Electoral Reform Committee on Sept. 23rd, 2016

[Jon Breslaw]

Exactly. It's the Liberals coming in with a minority, with less than 50% of the votes. If proportional representation is the name of the game, if that's our criteria, then they don't have a majority government. They don't have a majority of the votes, and they would need to have a coalition government. That's the way things are in proportional representation. It's not a function of my system. It's a function of proportional representation. It leads to a system like that.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

I understand. Many thanks.

Mr. Nikolenyi, I'm a bit surprised by what you've told us, to be honest.

We have heard many professors from universities or political science departments. You said that, in countries with a proportional system, people vote more. I took part in a meeting in Parliament, where Dr. André Blais, a specialist in electoral systems at the Université de Montréal, and Ms. Maioni, from McGill University, told us that this figure—this statistic—is a myth. In countries with proportional systems, the participation rate increased by approximately 3% when the system was implemented. That is not necessarily significant. There is a worldwide trend that cuts across electoral systems: fewer and fewer people are voting. Other factors are causing people to lack motivation to go out and vote. I won't list them all, because you undoubtedly know them.

Is the statistic you have given us documented? Could we have access to it? It seems to run counter to what we've hear from the other specialists.

[Csaba Nikolenyi]

Yes, absolutely. I haven't heard the presentation by my colleague that you were privileged to hear, but the very fact that they framed the presentation as whether PR would lead to a higher grade, or is it a myth tells you that it has been an established system for not an insignificant amount of time. These works that Professor André Blais published before showed that PR did lead to holding everything as equal leads to greater turnout. Depending on what was cited, there are studies showing the differences. If there is interest in having literature, I would be happy to oblige.

I do want to say that you have to keep in mind that as a matter of method, depending on the study you're on, depending on what you control for, your results may be different.

I can't give you a more substantive answer, because I didn't see what they said, but it has been an established—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you. Your time is up, Mr. Rayes.

You can send us your documentation, Mr. Nikolenyi.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Yes, I would like you to submit the documentation associated with your assertion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

You say that the studies support your observation.

You can send us that documentation through the clerk.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

We already have the documentation from Mr. Blais.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Mr. Boulerice, you have five minutes.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

On this beautiful afternoon in Joliette, I would like to thank all those in attendance for having come to hear the committee's work.

Mr. Breslaw, yesterday, in Quebec City, someone described to us a mathematical system in which the weight or value of each elector is modified based on the election results, to achieve a certain proportionality. This was rather shocking for most of us, because that system would prevent each citizen's vote from being equal.

You, on the other hand, are considering the other end of the equation. It's in the election results that you identify a distortion between the weight of the votes and the equality of the members' votes. That's a lot less shocking for the public, but it's still quite shocking for us. I have to say that I would find it difficult for my value, or my weight, to be different from that of Ms. May, for example.

You cited companies and the FTQ Solidarity Fund as examples. Indeed, the weight of each actor is not necessarily equal in these examples.

However, I'd like to know whether this system, in which not all members have the same weight in the House, has been adopted in certain countries.

[Jon Breslaw]

Yes. The European Union, the Parliament of Europe, has weighted votes where each member has a weight that's proportional to the size of his country in the same way we do with our agglomeration council here in Quebec. The idea of having different weights in a parliamentary system certainly exists.

Perhaps I could bring it back to you in a slightly different way. Let's go to my example. The Green Party has 10% of the votes and 5% of the seats. My suggestion is that each member of the Green Party receives a weight of two. That clearly gives us proportional representation.

An alternative, which is what we've been talking about with all the other systems, is that somehow the Green Party would have a few extra seats flown in to bring it up to spec. Let's take it simply. We have one member of the Green Party, and now we throw in another member to make it two. Now it's equivalent. Which is better? Frankly, of course, it's equivalent. It's the same as the difference between standing on the planet Earth or being an accelerator in outer space. It's the equivalence principle; you cannot tell the difference.

What would I prefer as a citizen? Do I want a group of non-elected citizens being chucked into the Green Party, who are going to do pretty much what the Green Party tells them to do and bring my House up to 675 members, or do I have this weighted system, which is the one we're talking about? And, yes, you have to be efficient in this.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

I understand your point of view, and it's a unique one. In my opinion, it's possible to achieve proportionality, and a diversity of voices, views and opinions in society, within the existing systems under consideration, whether it be the single transferable vote method, or the mixed or moderate proportional voting systems.

Professor Nikolenyi, in 2011, you wrote an article discussing the incompatibility of majoritarian systems such as ours with the concept of consensus democracy. I see parallels with Arend Lijphart's book.

What do you mean when you say that majoritarian systems like ours are incompatible with consensus democracy?

[Csaba Nikolenyi]

Okay. You're right. The whole framework comes from Arend Lijphart's work, Patterns of Democracy. There are two main types. He breaks down types of democracy in the advanced industrialized world into two families: the majoritarian and the consensus democracies.

Majoritarian democracies are characterized by institutions. The electoral and the party systems are among those institutions that produce, generate, and favour a political majority. They create efficient, stable, strong governments, which can produce public policies that respond to whatever the perceived needs of the situation in society can be.

