Electoral Reform Committee on Sept. 27th, 2016

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

If they're lucky.

[Craig Henschel]

If they're lucky. If there's a coalition government with more than 50% voter support, then that's an increase in voter satisfaction. More voters would be happy with the policies and laws that are coming out.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

It's interesting, because we went through the prospect of a coalition government in this country not that long ago, and it was, I would suggest, demonized by the government that was in at the time. I decided to go back through to see what minority governments have been able to achieve in Canadian law and policy for Canadians, with things like the social safety net, pensions, employment insurance, and the flag. Some of the most progressive and enduring—

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Health care.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

—policies and ideas that have ever come from Ottawa have come at a time when power has not been concentrated, when it's been, by necessity, shared.

We have in front of you a much smaller but important example of that. This committee is made up more or less on a proportional basis of the last vote in the election, and we get along great.

It wasn't my idea. It was an idea of a young fellow named Daniel Blaikie out of Winnipeg, who has just been elected. He said, “I have this idea for the committee”, and I said, “Daniel, that will never work,” until it did.

I have a question about voter turnout. We were just in a first nations community, and I have a lot that I represent in the northwest. Young people were always asked this question on voter turnout and voter engagement. We've heard a number of things from witnesses from across the spectrum saying people want to see their vote have meaning.

I'll direct this to Mr. Archer and then perhaps, Craig, you can comment as well.

We had a report out just last week from Elections Manitoba, who went through their non-voters and did a survey in their last provincial election. Forty per cent didn't vote, which is typical, and they asked them, why not? Fifty per cent of that group said they would vote if they felt their vote had meaning and would vote under a proportional system. I've never seen a number move like that before. Voting day, online, outside of mandatory maybe, no other suggestion I've heard has ever moved the needle that much.

Has B.C. ever conducted such a study in terms of that voter satisfaction Craig talked about, that power, that feeling of power that their votes are going to make a difference, and across any demographics, young people, first nations, low income, those groups that are traditionally under-represented?

[Keith Archer]

Yes, we've been conducting voter surveys since the 2005 provincial election, so we've done three of them now. The results are posted on our website. The results don't ask people the question that.... I'm not sure if this specific question was included in the Manitoba study: Did you not vote because of the character of our electoral system? That's not the question—

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

The question they asked was why didn't they vote, and the leading reason was people felt that the outcome was already known because they live in such and such a riding and they felt that their vote couldn't make a difference. They put those together and then presupposed on a proportional system and asked would that change people's participation, and then you see the numbers climb.

It would be a good question to ask B.C. voters, I think.

[Keith Archer]

Yes, it would.

The question that we have asked is the question as to why people didn't vote, and we tend to get a mix of responses. Some have to do with the convenience of the voting opportunity. Some have to do with administrative issues, not knowing where the voting opportunity was taking place or not being registered to vote, and then some responded about their perception of the quality of the representative. Those kinds of responses tend to come through in our questionnaire.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much.

I'll go to Mr. Kelly now.

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

Thank you, all, for attending today. I really appreciate the opportunity to be here in Victoria for this hearing.

Dr. Archer, in your opening remarks, I believe you said something along the lines that a referendum is a tool used by government to consult voters to determine the level of popular support for a particular policy. Failure to make use of that tool, would you characterize that then as a failure to consult and a failure to determine public support for a government policy or a proposed policy?

[Keith Archer]

My comment was actually a direct quote from the Referendum Act, and the quote was that a referendum is used when the government “considers that an expression of public opinion is desirable”.

When the government considers that an expression of public opinion is desirable, they then may engage our services as the election management body to undertake that work. We respond to a government directive once the government has decided that this is desirable.

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

From that, one might conclude that consultation is undesirable to failure, if there was failure to have a referendum on something as fundamental as changing the voting system.

I understand that the argument has been put forward in other hearings that parties in addition to the Liberals—who won the election with 39% of the popular vote—had promised, or at least had as part of their party's platform, the prospect of electoral reform. Yet in an election, people vote for many different reasons. They vote on leader, vote on party platform, vote on local representative, and they vote on a whole range of policy issues.

