you. In a store in Old Québec where I went to buy an electronic device, the cashier asked what I was doing there and whether I had said the wrong parliament. I told him that we were holding consultations on reforming the voting method. The three young employees in the store looked at me right away and said, “Yes, go ahead. Do it.”. We hear that people are not interested, but then there are experiences like that.
Mr. Dutil, your system is fascinating. Some people will share my view, I think, that voters will not accept it if we tell them that a vote for the Liberals is worth 0.8, a vote for the Conservatives is worth 1.3, and a vote for the Green Party is worth 3. That is not consistent with the way people perceive a fair vote.
I would, however, like to talk about multi-member districts and the objective of achieving a degree of proportionality. Yesterday, Professor Stephenson told us that the number varies from three to seven. For its part, Ireland has a transferable vote. The number usually varies, as I recall, from three to five or three to six. For your part, you have placed it at six.
Given the geography of the Canadian federation, ridings with six MPs could be problematic. The population has to be represented equally.
How do you see that?
2:15 p.m.
Consultant and Tutor, Université TELUQ, As an Individual
I have not done simulations for Canada yet because it is a lot of work, one week of full-time work, in fact. I did do tests for Quebec though. When there were fewer than six, there were serious problems with electoral thresholds. It was like a staircase. Actually, it is regional variation that creates proportional representation in such cases. Sometimes there are up to three.
The problem, however, is that a person can say that their vote will never count in their riding. The number three will occur frequently in Canada. It will even be one in some places.
I can understand that people are not happy with this. I had the idea of applying less proportional representation in rural regions because, with a majority vote, the degree of proportional representation can be varied, with more proportional representation in urban centres. We would be closer to the regular vote in rural regions and further away from it in the cities. That is one possibility.
I know that, in Canada, having six or more is not feasible. As I said, it is one of the worst places in the world for it. It was not easy in Quebec either. In Canada, 50% of the population lives on 1% of the land area.
2:15 p.m.
NDP
2:15 p.m.
Consultant and Tutor, Université TELUQ, As an Individual
People who live in the regions really want proportional representation. If you increase the surface area of their riding, they will head to the city with iron bars. They might not do that, but they will certainly come by bus to protest.
2:15 p.m.
NDP
Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC
Mr. Rémillard, you said your mathematical model fails once every 3,500 years. For my part, I would say the status quo fails regularly, especially when the party with the most votes loses the election. That has happened three times in provincial elections in Quebec. That concerns me much more than mathematical changes.
You say there are 338 federal MPs, that we will continue voting the same way in the ridings and that, using the ratio you have developed, we will add MPs. My question is very simple: where will you find those additional MPs?
Are they in a big bag under your desk at Elections Canada or are they the best second parties in certain provinces?
Who are these people and how will they be chosen? As to the number, that is fairly simple.
