Electoral Reform Committee on Sept. 27th, 2016

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Right.

[John Duncan]

You can't do two member ridings without making rural ridings bigger.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Indeed.

Mr. Chair, how's my time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

You have about 30 seconds.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

That won't be enough time for a question. I might note that 98% of people who voted in this past election have a representative in Parliament. It may not be your own representative, but neither would it be under most PR models.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Ms. Romanado.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Thank you all for being here this evening. It is quite impressive to see a full room. Ms. May, I think you chartered a boat or something to get all these folks here.

Thank you so much to our three panellists for everything they have been doing in terms of democratic reform. I know it hasn't been easy. I know the B.C. Citizens' Assembly worked tirelessly on the issue.

Over the course of the last couple of months, we've heard that a lot of Canadians felt that their vote didn't count, so we have been tasked to look at the good, the bad, and the ugly of our current electoral system and everything that goes with that. We heard from expert witnesses who said there is no perfect electoral system that is going to address all the boo-boos we currently have in our system.

It's going to take a combination of initiatives to address a lot of these issues. For instance, something such as increasing female participation could include quotas, or it could include reimbursements from Elections Canada to political parties that run more candidates, and so on and so forth, and that has nothing to do with the actual changing of the voting system.

My question is for Mrs. Byford and Mr. Hodgson. In terms of your proposed model, the STV, could you talk to me a bit about what combination of tactics we would need to address all the problems we currently have? Even if we were to address proportional representation or getting that representation in the House through STV or another model, there are other things that we need to do. Could you give us any feedback on that?

[Diana Byford]

Actually, I don't really know how to answer that question, because we were simply trying to determine what would work for B.C. and the needs of B.C. This is a much larger issue dealing with the territories and the vast areas of the other provinces. I have no information about how they would be affected, so I am finding it really difficult to formulate an answer to that question.

I don't envy you your task. It is something I'm glad I am not doing at the present time, to be perfectly honest.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

I don't have the male and the stale, but I'm definitely pale from the travel.

[Antony Hodgson]

I think the fundamental mechanism for addressing the question of how to increase representation of currently under-represented groups is encouraging multi-member nominations from individual parties. That is clearly what has worked in many countries.

On the particular question of how many women are elected under different voting systems, I think STV gets a bad rap, because it is used nationally only in two countries, Ireland and Malta, and both of those have some very significant societal issues around the representation of women. Even so, Ireland's European parliamentary delegation is 55% women elected under STV.

In Western Australia, in 2010 to 2013, the upper house was 47% women at a time when the lower house, the council, was 22%. Their senate is 41% women, 26% in the lower house. This is all because of STV. It's a complete myth that STV is not favourable to the election of women.

In Canada, the political scientists tell us that Canadians have no gender preference in whom they vote for. They will vote for the most qualified person put before them. Where the limitation has been is in the nominations.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

I am going to stop you on that. That's a perfect point.

There are two phases: the decision to run for office and put yourself out there, which is kind of scary, to be honest, and winning the actual election. It's winning the nomination or deciding to run, and then winning the election.

From my conversations with fellow females who have run for office, successfully or unsuccessfully, I know that their decision to run had nothing to do with the method of voting. Often it had something to do with the job itself or a family-friendly Parliament, whether it be travel, lack of maternity leave, lack of day care, and so on and so forth, or just balance in general.

I don't think changing the electoral system itself would address that issue. I think we need to work harder at getting under-represented people to want to run for office, including youth and visible minorities, but once they get nominated, do you feel that it is absolutely necessary to have a different voting system to get women to win?

I'll be honest with you. I ran against six other people in a riding which under no circumstance should I have won—an anglo Liberal in a very traditionally Bloc Québécois riding. I did, thank God, but it wasn't the voting system that got me there, in my opinion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Mr. Hodgson.

[Antony Hodgson]

That's correct. All I can say is that there's a clear interplay between the nomination processes and the electoral processes. Once people are in front of the electors, the electors will choose the people who they feel are best suited to represent them. You're clearly the one who hit all the right buttons in Montreal.

If we have a broader range of candidates put forward by a party, particularly in the more urban areas, then we will start to see younger voters being able to cast a vote for a candidate who is younger, and that may draw them in. Then, if we use a preferential ballot in many multi-member districts with STV, if their candidate doesn't have enough support to be elected, that preference can be transferred to somebody else of the same political persuasion, so there's an entry route in there that is not present in single-member races.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Mr. Hodgson, I understand how in MMP every vote is represented because if your candidate doesn't win in the riding your vote is factored into the seat distribution because there's a proportional element.

In STV, is it possible that some people are technically not represented if their candidate doesn't win in the multi-member riding? Is that a correct understanding?

[Antony Hodgson]

That's correct.

I think it's come up in a couple of the conversations. The question is what is the right number: three, four, five members? There's a trade-off there for sure.

Practically, in STV systems where we have district sizes averaging about four, we find 90% to 95% of voters will have voted for one of the MPs who got elected, and Byron's simulations will tell you this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Is that a first choice?