I don't know how many different policy statements each party had in the election, but it ran in the hundreds for some. Is it really fair to say that if a party has, for example, one single line about electoral reform that that constitutes a mandate to change a system that has been in existence for over 150 years and that many Canadians might proudly say is a contributing factor to the society we live in with its recognized high levels of human development, its values of tolerance, and the prosperity that is enjoyed by many?

[Keith Archer]

Is that question for me?

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

Yes, although both of you may feel free to comment.

[Keith Archer]

My response is probably briefer. The Election Act wouldn't provide the authority to have a role in determining or ascertaining the degree to which that's the case, and so Elections BC would not take a position on a matter like that.

[Craig Henschel]

I think it's an interesting position to take, that a government with 39% support in the country cannot make changes to the electoral system so that future governments will require 50% support to make decisions. That's kind of odd.

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

I think you've mis-characterized my question. My question was more about whether winning an election that was fought over a huge variety of issues—issues of leadership, issues of fatigue after 10 years of a previous government, a whole variety of motivations that voters had—can be taken as a mandate for this piece that's a fundamental change to Canadian society.

[Craig Henschel]

It's the government. It's their promise to change the electoral system. I think that there are an awful lot of people in the country who wanted it changed, and that's the promise the government made—

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

Could that be confirmed through a referendum? If it's so clear—

[Craig Henschel]

There was a referendum; it was the election, I expect.

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

No, that was not a referendum; we had an election.

[Craig Henschel]

Personally, I think it's important for people to realize that there's going to be an election coming up in 2019. If the choice of an electoral change is made and the country does not want it, I expect the government will suffer from that. If they bring in change that voters do want, they will do well from that. So there is a referendum coming on whatever you come up with and on what the government comes up with as a change, and that will be the next election.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

We'll go now to Ms. Romanado.

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

Thank you so much.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for being here today.

I'm from the south shore of Montreal, so it is a real pleasure for me to be here in Victoria for the first time.

Thank you so much for the huge audience. Who knew that electoral reform would be the hot ticket in town on a sunny Tuesday afternoon in Victoria? Thank you also to our two panellists for being here today.

I'll start with Mr. Archer.

Our Chief Electoral Officer just tabled in the House today his final report on electoral reform. Some of the recommendations that he put forth are things that we've heard over our 30 meetings now over the course of the summer. Some of these would increase participation and accessibility, such as maybe moving the date of elections to a weekend. They also talked about using the voter identification card as a piece of ID because that was an issue in the past election.

I'd like to get your feedback on how we can possibly leverage some technology to address some of the issues that we're facing. I know you've put online voting in your report and I will read it. If you could touch on it briefly, please. I don't want to go too far into it, because I have some questions for Mr. Henschel.

[Keith Archer]

I think there's a lot we can do to increase the accessibility of the ballot. One of the things that's in place in provincial elections here in British Columbia which is not available at the federal level is the ability of voters to attend any voting place to cast their ballot. If you live in Prince George and are visiting Vancouver during the election period, you can find a voting place in Vancouver and cast your ballot there if you wish. That's a non-technology accessibility option that is quite useful here in British Columbia.

One of the issues that has received a lot of our attention recently has been the quality of the voters list for younger electors. What we find, and this is true at the federal level as well, is our coverage is very high for people 35 years of age and above. About 95% of British Columbians 35 and above are on the voters list. About 66% of voters 18 to 25 are on the voters list. We have a challenge in this province and in this country to get people on the voters list and to do it relatively early in the process.

I see there was a recommendation from Mr. Mayrand today indicating that he would like to have the ability to have a provisional voters list for 16- and 17-year-olds to ease that transition of getting younger people onto the voters list. That's a recommendation that we have before our provincial government as well. It was recently implemented in Nova Scotia. They are now working out their partnership with the Ministry of Education to try to get political education into the high schools within that province.

Many of my initiatives in this regard are initiatives that are really not technology-based, so it's not really addressing that question of Internet voting, which I'd be happy to take up with you off-line.