Electoral Reform Committee on Sept. 27th, 2016

[Craig Henschel]

We tried out voting with STV and we could manage to count to three. It's not really hard.

During the first referendum, I think it was, I went to a high school assembly in north Vancouver. I had first-past-the-post ballots—for pizza, of course, because it was a high school—and STV ballots, with instructions on how to vote. I handed them out without any talking or dialogue at all about them. The teachers knew how to count STV ballots, and the voting went off perfectly. Instead of having all pepperoni pizzas for the entire school—

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

They had choices.

[Craig Henschel]

—they got a bunch of choices.

That's one of the things we loved about multi-member districts. It was easy.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

We have heard many opinions on constituencies with several MPs. We've talked about ridings with three, four, five or seven members, depending on whether they are in an urban or rural area.

Would we keep ridings with a single MP?

Mr. Cullen's riding is 330 square kilometres, while mine is 11 square kilometres. The reality isn't the same.

[Craig Henschel]

The understanding we got from rural assembly members was that they wanted multi-member districts because multi-member districts would give representation to more of them, and it would give more of them the ability to hold their MLAs accountable and to have the choice of which MLA they would want.

We really liked the idea of the ballot being a portrait of yourself. When you fill it in, you can see that you're an education supporter, but you're kind of favouring this party or that other party, or you're a resource kind of person and you're favouring this party rather than the other party. The ballot lets us express ourselves with regard to what we feel about being a Canadian. It's a statement that we get to make about ourselves and our country once every four years. I think people feel that's important.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Ste-Marie, you have the floor.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Henschel and Mr. Archer, members of the audience, colleagues and members of the support team, good afternoon.

Mr. Archer, when the issue of electoral reform came up, why was a double 60% standard set for the referendum?

[Keith Archer]

The decision rule on the referendum is established by regulation, and that's a matter for the government to determine. It's not something the election agency is responsible for determining, and I suspect the legislation at the federal level would be similar.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Okay.

This brings us to an extraordinary outcome. Imagine that a majority of the population wanted reform, but it didn't happen. Yet you could obtain a proportional system and be at the forefront in terms of the electoral system in Canada.

Dozens and dozens of stakeholders are coming to insist on not holding a referendum by invoking the fear of losing because of the double 60% standard. They find the situation impossible.

When I hear this argument, I tell myself that if we made Quebec independent without holding a referendum first for fear of not winning, no doubt it would not fly.

A referendum is a consultation process. Constitutionally, the government doesn't need the support of any party to proceed with the reform of its choosing. The same is true for a party in power in Quebec that wants to declare independence. Under the constitutional rules, it could be done without a referendum.

This affects the legitimacy. But in my opinion, legitimacy goes hand in hand with a simple majority. I'd like to know what Mr. Henschel thinks.

You spoke very briefly about the double 60% standard that you experienced here, but I'd like you to expand on that.

[Craig Henschel]

I think it's clear to everybody that the double 60% supermajority required was an attempt to stop the reform from happening. It was planned. They had the best intentions when they set up the assembly.

Gordon Campbell lost the 1996 election, and I remember that election night. He had the most votes. The Liberals had the most votes and the NDP formed a majority government. He was furious. He said, “Never again.”

In the next election, the Liberals won 77 of 79 seats. It was a huge majority and it left no official opposition. We knew in British Columbia that the electoral system just didn't work. It got the wrong answers, and it made governance difficult. There was a unanimous vote in the legislature to set up the assembly, and then they got to thinking that maybe that was not such a good idea.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Henschel, I find the concept of citizen assembly really interesting.

Do you think it's difficult, once a system engages 95% of assembly members, to obtain the support of the majority of the population in this regard?

How much time does it take? What action is necessary? Is it difficult or is the standard really too high for the referendum you blocked?

[Craig Henschel]

Academic studies were done and people were polled after both referendums. What they found from both referendums is that the more voters understood about STV, the more they liked it.

In the first referendum, a lot of voters knew about the assembly. They knew that voters had found the system and that it was coming from voters. In the next referendum, with the wording of the referendum and how it was portrayed, it seemed like we were some kind of lobby group bringing forth this idea. It had been several years since those failed elections, so that was an enormous problem.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Thank you.

I didn't quite understand what you said in response to the question of my colleague Alexandre Boulerice.

Should we choose a proportional system or ridings with several MPs, what would we do with Mr. Cullen's riding? Would we leave it as is or would we combine it with others?

