Thank you, Mr. Chair. I thank the committee for allowing the youth of Joliette to express its opinion in this consultation.
This debate has gone on for quite some time at the Regroupement des étudiants et étudiantes du Cegep de Lanaudière. We consulted several organizations that advocate electoral change, such as the Mouvement pour une démocratie nouvelle. We also listened to the point of view of the students of the Fedération étudiante collégiale du Québec, the national federation we belong to. We came to the conclusion that the current voting system is no longer representative and adapted to current needs. After consulting our members, we decided to advocate the implementation of a compensatory mixed proportional system with regional compensation. I will provide further details about that.
We are opposed to pure proportionality, for the simple reason that that system is ideal in a country with a homogeneous population. However, since in Canada there are anglophones, francophones and first nations people, we felt that that system would negate the weight of each group.
We decided to add the preferential system because it favours bipartisanship. Often, the two parties that alternate in forming government are the second choice of electors. The use of a preferential system would ensure the continued existence of the two parties that have been in power in turn over the past 50 or so years.
As for the mixed proportional voting system, we chose a system whereby one-third of members would be elected from electoral lists and two-thirds would be elected as they are now, that is to say through the use of a single member plurality system. They would represent the local riding.
As for the regional lists, we do not want a single electoral list for all of Canada. As in a strictly proportional system, which we do not advocate, we want to avoid seeing Canada's language groups drown in the critical mass. The idea is to make room in Quebec for anglophone communities and first nations.
Each province would adopt an electoral list containing a certain number of members prorated according to the province's population. The lists would be drawn up by each party at a provincial convention. A given party would hold a convention in each province and the members of that party would adopt an electoral list for the province. That list would provide the order in which members would be elected.
The Chief Electoral Officer would provide an additional allowance to parties whose list contains an equal number of men and women, at least 10% of candidates of less than 40 years of age, and members of first nations. Since we cannot force people to stand for election, there would be no obligation. That allowance would be granted by the Chief Electoral Officer to encourage gender parity, and the representation of first nations and young people.
Regarding the vote, in a mixed system, each citizen would have two votes. They would vote for a riding member, who would represent local interests and ensure the representation of the riding in Parliament. The other vote would be cast for the party that would defend national issues and best represent the government's overall program. In this way we would avoid a relatively frequent situation, which is that electors vote for a candidate but do not like his party. It can also happen that electors like a given party but consider that the riding candidate does not represent a region well enough. We would prefer to avoid that situation by allowing for the expression of two distinct votes. Electors could vote on the same ballot, but there will be two types of members of Parliament.
The lists would be closed. Consequently, the party would choose the order of the members. This would be maintained according to the election of each member. As I have already said, there would be one vote for the riding, local issues, the experience of the members and the program of the party at a more local level, and a vote for the party, basically at the national level.
We decided to adopt a one-third, two-thirds ratio to keep the compensation balanced and to avoid creating overly large ridings. If we grant too many votes through a compensation system, the current ridings of the members would be too big. Consequently it would be harder to reach people.
We advocate, rather, electing one-third of the MPs through electoral lists and two-thirds using the first-past-the-post system. Candidates would have the right to stand for election in both systems, but they could of course only accept one of the two positions. We would like to see a dual candidacy system for the simple reason that the electoral list legitimizes the election. However, people should not say that those who are elected through the electoral list do not have as much legitimacy to sit in the House of Commons as members who are elected in a riding.
This would also allow us to maintain the ratio of men and women, and youth and first nations people, as I mentioned earlier.
As for the representation threshold, many countries that have adopted the mixed proportional system have established a minimum threshold of representation to avoid having parties that only obtained 0.5% of the votes from being represented and having this divide the House of Commons. We looked at Germany, for example, where the representation threshold is 5%. The first member elected in a party that has been elected through the electoral list must have obtained at least 5% of the vote. We find this figure too high and think that once again it strengthens the two-party system. And so we propose a 3% threshold in order to control the division somewhat, the fracturing of the House of Commons, but also to allow new parties to take their place.
Gender parity has been achieved in the countries that have adopted this type of voting system. Male-female representation is much more equal and is maintained more easily without coercive measures. We find this very interesting. It is also good for the parties themselves. Indeed, if party members had to choose the MPs who would be on the electoral lists at provincial conventions, this would encourage people to join political parties. We know that the number of members in all parties has been on the decline for 50 years. This could increase those numbers, in addition to ensuring a higher level of citizen participation.
I use the House of Commons as an example. We are not necessarily in favour of revising the number of MPs. We would keep the current number of seats at 338. There would be 225 ridings, and 113 members would be elected through the electoral list, by compensation. Those 113 seats would be divided according to the weight of each province, in order to avoid having 113 seats come from Ontario or western Canada, and to ensure representativity even in compensatory seats.
Also, the regroupement is opposed to any measure to make voting obligatory. If this were to be debated again, we would be against any obligatory vote or any type of compensation for people who do vote. We are against imposing penalties on those who do not vote, or providing financial rewards or other compensation for those who do. We think that this undermines the whole principle of the right to vote. It must not become a duty, an obligation, but should remain a right. People must have a choice, they must be able to decide on their own. And so we are opposed to that.
Moreover, whatever the type of voting system that is recommended by the committee and chosen by the House of Commons, we are in favour of a referendum. The population needs to be consulted on the voting system. Of course, a referendum will be held only if the decision is made to change the first-past-the-post system. We would like to see a national referendum on the issue, with a double majority, that is to say that one option would have to obtain 50% plus one among citizens for the referendum to pass, but also among the provinces, to make sure that the bigger provinces do not decide on the voting system for all of Canada.
We think it is important that we be democratic in trying to reform the democratic process.
Thank you.