Electoral Reform Committee on Sept. 28th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Okay, we'll get the show on the road. If all members of the committee could take their rightful places around the table, then we'll start this panel session.

To begin officially, the meeting is now open.

We are about to start our third panel for today. It includes Ms. Barbara Simons. I'm pleased to have you here today. It's an honour to have someone with such a body of work as yourself here to speak to this important issue that we've been focusing on for a few months now. It's important to our democracy.

We also have Eline de Rooij. Am I pronouncing it properly?

[Eline de Rooij, As an Individual]

It's de Rooij.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Sorry about that. With a name like mine, I'm sensitive to the pronunciation of last names, believe me. I take it to heart when I mispronounce a name.

We also have Mr. Harley Lang.

Each witness has five minutes and then there will be a round of questioning from the MPs around the table. Each member is allotted five minutes to engage the witnesses, and those five minutes include the questions and the answers. It's possible that I may have to intervene as we cross the five-minute mark, and I apologize for doing that. I'm not trying to be disagreeable or rude, but that doesn't mean you won't have a chance to provide your response the next time you get the mike. You can always say, “I want to go back to that original question that I wasn't able to answer a few minutes ago, and I'd like to address it now”. Everyone will get a chance to say what they want and have to say.

We'll start with Ms. Simons, for five minutes, please.

[Barbara Simons, As an Individual]

Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today about a critical issue: the fundamental insecurity of all currently available Internet voting systems. If this were a medical hearing to determine whether to approve a new drug for human consumption, safety would be paramount. A drug that is likely to result in serious injury to patients would be rejected, no matter how many people wanted to use it. Internet voting is like a drug we are considering for the country.

If there is even a small chance that Internet voting might result in our elections being hacked, it doesn't matter how many people want it. If Internet voting puts our elections at risk—and it does—we must reject it until such time as it can be proven secure.

I have brought copies of the “Computer Technologists' Statement on Internet Voting”, which unfortunately hasn't been translated, so I guess I can't distribute them, but they will be made available later and I could address the recommendations made in that statement during the question period. It was signed by prominent computer science researchers from major universities throughout the United States. I think it's a fair statement to say that computer security experts are basically in total agreement that we should not have Internet voting at this time, anywhere.

The title of my talk is, “Internet Voting: Making Elections Hackable”. As you know, there are five principles for this hearing, one of which is integrity. Australia did an assessment of Internet voting and there's a quote from the Honourable Tony Smith, who was chair of the joint standing committee on electoral matters in Australia, which says, “it is clear to me...that Australia is not in a position to introduce any large-scale system of electronic voting in the near future without catastrophically compromising our electoral integrity.”

Those of you who have copies of my slides see that the next slide has a list of a large number of sites that have been hacked, starting with Yahoo, where half a billion users' accounts were hacked into, and that includes a lot of Canadians. It also includes, in Canada, the Department of Finance, the Treasury Board Secretariat, Defence Research and Development Canada, the National Research Council, The Ottawa Hospital, and the University of Calgary. In the United States it includes the Democratic National Committee, as I'm sure you've heard, the Office of Personnel Management, the Pentagon emails, the FBI, the White House, the U.S. State Department, Google, AOL, Symantec, and so on and so forth.

A question that I hope this committee will ask itself is, what will happen if we take up Internet voting in this country, and months after a government is seated it is discovered that the election has been hacked? This is not an unrealistic scenario. The Yahoo breach started in 2014 and it was just uncovered. The Democratic National Committee breach occurred months before it was discovered. It typically takes months to discover a breach after it has occurred. You can replace money that's stolen from online bank accounts—and by the way, millions and millions of dollars are stolen annually from online bank accounts—but you cannot replace votes.

Toronto did a security analysis of three systems that were submitted there for consideration. The conclusion of the security analysis was that no proposal provides adequate protection against the risks inherent in Internet voting. Their recommendation was that the city not proceed with Internet voting in upcoming municipal elections.

Quebec has had a moratorium on electronic voting since 2005.

British Columbia had a panel that investigated Internet voting. Their conclusion was, first of all, non-voters usually don't vote over the Internet. It's used primarily as a tool for voters who have already decided to vote, mostly middle-age voters. It's least popular among young people, and that reflects traditional voter turnout. Their recommendation is to not implement Internet voting for either local or provincial government elections at this time.