[Antony Hodgson]

No, not necessarily. If a party is running multiple candidates, their first choice candidate may not have been elected, but they likely would have transferred to another candidate from the same party. That happens a lot.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thanks very much.

This has been a very interesting panel. Again, we've had a great discussion.

We're going to have a different kind of discussion when we come back. We're going into the open mike session.

We're running a bit late. We were originally scheduled to start the open mike at 6:30, but we're going to aim for 7 p.m.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I will open the meeting.

We don't have a panel tonight. We have open mike. It's time for all of you as individuals—those of you who wish to do so—to have your say on this important issue for our democracy. We have 80 people, and everybody gets two minutes. You are probably saying to yourself, “Two minutes. That's not enough”, but this is our seventh city, and it has worked in all the other cities. It's just a question of.... All I will say to the audience is, we don't need a preamble to soften the blow. Just let us have it right off the bat, with none of this, “Well, you are doing a good job. Thanks for coming to Victoria.” We can skip that and save a good 20 seconds. Get right to it. We can make it work.

We have two mikes here, and I will call two names, one for each mike. While one person is speaking, the other person has the opportunity to gather their thoughts. When a person leaves the mike after having spoken, I'll invite another person up, so the mike will always be occupied. That way, we will keep it rolling a little faster. If you get cut off when we get to the two-minute mark, please don't be offended. It's the only we can ensure everybody gets to have a say.

I would call Mr. William Russell and Ms. Laura Parker to the mikes, please.

Mr. Russell, the floor is yours for two minutes.

[William Russell, As an Individual]

Does it start now?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Yes, at the first word the stopwatch starts going.

[William Russell]

Okay. My name is Bill Russell. I am a dual citizen of Australia and Canada. I lived in Canada and voted here, and then I went to Australia in 1974, where I lived and became a citizen. I returned to Canada in 2005. I've had a long exposure to both electoral systems and the parliaments of both countries, and as an avid political junkie, I have made two observations that I think might be of use to this discussion.

I'll use two narratives to illustrate a couple of my points. Point one is that the first-past-the-post voting system contributes to a general lack of interest in voting. Why vote when your participation is farcical? I give you the example of the separatist government of Pauline Marois in Quebec, in September 2012. She formed a government with the avowed purpose of breaking up Canada. Seventy-five per cent of the voters turned out. Of those, 32% voted for her party. If we do the math, we see that she got 23% of the registered voters to put her party in power, and that's all thanks to first past the post. I have yet to find a rational justification for its retention. “It's simple” seems to be the common response.

My second story concerns a Jeff Kennett government in Victoria, Australia. He was ultra-conservative and introduced draconian changes to government, ostensibly as a cost-saving measure. He was very unpopular, and crowds were demonstrating in the streets of Melbourne—an estimated 150,000, the biggest crowd I ever saw in 30-odd years in Australia. People and placards were everywhere. One person I saw on the news had a placard that read, “Don't blame me. I didn't vote for him.” It's a message that would carry no particular weight in the first-past-the-post system in Canada, with voting optional. In Victoria, or anywhere else in Australia for that matter, Jeff Kennett could not get elected with less than 50% of the vote—that's 50% of all registered voters. Love him or hate him, Jeff Kennett and his government had the support of the majority of the eligible voters in Victoria. You cannot get into office without it.

I can't make the same claim in Canada. I think we could very well use a proportional voting system and compulsory voting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much. That was two minutes right on. Perfect.

I invite Mr. Thomas Teuwen to the mike.

Ms. Parker, the floor is yours.

[Laura Parker, As an Individual]

Thank you.

I am so glad to see how well this committee is working together. You seem to have put partisanship aside to work on this critical issue of Canadian democracy. This committee is proportional. It represents the votes that each party got in the last election after Minister Monsef gave up the Liberal majority. You are a group of proud members of Parliament putting party politics aside and working together for Canada. You are a Canadian citizen before you are a member of a party. It's important to put aside the partisanship and do what is best for Canada as a whole, and this is possible. Thank you for being a part of it.

I would love to see this kind of government in our country. I believe that under first past the post we do not have this because this system results in winners and losers, and too often it's a winner-take-all game. This creates an “us against them” mentality that is too often witnessed in the behaviour of members of Parliament always having to live up to the name of opposition party or parties.

Canadians are tired of this win or lose game, and we're counting on you, this wonderful committee, to work together to bring in a fairer, made-in-Canada electoral system. What a gift that would be in time for Canada's 150 birthday next year.

As one last note, you mentioned tonight how you each represent your constituency. I would be interested to find out from each of you how many town halls you held with your constituents. Town halls are definitely a tool to consult with the public. Granted, you all have been busy with these meetings, but at least most of you, or all of you except one, can have people sit in for you.

I am fortunate to have Elizabeth May as my MP, and as the only Green MP she has had to attend every committee meeting, and yet she held her usual seven town halls, with two of them focusing on electoral reform.

In one town hall we were fortunate to have met Minister Monsef for a most wonderful meeting on Saturna Island. I would be interested in finding out how many town halls each of you has had in order to hear from your constituents.