Electoral Reform Committee on Sept. 27th, 2016

[Diana Byford]

Again, I can only speak about what I've experienced through the assembly from my learning. With STV we felt that in, say, a five member riding, likely among those five, two or three different parties would be represented. More than likely at least one woman would be in the group. Believe it or not, in this day and age, in this century, there are still women who feel intimidated going to speak to a male in authority, so if they have a concern and their MP or MLA is a male, they will hesitate. Many of them don't even end up going with their concern because of that, but if there's a woman in a multi-member riding, they might take that concern to her regardless of which party she represents. Others won't go to you because that's not the party they voted for. They still have the concern but they have this feeling that they're not going to be taken seriously by you because that's not the party they voted for, so that's the other side.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Ms. Sahota.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Thank you to all the witnesses for being here.

My first question is for Mr. Duncan.

We've had a few witnesses say that proportionality would really be great for the country, would really be great for government because, luckily we don't have the problem this time around, but in the past, governments have lacked representation among their caucus in different provinces and territories and therefore, perhaps, cannot come up with as representative a cabinet.

How do you feel about that critique that we should be changing from first past the post so governments can better represent the country from coast to coast to coast and have representation all across the board?

[John Duncan]

Well there are other options available to a government if they don't have representation in a region. They can put people in cabinet that are not members of Parliament but are acceptable within that region. There are mechanisms.

I'm not arguing for the status quo, however. My point concerns the communities, not making proportional representation discriminatory to rural communities. My other point relates to the legitimacy of the exercise. I think you have to go well beyond what's currently laid out. In the eyes of the public this is not a legitimate exercise for the government to go ahead with a change to a 150-year-old electoral system.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Otherwise you would favour proportionality as long as we could keep, somehow, if that was possible, the ridings at the size they are right now, especially for rural ridings.

[John Duncan]

No, you're not going to get me to say that.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

My next question is for Ms. Byford.

Thank you so much for all the hard work that you put into that citizens' assembly. I can't imagine spending that much time, as a citizen, taking on that mandate and volunteering afterwards like you did.

I am interested to know, a lot of people must have been approached for the citizens' assembly, kind of like jury duty or something. A lot of people send back their forms for jury duty, or try to get out of jury duty. At the end, the citizens' assembly, the 160 people that B.C. was able to get together, what was the demographic of those people? Were they of a certain age? Were they of a certain background? What was the room full of?

[Diana Byford]

I'm glad you asked that question, because the assembly was a true microcosm of B.C. The age range was from 18 to people in their eighties. They had all kinds of backgrounds. There were all kinds of ethnic groups involved. There were two moms with brand new babies. There were two recently widowed people when we started the assembly. There were people who were dealing with the loss of a job. There were people who were dealing with illnesses, either themselves or somebody in their family. We were a true demographic completely representative of B.C.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Did people tend to open up as to how they voted in the last election? You said mostly they all voted.

[Diana Byford]

No.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Did they represent a whole bunch of different parties?

[Diana Byford]

No. Politics and our own beliefs never came into our discussion, ever.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

That's interesting.

Do I have any more time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

You have 45 seconds.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

I think I'll pass.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

We'll go to Mr. Deltell now, please.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.

Mesdames et messieurs, it's a honour for me to meet you.

Mr. Duncan, as a veteran politician, I just want to thank you for having served the people of your riding so well for so many years; two defeats but six victories, so it was not granted to you, it was not an easy ride. Thank you so much, Sir.

[John Duncan]

Thank you.

I actually did a little research, I'm the second-longest serving member of Parliament from Vancouver Island in the history of Canada, and the first is from the same area. His name was Alan Webster Neill. He was a Progressive and an Independent, and the Liberals never ran anybody against him because he was so liberal. He served from 1921 to 1945. I'm proud of that. I'm a B.C. guy and a Vancouver Island guy.

[Applause]

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Well, I dream of having that kind of applause, but I don't think we'll get it tonight.

Mr. Duncan, so many people raise the issue that in the actual system when someone doesn't win, that voice is silent; he cannot speak. You're a very experienced member of Parliament. When someone knocks at your door and says, “Mr. Duncan, I didn't vote for you,” what do you say, “Get out of my office” or “Let's have a chat”?

[John Duncan]

It happened very rarely. I actually had people tell me they did vote for me more often than they said they didn't.

Maybe I'm different from other people, but I enjoyed working on behalf of people who did not support me, just to prove to them how wrong they were. That, over time, actually paid significant dividends. Because if you want to survive in the political arena, as I said earlier, if you're not trying to expand your constituency, the people who support you, then it's inevitably shrinking, because you're going to inevitably watch your support base erode if you're not doing everything that you can.

In one election I had a very significant constituency that did not support me and in the next election they endorsed me. That's the kind of thing that is traumatic and it's things that members of Parliament have to do and in order to do it, you have to be engaged at the community level.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

The voice of the people who didn't vote for you is still there and as a very serious MP, the door is always open and their voice is still there in the House of Commons, thanks to you.

[John Duncan]

Yes and you have to imbue your staff with the same philosophy.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

That's great.

We all recognize also that constitutionally the government has all the power to change the voting system. We all recognize that, but we also recognize the fact that three provinces asked their people in a referendum before deciding to make any change. I'm not the only one who thinks this is right. I will quote someone:

Precedent makes holding a referendum necessary in Canada. Changing the voting system will require popular support.

Who said that? It was not a strong Conservative like me. It was actually a senior cabinet minister, the Honourable Stéphane Dion, who said that because of the three referendums in three different provinces in Canada, we shall have a referendum. Do you share the same principle?

[John Duncan]

I do share that and to insist that there's no constitutional ramifications to doing this without the approval of the people is not correct. There would be ramifications from the provinces, from citizens groups, or from somewhere. I have no doubt this would be challenged.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

There are a lot of people who say that the government was elected with the promise to have electoral reform even if in their 97 pages of programs only three sentences were based on this promise—three sentences in 97 pages. We also had 10 hours of debate with the leader and the question was raised only once by Madam May.

During your campaign, how many people asked you the question and raised the issue of electoral reform? In my case, nobody at all did.