Thank you, Mr. Chair, honourable members of the Special Committee on Electoral Reform. As you know, we are meeting on the traditional territory of the Kwanlin Dün and Ta’an Kwäch’än first nations.
Thanks for coming to Yukon. Having been engaged over the years in various panels and commissions, there always seems to be one constant: it's just never the right time to visit. Yukoners at this time of year are, of course, busy preparing for the imminent royal visit, which begins tomorrow. Our many political junkies are either with us here tonight or watching the Clinton-Trump debate. Many of our sports fans, of course, are immersed in World Cup hockey. It's getting down to the last chance for Yukoners to get that moose in the freezer. The real burning question for Yukoners is whether they really have enough wood cut to get through the winter. My wife wouldn't come tonight, because she's busy getting those last lowbush cranberries in before the first snow falls. So the crowd you've gathered here tonight shows the interest in electoral reform in the Yukon, considering all these other options available to Yukoners on a night like tonight.
I concluded my report to the Government of Yukon as their senior adviser on electoral reform on February 1, 2005, by expressing my opinion that at some future point in Yukon history, the Yukon public would loudly and clearly let their leaders know that the time had come to examine electoral reform, and suggesting that any such initiative could only be successful with the total involvement of the Yukon government and all the Yukon first nation governments. The report also indicated that Mr. Dave Brekke, a former Yukon federal returning officer, was suggesting organizing and promoting a Yukon citizens for electoral systems change that could possibly herald the beginning of a Yukon first vote movement. I understand that you heard from Mr. Brekke this afternoon. These thoughts from a decade ago have certainly now come to some fruition in the Yukon.
You've also now heard from national and international experts on the some 300 different schemes of proportional representation that have been devised all around the world. The two most popular are the STV and MMP system. You'll be happy to know that I have absolutely no intention of trying to compete with their expertise in front of you tonight.
I would simply hope, not to take too much of your time, to offer some northern and Yukon perspectives that you will have to deal with during your deliberations. I have no problem with the proportional system of electing members to Parliament. I just at this time see no obvious solution to true proportionality in the large, sparsely populated Canadian ridings.
I have a few Yukon facts that you probably already heard sometime today. The voting population of Canada's three northern territories combined, containing over a third of the land mass of Canada, does not equal the voting population of many of the ridings all across our country. Yukoners elected the second ever woman to sit in Parliament, Martha Louise Black. Yukoners selected the first woman leader of a provincial-territorial party, Hilda Watson. Yukon MP Audrey McLaughlin became the first woman leader of a national political party; 76% of Yukon eligible voters voted in the last federal election, second only to Prince Edward Island at 77.4%; and over 75% of Yukon eligible voters have voted in the last 10 territorial elections. Yukon electoral boundaries commissions over the years have judiciously crafted districts that have sensitively accommodated communities of interest. This has generated high voter turnout that all Yukoners can justifiably take pride in and most other jurisdictions in Canada can only envy.
Let me quickly explain how Yukon's version of electoral reform has been a big part of Yukon's constitutional development over the years. In 1969 the territorial council and the commissioner journeyed to Ottawa to debate the formation of an embryo Yukon cabinet with Prime Minister Trudeau and the Minister of Indian and Northern Development, Jean Chrétien. Negotiations proved successful and the executive committee was formed, comprised of two elected members of council, two assistant commissioners, and the commissioner as chair.
In 1973 the Council of Yukon Indians presented their land claim, “Together Today for Our Children Tomorrow”, to the federal government. There remained, however, an impossible and impassable roadblock to responsible government for Yukon. Even though, quote, status Indians had been enfranchised in 1960, no first nation member had ever been elected to the territorial council.
To their credit, the federal government recognized that without sweeping changes to the Yukon Act, in order to create districts that could elect first nation representatives, this was not about to happen in the near future. However, sweeping changes to the Yukon Act finally happened in 1974. The size of council was increased to 12 members, and the commissioner in council was permitted to increase the size of council to up to 20 members. On April 18, 1974, the council gave final reading to the Electoral Boundaries Commission, which, for the first time, asked the commission to take into consideration the demographic makeup of the Yukon in establishing new electoral districts.
The commission ended up recommending 12 districts where, for the first time, at least three of the districts comprised a majority of first nation voters. Boundaries were further adjusted with the Electoral Boundaries Commission report of October 28, 1977, which allocated 16 districts, at least five of which contained a majority of first nations voters.
The election of 1978 was the first held along party lines in the Yukon, the first to be run entirely by the Yukon government, and the first ever to elect first nation representatives from the Old Crow and the Kluane ridings. I've spoken to some of the principals on these commissions. Although all of them would maintain that they were never, of course, requested to gerrymander districts, they were totally cognizant that the progress of Yukon towards responsible government and a settlement of the Yukon land claims were important considerations in their decisions. It has been less than 40 years since the first first nations were elected in Yukon, and it should be recognized that the 1974 and 1978 electoral boundaries decisions forever changed the face of Yukon politics and Yukon elections.
I make these points only to give you some idea of how Yukoners have dealt with important electoral decisions on their own in the past, urging changes to federal legislation and then using the processes finally open to them to dramatically effect major reforms to Yukon government institutions.
In conclusion, I know that you have been looking at hybrid systems to overcome the problems of sparse populations in huge geographic areas in mostly northern ridings. These types of different ridings—some single member, still first past the post, and multiple member constituencies under some form of proportional representation—were rejected out of hand by the British Columbia citizens' assembly. The assembly members were against creating two classes of voters and two classes of members.
If I remember correctly, in the STV referendums in B.C., the northern ridings were the most outspoken against losing their first-past-the-post status, and voted strongly against the STV recommendation. It will be interesting for northern ridings to see how your committee attempts to reconcile this very obvious problem. I'm just not able to get my head around how any true system of proportionality can be fashioned for the huge, sparsely populated areas of our country. I think most would agree that the ranked ballot system is just tinkering around the edges of the first-past-the-post system. I don't think there is a true proportional system that doesn't require, for its practical application, multi-member constituencies. Is this possible in urban ridings? Of course. Is it possible in northern ridings? I just don't see, at this present time, how it can be accomplished.
Thank you for your interest in coming to our busy, beloved Yukon. You have incredibly important, meaningful, and difficult work ahead of you. I just don't think I'd like to be in my friend Larry's shoes on this one.