Evidence of meeting #30 for Electoral Reform in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was yukon.
Liberal
Sherry Romanado Liberal Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC
Thank you for the clarity. I wanted to see the difference between a regular proportional or a mixed member proportional and your system.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Ms. Romanado.
We'll go to Mr. Reid, please.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Brekke, am I correct in saying that it is candidates who came from the ridings who would wind up getting onto the proportional or regional seats?
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
Is this similar to another system that's being discussed? Obviously, in addition to people who've developed systems de novo, we've also had witnesses before us talking about existing systems and how they function. One system brought to our attention is the one used in the German land or province of Baden-Württemberg, in which, as I understand it—I don't want to leave the impression I'm a Baden-Württemberg electoral system expert—they also have a system where those who lose individual seats, sort of the top losers, those with the highest percentage of the vote and not elected, are the ones who get selected and brought in. Is that essentially what we're talking about here?
As an Individual
Well, it's not necessarily the second one in the riding; it's the party that wins the proportional seat.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
The party then has either an open list or a closed list, or some kind of list.
As an Individual
No, the party has candidates in all of the ridings they were running in, and they didn't get elected to the preferential seat. So they are eligible for this seat. And it's the candidate that did the best in their riding.
Conservative
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
All right. We might be in violent agreement here. Okay.
As an Individual
But they weren't necessarily the second candidate is what I'm saying, if they're from a different party.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
Right. Okay.
Essentially there are regions. You used the Ottawa area as an example. By happy coincidence, I am an Ottawa Valley member of Parliament, so I'm pretty close to that area. An obvious question arises: how did you choose the size of the regions, and is the size of the regions critical to the model? That is to say, could they be larger or smaller and still produce the same kind of effect?
As an Individual
Yes. This was done when we were just getting going on this. We did 2006 and 2008 for Canada, and to do it, we just took cities with four or more ridings, as well as P.E.I., which has four. I think Ottawa has one or two, or....
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
At the time it had eight seats, so it probably would lend itself to being divisible by four with ease.
As an Individual
If it has eight now, that would be simple. It works. There are either two, three, four, or five ridings, and the same number of proportional seats. So you'd have four seats, six seats, eight seats, ten seats.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
Okay. So is there any reason in principle why you could not, say, in a city like Toronto, which obviously is a good deal larger—and I don't think neighbourhood-to-neighbourhood variation is more substantial than it is in other urban areas—go with a large number of seats, say 12 or more? Would there be any reason not to choose that?
As an Individual
We're trying to keep a connection to voters as much as we can, so we set the maximum at four. I'm sure it could be done with any number, but I don't think it's that valuable. I think we can put up to 10 in an area, and they will have more connection than if there were 20 or 30 or whatever.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
There's a fundamental tension between the goal of having local representation—whatever failings it has, first past the post does have one riding and one person in the smallest geographical size that's possible given the way in which people are spread across the country—and proportionality. Pure PR, one giant list for an entire country, gets the best proportionality but the worst geography.
We heard from witnesses from Ireland, where they have an STV system. Ireland started off with ridings that typically had a larger number of MPs, but gradually the number of MPs has been coming down because the parties that dominate the political system have an advantage. When there's a three-member district, which is the minimum number allowed per riding under their constitution, they get less proportional results.
You can see what I'm getting at here. Four seems like a number unlikely to produce highly proportional results. Am I wrong in my concern that a riding of that size would have that problem?
As an Individual
I like to see regions small. To me, Toronto would be too big a region. We split Toronto up into various sized ridings.
I encourage you to explore the website, where you can get all the data on this. It was Ted Dean who really did most of the work; I was helping him.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
Thank you.
I know I'm out of time, but you've been very helpful. Once the translation of your document is done, we will be looking at it with great interest.
Thank you.
Liberal
NDP
Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC
Thank you, gentlemen. I'm going to speak in French.
As I told the previous group of witnesses, I'm extremely glad to be in Whitehorse, Yukon, for the first time ever.
Many thanks to the witnesses for being here. Thanks to those who've taken the time to come and watch the committee's proceedings. Some of them have been here for quite a while already and are continuing to watch. I want to thank them for their patience and interest.
My question is for Mr. Streicker.
Let's assume we are adopting the Kingsley position, whereby there are different systems depending on the region, province or subregion. What system would you prefer to see in place for the country's other semi-rural, urban, or suburban areas, once it was confirmed that Yukon and the Northwest Territories would retain their MP? Would you like a list system, as in the Netherlands or Germany, or would you prefer multi-member ridings, as in Ireland? Mr. Reid just talked about that.