Estonia is often brought up as an example of a country that has successfully conducted Internet voting. Most people don't know that in 2014, an independent group of international experts performed a security evaluation of the Estonian system. They found that it's vulnerable to state-level attackers who could compromise the secret ballot, disrupt elections, or cast doubt on the fairness of the results, and it is vulnerable to a range of attacks, including vote-stealing malware on the voter's machine, and they recommended that Internet voting be halted. Unfortunately, in Estonia, it has not been.

Basically, Washington, D.C., was considering Internet voting for real elections in the 2010 mid-term. They opened it up two weeks beforehand to allow anyone from anywhere to try to hack into the system. This is the only time this has been done. Two weeks before, it was taken over within 36 hours by a team from the University of Michigan. They could change already cast and future ballots, and they could reveal the voters' secret ballots. They installed the University of Michigan fight song as their calling card, so it would start playing 15 seconds after voting in this sample election, which was quite interesting for those of us who didn't know they had broken in. They also discovered probes coming from China and Iran, and they protected the system from these probes.

I don't think that China and Iran were actually trying to break into a pilot system. It wasn't a real election; it was a toy election. But these probes are always on the Internet, and they are always trying to break in. As I said, no other vendor has allowed such a test because, I believe, they know that their systems would be vulnerable. In fact, the only kind of real-life test you can do is to let anyone from anywhere try to break in, because that's what reality is.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

That's fascinating testimony. I think there are going to be many questions to follow.

I wish I'd had all this information before my town hall. I would have had better answers when the issue came up.

We'll now go to Mrs. de Rooij.

[Eline de Rooij]

Thank you very much, Chair and members of the committee, for the invitation to appear today.

I want to address one of the principles for electoral reform that form the basis of the committee's mandate, namely, that of effectiveness and legitimacy. In particular, the principle states:

...the proposed measure would increase public confidence among Canadians that their democratic will, as expressed by their votes, will be fairly translated and that the proposed measure reduces distortion and strengthens the link between voter intention and the election of representatives;

The fair translation of votes into the election of representatives to the House of Commons seems to have been a major theme in the discussion of electoral reform. The common argument is that an increase in proportionality of the electoral system will lead to better representation of Canadians' democratic will.

I want to make two observations related to this point.

First, while we might agree that the party system as a whole should be as representative as possible, I would argue that it is also important that each individual party is not based on too narrow ethnic, religious, or regional concerns.

More proportional systems tend to result in a greater number of political parties; thus, include more small and/or single issue parties. Although the actual numbers of voters for a given single issue party might be small, parties can create an ideological wedge, splitting up support for larger mainstream parties. Arguably, we have seen it occur in several European countries after a radical right-wing party gained an electoral foothold by exploiting anti-immigrant sentiments.

The existence of small and/or single issue parties is obviously not necessarily bad, but my first caution is that we should acknowledge the increased propensity of parties in multi-party systems to increase rather than lessen conflict in society for solely representing a single issue or small segment of society. The traditional counter-argument to this is, of course, that the rise in the number of parties that is likely to result from a more proportional electoral system will increase the need for parties to build consensus in governing. This brings me to my second point.

Not only must there be confidence among Canadians that their democratic will will be exercised through a fair translation of their votes into the election of representatives to the House of Commons, but there must also be a fair translation of votes into the policies pursued by government.

When parties form coalition governments or when minority governments must maintain the support of opposition parties in the legislature in order to stay in office, compromises over policy are more likely. This compromise happens in at least two different ways.

First, after an election, parties will negotiate who will form the coalition government and what policy priorities the government will pursue. The evidence on how representative the outcome of this process will be is inconclusive. Some political scientists argue that the composition of the government coalition will not reflect the composition of the parties in the House of Commons. Consequently, the policy positions of the government will not reflect the policy positions of the average voter. Others argue that the government coalition's policy positions will match the average voters' positions better than one might expect, given the positions of the parties in the coalition.

Second, compromise happens in the allocation of ministerial portfolios, both in terms of the number of portfolios, but also in their importance. Clearly, this ultimately will also impact policy. Here, political science theory and evidence tend to diverge. On the one hand, there's a concern that, because of their strong bargaining position, small parties will have a disproportionate say in determining the policy agenda as well as the allocation of portfolios of the government. Evidence so far, though, seems to suggest a fairly proportional distribution of ministerial portfolios according to each coalition party's relative share of the legislative seats, with a slight advantage for minor parties in obtaining a bit more than their fair share of the ministerial portfolios.

