Thank you.
To those of you on the committee who are new to the Yukon,
welcome.
To those of you who are returning, welcome back. I know your stay here will be very short, but I hope it is productive.
I would like to begin by acknowledging that we're on the traditional territory of the Kwanlin Dün First Nation and the Ta’an Kwäch’än Council.
My name is John Streicker, and I'm speaking to you as a Yukoner and a Canadian citizen. By way of introduction, I'm the past president of the Green Party of Canada. I've run twice here in federal elections in the Yukon, representing the Green Party of Canada. I recently served a term as a Whitehorse city councillor alongside Kirk Cameron, who you heard from just a moment ago. Currently I'm nominated as the Liberal candidate for the upcoming territorial election. I was also one of the first members of Fair Vote Yukon when it began.
I'm sharing this background with you, but I'm not here to represent any particular partisan point of view. I'm here first and foremost, as I said, as a citizen of Canada and the Yukon.
I would like to thank you for the important and, I would say, critical work you are undertaking to consider the issue of electoral reform. Thank you as well for coming north of 60 to the Yukon today but also to the NWT and Nunavut coming up. As northerners, we really appreciate that you take an interest in our perspectives.
An opportunity to shape and improve Canada's voting system does not come around very often. Therefore, I would also like to acknowledge the significance of the makeup of your committee. I note that it is not a reflection of the seats in Parliament. Rather, it is in some way a reflection of the popular vote from the last federal election. I know it is not precisely proportional, but it is not lost on those of us who take an interest that the committee's composition nods to the idea of proportionality.
I suspect that you take your collective role as a committee seriously, and that is only right. I would indeed hope that you do not rest on the fact that you have proportionality in your composition. I encourage you to go further: to think, deliberate, and represent, and ultimately to propose, beyond the normal constraints of your partisan stripes—of all of our partisan stripes. Designing a strong electoral system for Canada deserves that you think as Canadian MPs first and as partisan MPs much further down the road.
I believe strongly in the democratic process, warts and all. As such, I firmly believe that the design of our electoral system should come blended from the diverse views of all Canadians. We don't always agree, but when we respectfully share that diversity, I think we have stronger outcomes.
When I referenced a strong electoral system for Canada, I used the word “strong” and not the word “best”. It's very specific. I don't believe any voting system can accommodate all issues and concerns. I do think our current electoral system can and should be improved. How do we make sure our system is fair, straightforward, and inclusive? How do we use the system to capture the intention of the voters as well as possible?
In recent decades, our world has grown, shrunk, and become more diverse. I think this is reflected in how people vote. We vote for a party and a leader, we vote on a range of issues, and we still vote for the local person. This is the single clearest reason, in my opinion, to move to proportional representation.
I do not believe proportional representation solves everything. There will still be strategic voting, but not as much. There will still be vote-splitting, but not as much. I think proportional representation is most important because it will encourage people to vote for what they believe in. I can't stress how important I believe this to be. It is important both because it will generate more voting and more engagement—I think we will have more people voting—and because it will create a closer representation of the intention of voters.
Having said that I believe in a grassroots process to generate Canada's system and that I personally support proportionality, I now come to the main reason I am here to speak to you today.
By the way, I heard the earlier presentations. I recognize that I will be repeating some things that were said, but emphasis is good.
As a riding, the Yukon has only about one third the number of citizens that the average Canadian riding has. Northwest Territories has slightly more, and Nunavut has slightly less—I think it may be the smallest riding by citizenry in the country. I would have to check on P.E.I. to be sure.
On the other hand, the three northern territories make up 40% of Canada's land mass. Representation takes on a whole new meaning when communities are so far apart. You could ask Larry or your other colleagues from NWT and Nunavut, and they will tell you that in the north we think of ourselves as communities. We will talk about the Yukon, but really, how we interconnect is as communities. You have to imagine how hard it is to talk to your citizens over that kind of distance.
One of the things that we share and in some ways appreciate, as northerners, is that we are far away from Ottawa. This brings me to my main point. No matter what system you ultimately propose, please do not lose local representation for the north.
I will just state for the record that it is my understanding of the Constitution, although I am guessing you are all aware, that we have one MP per territory, according to the Constitution Act of 1975, for here and NWT, and the Nunavut Act of 1993. Further, the number of MPs for a province or territory shall not be less than the number of senatorial seats, and we also have one senator from each of the territories. Yet it could be possible, under some proportional systems, that a non-local person could be chosen to represent some ridings. At all costs, I urge you to design and recommend Canada's electoral system so that this is not the case here. This would go hard against the growth and development of the territories, the history of us. I believe it would also contradict the spirit and intent of our land claims and self-government agreements.
It is avoidable. There are many ways to achieve proportionality or near proportionality while still maintaining local representation for those ridings that strongly identify as stand-alone. I look over to Mr. Cullen; his riding might also think in this way.
In all likelihood, the preferred solution will be a made-in-Canada blended approach. Maybe it will utilize suggestions put forth by Jean-Pierre Kingsley, or maybe it will be based on the system proposed by Dave Brekke, Yukon's own electoral reform advocate.
For a moment, I will just try to give you the example of here. If we used Dave's PRP system here, we would see that there are many ridings.... For example, just across the bridge here, we have Riverdale North and Riverdale South, but really, they think of themselves as Riverdale. You could have two representatives from there: one chosen by first past the post or preferential ballot, and another chosen as a proportional representative from that local list. I listened to your questions earlier, and I don't believe you have to sacrifice local representation for proportionality.
We also have one riding in the far north of the Yukon called Vuntut Gwitchin, and we would never want that riding to lose its identity.
I will close out my remarks to the committee. I'm happy to discuss through questions the potential details of a blended made-in-Canada system. My main points are for a system derived from Canadian citizens, with proportionality, while maintaining local representation, for distinct distant ridings.
When Minister Monsef facilitated an electoral reform discussion in this very room one month ago, she affectionately called us all democracy geeks. I will think of you that way affectionately as well. I'm happy to wear that moniker because, as she put it, democracy can't be taken for granted.
Thank you very much.
