Let me begin by thanking you for your invitation. I should mention that my remarks to you today will be contained in a more formal brief; what you have, for the moment, are merely my speaking notes.
As I mentioned, I have been advocating voting system reform for a long time—at the Quebec level, since 2003—but always with a view to achieving a combination of objectives. The idea is not just to achieve proportionality, but rather, a set of objectives. I have the same democratic aspirations for the Parliament of Canada and the National Assembly of Quebec. In my opinion, for the federal government and parliament, the compensatory mixed proportional model is best adapted to the situation, because it best meets the different objectives you have set as a committee, and best meets the objectives I will present to you.
In my view, all the founding components of a society need to take part in decision-making. That is not the case at this time. We have values of fairness, equality and inclusion, but this is not reflected in Parliament. In order for these values to become a reality, institutional mechanisms—that is, mechanisms that are part of electoral law—will need to be implemented at the same time as the voting system is changed.
Essentially, we are referring to a gender-differentiated analysis, and what might be termed a differentiated inclusion analysis. This implies a multicultural, multiracial vision. In my opinion, this must be included in the analysis of electoral system reform, and in the content of the voting system to be implemented. I will therefore focus on this aspect, which I believe the committee has heard little about so far. I will provide examples of how this is being carried out elsewhere in the world, and of how it could be carried out here.
The proportional family of voting systems offers a better chance of diversifying representation, but in order for the results to be truly consistent, mechanisms that set objectives must be included from the outset. The modalities must be chosen based on their ability to achieve two goals: to respect each vote, and respect each voter. A multitude of countries have implemented proportional systems to achieve diversity. I will present some numbers derived from the analysis of the documentation regarding women. They can simply be transposed for the purpose of applying them to the representation of racialized persons as well, because there is obviously a representation deficit there, too.
My figures are generally for the year 2016, and are for the Commons. We've heard it said, many times, that Canada was in 62nd place for women's representation in national parliaments, but little has been said about what happened in the countries that achieved better rankings. Of the 28 countries in the world that have elected at least 35% women, 25 have proportional systems. This is no accident. Fourteen of those 25 countries have combined the proportional method with other modalities. This includes mixed proportional models. In other words, 14 combine the proportional method with mechanisms aimed at achieving equality. These countries include Rwanda, Bolivia, Senegal, Mexico, Ecuador, Finland, Nicaragua and Spain, to name a few. There are others.
Let's zoom back out to a global view. Eighty-six countries have implemented mechanisms aimed at achieving equality between men and women. That's 44% of the world's nations, or, if you prefer, 37% of OECD countries. So this is not marginal. What characterizes these 86 countries, in comparison with the roughly 100 others that do not have mechanisms favouring equal representation, is that they are much more likely to have proportional voting systems. Fifty-eight of the 86 countries have proportional systems plus those mechanisms. On average, they elected a greater percentage of women than the countries that do not have mechanisms: 24% versus 18%. If one examines the performance of the countries that have adopted proportional systems plus those mechanisms, one finds that they have achieved 27% representation for women.
That's a great deal better than countries with majoritarian systems, where the figure is roughly 17%. The countries that have adopted the combination to which I've referred—that is, proportionality plus a mechanism—have made better progress. From 1999 to 2016, they increased an average of 14 percentage points, compared with 6.7% for countries that did not use such a combination. So this produces much better results than when the mechanisms are combined with a majoritarian voting system, and, needless to say, much better results than when a majoritarian system alone is present—something we would absolutely not propose.
Bear in mind that the global average for women elected is 20.7%. In the countries with a proportional system, one specific combination, namely, gender alternation on lists, achieves 34% female representation, in a context where there are, of course, several types of mechanisms. That's major.
What might that look like here? Broadly speaking, although the systems and mechanisms are varied, there are two major categories of mechanisms: mechanisms that set objectives for the percentage of female or racialized candidates, and are therefore about the efforts made by political parties; and objectives concerning the representation achieved in the election results. After the mechanisms are established, the rules to ensure compliance with those mechanisms must be put in place.
Currently, an elections statute regulates each stage of the electoral process. Everything, including time periods, is addressed. It would make sense to include the rules intended to implement the principles which we, as a society, have deemed important. Given that we allocate public funds to political parties for the good of democracy, it would make sense for us to demand accountability from political parties in terms of the results they attain. It would also make sense for us to demand accountability for their use of the funds. The socio-economic conditions of women and racialized persons are much worse than those of the population as a whole; this must be taken into account when considering the obstacles to running as a candidate.
I will not make some very concrete proposals. We must protect our principles from shifting winds and affirm the principles of equality and inclusion in the important documents; we must include the mechanisms in the elections act. We must act on two fronts, efforts and results, and thus, on both the percentage of candidates and the percentage of persons elected. More specifically, in a compensatory mixed proportional system, women and racialized persons must be encouraged to run for office. In order to do this, we could increase the extent to which their election expenses are reimbursed, and take their socio-economic differences into account. We could encourage political parties to present teams in keeping with the principles we establish. We must ask them to achieve targets and specify rules for that purpose.
In a compensatory mixed model, there are, of course, two components related to seats: the constituency list and the compensatory list. There are mechanisms that are good for both the constituency candidates and the compensatory candidates. If the value of equality is enshrined properly in the statute, we can then include a rule that the parties must present no less than 40% and no more than 60% of candidates of a given gender. This would apply both to the block of constituency seats, and the block of compensatory seats.
A part should also table a fixed percentage of candidates who are racialized persons. This percentage is easy to establish; there are statistics. The statistics vary by region, so the territorial distribution of racialized persons should be taken into account to establish the objectives. This would apply both to the constituencies and the compensations. The target percentage would therefore be based on pertinent data.
There would be specific mechanisms applicable only to the candidates on the compensatory list. I am referring to the alternation between both genders throughout the list. Rules could even be specified. There can be all sorts of variants, each aimed at ensuring that racialized persons are not at the bottom of the list.
In order for public funds to be used to achieve our objectives of equality, inclusion and non-discrimination in a broad sense, the reimbursement of election expenses should be increased based on the performance achieved, the percentage of women elected and the percentage of racialized persons elected.
There would be a way to have mechanisms based on the situation at election time, and a process for increasing the representation of these groups by level, by step.
How much time do I have left, Mr. Chair?