My second caution, then, is that electoral systems that make the House of Commons more representative will not necessarily make government and the policy it pursues more representative.

In closing, let me emphasize some of the points my many predecessors have already raised and which I think are worth highlighting again.

Although there are certainly aspects of the current voting systems that could be improved upon, some of these can be addressed through smaller incremental reforms. Moreover, as I am sure the committee is by now well aware, any electoral system design inevitably involves trade-offs. In overly focusing on what the current system's weaknesses are, we are failing to appreciate its strengths. In weighing the weaknesses and strengths of our current system, we should also take into consideration that changing the electoral system will take time, energy, and a substantial amount of money in particular, given the need pointed out by a number of my fellow political scientists for wider public consultations over an extended period of time.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much.

We'll now go to Mr. Lang, for five minutes.

[Harley Lang, As an Individual]

Good evening, everyone.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and my thanks to the special committee for the invitation to appear before you tonight as part of this truly remarkable survey of Canadian opinions on electoral reform.

Before we begin, I wish to make a few acknowledgements. The first is to the ancestral and traditional aboriginal territories of the Musqueam, Stó:lo, Tsleil-Waututh, and Squamish first nations of metro Vancouver, on whose territories we work, live, play, and here stand. I also wish to acknowledge Canadian citizens, including those who are behind us here tonight.

I'm here as an individual with alternative perspectives on how to go about electoral reform. I want to discuss specifically how to increase voter turnout. I draw these perspectives from multiple influences, one being my coursework and research at St. Cloud State University. My graduate thesis, which I'll touch on in a moment, employs a scientific method used in laboratory, clinical, educational, and other applied settings to evaluate the influences on voter behaviour. This method could possibly bring about error-free policy, that is, policy that always produces acceptable change, in this case, high voter turnout. My hope is to share some of its potential tonight with everyone.

Tonight we have the privilege to work on reforming an electoral system. Many other nations are still struggling to establish their own. It is important for us all to recognize that our current electoral system affords us a means to influence each other in an orderly and peaceful manner. In some nations citizens have no choice but to escape, to resist, to protest. At worst, those citizens resort to violence as a means to impact their government. Over the decades many Canadians spent their time establishing and refining our current systems. Many more have shed their blood to keep this great land in the hands of the people. Their efforts have allowed us to draft policy to better our nation, to better our people, and to better Canada's future.

Thus, we're all here tonight and we should all acknowledge that we are in a special position. We are lucky to have the opportunity to work with government rather than against it. Why? Because many fine Canadians before us have established and refined our system to work this way. Tonight our job is to not let anyone down.

To that end, we have to understand that what we're doing is quite risky. We are engaging in a dialogue about how to go about changing how citizens influence government. It is a responsibility at the very least to ensure that our electoral system remains as effective as it currently is. Our responsibility is to ensure that any change is as acceptable as it is effective.

With responsibility in mind, we need to tread carefully. Special committee, you have, and are going to continue to receive, some fine ideas from Canadians. Truly, this special committee is on the right track in conducting this survey, and my hope is that this committee will be a model of community consultation for the world.

Undoubtedly, it will be difficult to weigh which ideas best fit the special committee's five criteria for successful electoral reform. For some ideas, we can readily sense the probability of their success. When we refer to probability, we are really referring to gambles or guesswork. In our brief, Dr. Witts and I note some qualities of guesswork that may aid the special committee. My thesis research, which is presented in our brief, uses compulsory voting as an example of guesswork. In summary, after analyzing 42 nations with and without compulsory voting, we are unconvinced that there is a consistent effect of compulsory voting in regard to voter turnout.

It is true that some countries showed some effects, but these are idiosyncratic and are owed to the regional differences or severe coercive measures. Consider, for example, that Belgium observes high voter turnout with compulsory voting, and in Belgium absent voters risk temporarily losing the right to vote. While some might see this as an argument for pursuing threats, the side effects of such threats on a large scale need to be taken into consideration. Regional guesswork such as considerations for compulsory voting, given the success in Belgium or Australia, put our nation's electoral system in jeopardy.

Canada is a unique nation with its own constituency, legalities, current economic affairs, and political party system. We must sidestep guesswork and the risk by recognizing that Canada requires an individualized reform to address the needs of Canadians and fulfill this special committee's mandate.

Special committee, we here are on the right track by surveying Canadians' opinions. Our suggestion goes one step beyond this.