[Craig Henschel]

On the assembly, people who lived in the Skeena—Bulkley Valley area wanted to be merged with other districts. They wanted a multi-member district. Fifty per cent of people up there are not represented at all, let alone represented locally. For the guys who are represented locally, it's great for them, but for the other half of the voters, they don't have someone in government representing their point of view.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Thank you, gentlemen.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

Ms. May.

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

Thank you to everyone here in the room, and of course to Mr. Archer and Mr. Henschel.

Just because of the gasp that went up when Mr. Boulerice said there had been an announcement, we're anticipating an announcement at 5:15, so we don't have an announcement yet on the LNG, and we proceed to focus on our task, which is democratic reform.

I have a number of questions for you, Mr. Henschel. First of all, the work of the B.C. Citizens' Assembly has been discussed by a number of academic experts who have appeared before this committee. It's always expressed with the greatest respect and deference to the enormous amount of work that average citizens did in that province. I want to thank Diana Byford, who is here, and you, Mr. Henschel. It was 11 months of your lives and a very real dedication that is above and beyond, so thank you for that.

I know you've been very clear that the reason the B.C. Citizens' Assembly shows an STV system for the whole province is that you felt that was the very best system, even for large ridings. But do you think there's any merit in taking a different view when we look at all of Canada—and we have three territories, Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut—and the distances, the cultural differences, and geographical identity, which are distinct?

As much as I would love to imagine it, I have a hard time imagining that we wouldn't need some form of hybrid system for Canada. I'd like your reaction to that and any thoughts you might have about the difficulties of taking the B.C. Citizens' Assembly's recommendation nationally.

[Craig Henschel]

In Canada, the electoral system is province by province. It needs to be self-contained within the provinces, so we don't mess with those requirements. Nunavut, Yukon, and the Northwest Territories are individual elements with one MP, so I think those are going to be single member districts, clearly.

The message we got from rural voters in these geographically large but usually population small districts was that they wanted local representation. It was so important for them to have local representation. To deny those voters better local representation, which STV gives, and provide it in the cities seems to be against what the whole thing was.

In the assembly, we had to struggle to satisfy the needs of the rural voters to have better local representation and STV provides that.

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

In terms of looking at that, the mixed member proportional system—I'll just play devil's advocate with you—certainly gives voters everywhere more effectiveness to their vote. While they have their single member district, they also know their vote is counting toward the group of MPs who will be elected through an open or closed list, or whatever. Their preference will count in a way that it doesn't now.

Can you explain why it was so clear to you that wasn't the way to go to represent voters rural or urban?

[Craig Henschel]

Yes. If you look at MMP, MMP is better than what we have now. You get the same results on the local side; still, 50% of the voters will not be represented locally. The districts will be 50% larger, or twice as large, with a single MP doing the local representation and all the constituency work. That will be difficult for them.

Half of the voters are going to be represented on the local side. The other half of the voters have to be represented on the party side. Somehow you have to figure out how to get those voters—really, only—sorting out who's going to get elected on the party side.

On the party side, if you're not using regions within the province, you're going to have a region the size of British Columbia. Those MPs, representing half the voters, are going to be anywhere in that whole region, so that's not very local.

If you have small regions, they might be in a region of 10 MPs, so they'll be in a region of 10 MPs for that half of the voters. That half of the voters is getting a very different representation experience than that of the voters who have single member district representation.

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

You made a brief comment that I didn't take down properly. I got the sense that you thought the law commission had made a mistake by dismissing STV out of hand and perhaps misunderstood something the citizens' assembly had done. Can you explain that?

[Craig Henschel]

Yes. If you read through the law commission report, I think I counted 13 times where it says that their goal was to add an element of proportionality to our current system. By definition, that's either MMP or MMM. That's where they started. In their discussion of the different systems, they described STV in a reasonable way. Then they decided, in one sentence, that they were not choosing STV, because there was multi-member districts. Of course, not having multi-member districts.... Single member districts is the root cause of so many of our electoral problems.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

Ms. Sahota.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

My question is similar, going along the lines of accountability. I think it is quite important to have accountability, and I understand that STV can bring you accountability, or at least it can help you not lose the accountability you currently have. With the size of the riding growing larger than what it is right now.... With STV, however, rural ridings would probably quadruple in size.

[Craig Henschel]

They would triple, probably.