Consensus democracies are fundamentally based on a different footing and assumption. Consensus democracies work and are based on institutional pillars that create consensus among different linguistic, ethnic, religious, or whatever groups in society make up the political community. Not surprisingly, the institutions of consensus democracy are typically adopted by diverse, multicultural, multi-ethnic, and multilingual political communities.

If you inject a majoritarian electoral system into such a body politic, you are either going to favour one particular political interest by excluding others—the kinds of distortions we talked about that you want to avoid—or you need to make sure you have other institutions in place that will balance the minority-harming tendencies of the first past the post electoral system. One such institution could be federally created.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

Mr. Thériault, welcome once again.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's a pleasure to see you all again.

The parliamentary session has truly begun. While my brilliant colleague, seated to my right, was touring Canada, I was performing my duties as House leader.

To avoid myself further worries, I will address you, Mr. Chair.

Earlier, you said that we were following Parliament's rules here. Well, I seem to be on the government side.

Is there a false rumour that I should know about?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I have not read the newspaper this morning.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Okay.

I'd like to thank all the residents of the beautiful Lanaudière region who are with us.

Mr. Breslaw, your system tries to remedy what advocates of change and proportional systems call mathematical distortion.

What are the negative effects of your system?

All systems have advantages and disadvantages. You must have examined all the disadvantages.

In your view, what are those drawbacks?

[Jon Breslaw]

It's a good question.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Jon Breslaw]

Since the system I'm recommending is exactly the same as the current system, with the exception that in the House each MP has a weighted vote instead of the unitary vote, the real drawback of my system is that I'm asking MPs to accept a weighted vote—no longer one man, one vote, but one having a weighting of 0.6 or 0.7 or 1.2, as the case may be. That is a new way of thinking, and a new way of thinking is always difficult to get across.

It actually isn't as bad as it sounds, because if we were to go for an MMP system, your one vote will have become diluted because of the extra 300 people who have just been chucked into the House. Do you follow me? But when you have an MMP system, you would have extra seats that would be used to bring up the votes for each party, so that your individual vote is now diluted. Instead of being 1/334th, it's now 1/625th.

Does that make a lot of difference to you? I don't know, but this is where it gets interesting. The assumption here is that we as a body actually accept the premise that we want proportional representation. If we accept that premise as our starting point; if, without arguing about whether it's good or bad, we accept the idea that we're going to have proportional representation, then there are going to be changes in your effective vote. That's what proportional representation means.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

That was indeed my understanding. Certain experts told us that strategic voting, in which people vote a strategy rather than an ideology or conviction, is what you intended to remedy.

Could the strategic character have a negative effect on a system such as that?

For example, once a voting base's votes have been allocated, a region might be over-represented. Urban communities might be over-represented in relation to rural communities, for example.

Wouldn't that be a negative effect of the system?

It's an intuition I have. I haven't thought about your model at length, but it seems to be that a member from an urban community might have more weight than a member from a rural community, because of the clientele the member is covering. The demographics would end up being different.

Couldn't that be a negative effect of your system?

Instead of being based on parties, the votes could be based on affiliation x, y or z, which would be unrelated to a political party.

That's a good question, isn't it, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

It's a good statement. Unfortunately, we have really exceeded the time limit.

Could you answer very briefly, Mr. Breslaw?

[Jon Breslaw]

We can have any criteria we like. We could have used the weighted system to allow for the disparities in size between ridings, such that if you come from a riding twice the size of mine, you get a vote of two and I get a vote of one to balance the fact that the ridings have different population sizes. That is clearly possible.

I stayed with the question. The question is, how do we have proportional representation? I've answered that question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thanks very much.

Ms. May, you have the floor.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank our guests as well.

I'm going to try to use my five minutes as efficiently as possible by asking Professor Nikolenyi about Mr. Breslaw's proposal.

I think it's elegant and brilliant. I can see some deficiencies. I don't think it would bring up the diversity within the House—and I'll also give him a chance to respond. I don't think it would naturally lead to more women or ethnic minorities or first nations. It absolutely would eliminate false majorities, which is one of my primary concerns with our current voting system.

I like STV as you described it. It is exactly complex to administer but fabulously easy to use. I wonder whether you feel comfortable contrasting what you came here to propose with what you've heard today.

[Csaba Nikolenyi]

Until about an hour ago, I didn't even know that Jon and I are from the same institution, or at least were at some point in time, so it puts me on the spot.

It's an absolutely mathematically and intellectually brilliant alternative, and Jon, you have to forgive me for saying this, but I think it will remain in the classroom or at least in intellectual conversations. I think, just looking at the conversation here, it will be impossible to convince the rest of the Canadian electorate that this is an alternative to adopt.

It puts too much change and too much complexity in how Parliament would operate, and I'm not sure at all how some of those key principles would actually be met. I'm not sure that the examples—you mentioned the IMF, the European Union.... I would look at national comparables, and there is a reason why no country yet has adopted the system that you advocate, because there are all kinds of other considerations that come into the picture: representing different communities; promoting the representation of various groups in our society, be they ethnic groups, territorial-defined groups, gender. It's much too mathematical for the kind of vision that I think the committee, the Government of Canada, is trying to promote.