Our idea is radical. Our idea is that public policy, at all times, should be treated as a social experiment. Social experiments do not need to be confusing. These methods would enable the committee to make error-free policy. The methods are transparent and accountable, and they bring about naturally self-correcting conclusions.

Our next step is that we need to execute small-scale local government research. Doing so would bring about valuable information that would solve questions about electoral reform. It would fulfill this committee's mandate. Most importantly, it would ensure that the electoral system we leave behind is best for the citizens of Canada.

While it is true that compulsory voting may be found to be acceptable and effective through this research, it is also true that it would only bring about citizens who have to vote. Our expert impression is that research is much more likely to bring about tactics that would influence citizens so that they want to vote. The former leads to feelings of coercion and disdain. The latter leads to feelings of justice and fairness.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Excuse me, Mr. Lang. I'm sorry, do you think you could wrap up in about 20 seconds?

[Harley Lang]

I definitely can. I have one more page here.

By conducting more research, what we leave behind will do justice to the efforts of everyone before us by improving upon our system with facts rather than gambling its integrity with guesswork. An experimental approach to policy change would be a significant step forward for Canada and democracy, and would be a model for our world. We can impact Canadian society for the better. Our expert opinion is for this committee to move for the adoption of a pilot experimental analysis.

Thank you so much for your time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

We'll start our round of questioning with Ms. Sahota, for five minutes, please.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. de Rooij, you brought up a point that I've been mulling over in my mind for quite some time, since I've been sitting on this committee. My colleagues here have heard me ask this question before.

I fear some of the...and it may be due to social circumstances or the world circumstances these days. I'm a proud Canadian. I'm sure everybody in this room is. Canada has given so many people the opportunity that not a lot of places in the world do. I'm a daughter of a taxi driver, of immigrant parents, and I say that proudly. Not too many countries afford people the kind of opportunity where they can say, “Well, I may be doing this, but one day my daughter may be a member of Parliament,” and maybe more. I'm not a one-off. I have so many colleagues, some of them ministers, who have achieved the same thing. They came as refugees. They came from various corners of the world.

My fear is about the sentiment we're seeing around the world right now, in the U.S. and in Europe. Especially in Europe right now, you have these really small parties that are gaining momentum. They're right-wing parties. Anti-immigrant sentiment is growing. My fear is that if we allow these parties to gain power, we may not anticipate that as being the effect of a change to the system. It could occur. In Sweden we have the extreme right-wing Sweden Democrats, who in seven years have gone from 4% to 20% in power.

In your opinion, why are these things occurring? Does the electoral system have an impact on these things, or do you see them as completely separate?

[Eline de Rooij]

I most certainly think there is a relationship between the electoral system and the chance of a radical-right party gaining ground. It's not the only explanation. Look at what happened in Britain. It has a similar system as we have, and we've seen radical parties there under specific circumstances.

That said, I think it does increase the chance of having a radical-right party. Whether that would happen in Canada or not is of course an open question. It depends on the sentiments that are there in the population. But who knows what those sentiments might be in 10 years, 15 years?

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

As we move to adopting a new system, of course we don't want to restrict differences of opinion, but do you think there are certain safeguards or something that we can put in place to make sure that the parties that form do have, on the whole, Canada's best interests at heart? Are there ways to safeguard and put some mechanisms into a new system where we could avoid perhaps getting into that extreme situation?

[Eline de Rooij]

I think it's very difficult. You can play around with the thresholds, and make thresholds higher or lower in order to ensure that certain smaller parties don't get elected. However, if you're opening a system that's more proportional, which I don't think is necessarily a bad thing, it also means that small parties of all sorts of persuasion can get representation in Parliament. I don't think you can avoid that when you're making a system more proportional.

Again, I'm not saying that I'm necessarily against more proportionality, but you have to accept that this is one of the things that might come with it, a greater chance for parties, such as radical rights or other types of radical parties, to gain a foothold.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

As I see it right now, within the few large parties that we have, you have various different opinions within your caucus, within your party, which bring you to sometimes a balanced approach on many aspects, sometimes not, on different political opinions.

As a party, we're all individuals that represent our ridings. We represent certain interests that are there, but we're able to discuss among ourselves, and come up with a solution to some of those ideas. We hear a lot of that about PR systems in that they will be more collaborative and different parties will work together.

What are your feelings about the system we have now and the collaboration we have among our own colleagues versus the type of collaboration a PR system would have?

[Eline de Rooij]

Regarding collaboration, whereas we have two or three major parties, what happens then, of course, is more interest between parties. One important thing to bear in mind is that, for instance, we know from research that if you look at the coalitions that form, they tend to not cross the centre divide. What you'll see are left-wing coalitions or right-wing coalitions.

That means you have more representation of ideological values of voters within the legislature, and what that actually means for the co-operation within governments is that it now may be more likely to be coalition government if there's a change in electoral systems versus a single party government.

That might just have the similar level of co-operation to some extent with the big difference, though, that there's always a bargaining position between parties now rather than consensus building. If one party exits the coalition, the government will fall, and that sometimes creates, some argue, some stronger bargaining positions for a small party.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Mr. Deltell.

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

Thank you so much, Chair.

Ladies and gentleman, welcome to our parliamentary committee.

I will continue in English, and take the opportunity to practise my English.

I would like to speak with Madam Simons first.

First of all, we have a variety of points of view with this panel. It is quite interesting. This is all about democracy. This is what you are talking about.

I'm very proud to be here as a member of Parliament, but also as the son of an immigrant, and for being elected by the people of my riding that I represent strongly and proudly here at this committee, and in the House of Commons.

Madam Simons, if we change the way we elect our people, we are open to discussion, but at the end of the day, the people shall decide by a referendum. It's not up to parties and politicians because we are in a conflict of interest with regard to the decision.

What do you think about that?

[Barbara Simons]

I think that a referendum may be fine for certain issues, but when it's a heavily technological issue like Internet voting, you really need to listen to the experts. In fact, when I first heard about Internet voting, I thought it was a great idea. I really wanted to do it, and most of my colleagues—almost all of us are geeks, I should say. Notice that I'm here with this. I mean, I live on a computer. I spend all day long on the computer. I love my computer. But I don't want to vote on my computer, not in a major election.

Look at what's happening in the United States right now, where the Democratic Party is terrified that the election is going to be rigged by Russia. Now, I'm not saying that's going to happen, but the very fact that people are even contemplating that idea is very disturbing.

I was in Estonia a few years ago, at the invitation of the Estonian Centre Party, which is the second-largest party in Estonia, and remember, as I said in my talk, people hold up Estonia as the model of Internet voting in a country.

They invited me there because they are convinced that their elections are being rigged. They are the second-largest party, and if you look at who votes over the Internet, members of their party do not.... At least they don't get votes over the Internet very much. Most of their votes come from paper ballots, because Estonia has both paper ballots and Internet voting. They wanted me to go there and tell them that the election was rigged. I couldn't do that, because there's no way to know.

That's one of the terrifying things of Internet voting. You could have malware, election-rigging malware, on the voter's machine which could change the vote before it goes out over the Internet. What you see on your screen is not necessarily what goes out, because there are different components in a computer. It could change what goes out and the voter would never know.

That means that when you get the electronic ballots at the other end, these bits, you cannot know if they accurately represent the will of the voters, and therefore, you cannot do a recount. I could not therefore tell members of the Estonian Centre Party that the election was rigged, nor could I tell them that it was not rigged.

I think that is a very unhealthy situation for a democracy.

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

Thank you, Madam Simons.

I would like to ask Madam Rooij the same question.

Madam Rooij, do you think at the end of the day, if this government would like to go with a new way of electing people, we should have a referendum? What do you think about that?

[Eline de Rooij]

I find it a very difficult question. I do agree with my colleague that maybe certain issues should not be put to a referendum.

When it comes to an electoral system change, I think there first needs to be an extensive public consultation. I know there are numbers currently of people who even aren't aware that this is happening. Discussions are extremely low and very biased in terms of the type of people who are involved with this discussion in the larger Canadian public, so I think we'd have to have a very large consultation first, campaigning, informing people, and that takes time to do.

At the end of this, I do think something like electoral system change might have to go to the people to vote on. I'd like to see something like they have done in New Zealand in a several-step process, where people can familiarize themselves and maybe in one or two elections even vote on whether they want to keep the system or not.

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

Thank you, Madam Rooij.

May I have a few seconds to hear from Mr. Lang?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Please be brief, Mr. Lang.

[Harley Lang]

I'll be the first to admit that I am not sure what the answer is to that. My day-to-day work is designing interventions with kids with disabilities, so I'll be the first one to admit that I am not as familiar with what would be the best way to go with regard to a reform.

That said, I can see an option being some kind of melding of the two worlds. Why can't we have experts figure out what could be the best solution, then pose those options to citizens?