Evidence of meeting #33 for Electoral Reform in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was first.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Roderick Wood  Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Alberta, As an Individual
Patricia Paradis  Executive Director, Centre for Constitutional Studies, University of Alberta, As an Individual
Doug Bailie  As an Individual
Sean Graham  As an Individual
Joseph Green  As an Individual
David Garrett  As an Individual
Ken Solomon  As an Individual
David Parker  As an Individual
Heather Workman  As an Individual
Roger Buxton  As an Individual
Laurene Brown  As an Individual
Donald Turton  As an Individual
Lance Sarcon  As an Individual
Ashley Macinnis  As an Individual
David Fraser  As an Individual
Peter Adamski  As an Individual
Cori Longo  As an Individual
Christine Watts  As an Individual
Andrea Vogel  As an Individual
Sally Issenman  As an Individual
Martin Stout  As an Individual
Robyn Hoffman  As an Individual
Joe Pound  As an Individual
Loreen Lennon  As an Individual
Peter Johnston  As an Individual
David Blain  As an Individual
David Nash  Professor Emeritus, University of Alberta, As an Individual
Natalie Pon  As an Individual
Kristy Jackson  As an Individual
Susanne Goshko  As an Individual
Vanessa Peacock  As an Individual
John Wodak  As an Individual
Reta Pettit  As an Individual
Jeremy Wiebe  As an Individual

3:50 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia

Go ahead, Mr. Reid.

3:50 p.m.

Conservative

Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON

Thank you.

You've all made interesting presentations, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to focus on just one of the witnesses to get a decent exchange of information. Mr. Graham, I'd like to focus on your system. First of all, I was looking online to see what I could find out about it. There's a very extensive Wikipedia article. We are all obsessive about Wikipedia articles about ourselves. Is this a good article? Does it accurately summarize things? Can you go there as a good way of getting an intro? Or is there somewhere else online that's better, and if so, what would that be?

3:50 p.m.

As an Individual

Sean Graham

There is somewhere else online that's better. I've compiled all of the work that I've done onto my website, dmpforcanada.com. The Wikipedia article was created with some people I'm collaborating with in Ontario. I know the person who put that together and I have vetted the information there. The Wikipedia article is valid for seeking information, but if you wanted the information more directly from me, I would suggest going to the dmpforcanada.com website instead.

3:50 p.m.

Conservative

Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON

There's an external link to it in the Wikipedia article. So I can just click on it.

3:50 p.m.

As an Individual

3:50 p.m.

Conservative

Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON

So there we are. That will give me some reading material for this evening.

3:50 p.m.

As an Individual

Sean Graham

On that home page, you will notice there are two videos. For the P.E.I. campaign, they've released a video for each option. I've included their video for DMP on the home page of the website. More recently, some people I have been collaborating with in Ontario, from Ryerson University, have put together a video for DMP at the Canada level instead of the P.E.I. level. This way, you can see it more in the context we're talking about. They do a good job of going through how the system works, going into some of the details without getting bogged down in them. I would recommend checking that video out.

3:55 p.m.

Conservative

Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON

If I may say so, on the one hand, this strikes me as being novel and clever, while, on the other hand, it's so obvious that one wonders why someone didn't think of it earlier.

There is, however, one constitutional issue that might be very significant. You talked about creating regions of multiple provinces. I suspect that would be found to be unconstitutional. The court hasn't ruled on this, but I think I know how they would rule. They talk about the architecture of the Canadian Constitution when we're dealing with our legislative branches. This is in their Senate reference case two years ago. I think it's part of the architecture of our Constitution that House of Commons seats are allocated by province. Within a province, you can do basically anything. You could have pure proportionality, MMP, STV, or your system, but I don't think you could have multi-province regions without creating something that would be found unconstitutional in the absence of an amendment. Are you aware of that concern? Has anyone presented it to you before?

3:55 p.m.

As an Individual

Sean Graham

Yes, when I did the initial project I dedicated a section of the DMP report to discussing those constitutional issues. In my reading of the discussion, for example, if you look at the Law Commission of Canada's report, they simply mention that they thought MMP, using those upper provincial regions, would likely be found unconstitutional, but they never gave a definitive answer. However, the reason MMP would likely be found unconstitutional would not apply to DMP.

MMP requires seats that would span multiple provinces in addition to the regions. With DMP we're simply talking about regions that would span multiple provinces, not the seats. From my understanding of the constitutional requirements it dictates how many seats each province must be allocated. It doesn't dictate how those seats are elected. If that's indeed true, then you could use upper provincial regions while the seats would be completely retained by each provincial district.

You could also choose to implement DMP just like MMP or STV by using provincial regions instead. That change is not complicated. The reason I think it's worth looking at the regions that go beyond provincial boundaries is you get into trouble when you try to incorporate the territories and smaller provinces in Atlantic Canada. If we implement reform without those larger regions, we effectively leave the territories with first past the post and we leave most provinces and Atlantic Canada with something pretty close to something like first past the post.

The whole point of this exercise was to bring voter equality and fairness to all Canadians. I think if we're going to do that, we have to look at exploring the idea of having these larger regions. It could be as simple as, let's say the committee decides to choose MMP as the system they're going with. Elections Canada, for example, could do its work to get ready for the next election using this system while you send in a reference case to the Supreme Court to ask that question. If they say yes, then you can go ahead with it and if they say no, then it's just a matter of changing which regions you're going to use.

3:55 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia

Thank you.

3:55 p.m.

Conservative

Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON

Mr. Chair, I think that's really good counsel and I appreciate it.

3:55 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia

Thank you.

Now we will hear from Mr. Boulerice.

3:55 p.m.

NDP

Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Thanks to the witnesses who are here with us this afternoon.

I will start with Mr. Green.

You have a surname that predestines you to discuss electoral reform.

Your insomnia has served a purpose since you have come up with suggestions to make to us.

First of all, I am glad that all three of you have presented systems that tend toward a better representation of citizen choices and voices, toward a form of proportionality. I must admit that, like all the members of this committee, I suppose, I had a few ideas before starting this tour. I now realize that there are more possible choices among electoral systems than I had previously realized. You have spent time studying the issue in order to propose original models to us.

Mr. Green, before asking you a question, I will make a comment.

We can observe elections and their results through a number of lenses, from a number of angles. One of those angles, I believe, was used by the former leader of the NDP, Ed Broadbent. His idea was to calculate the average number of votes necessary to elect every member from every political party.

Mr. Green, if my memory serves me, you said it took 602,000 or 603,000 votes to elect a member from the Green Party, 82,000 votes for every Bloc Québecois member and 78,000 votes for every NDP member. In other words, every time you reach 78,000 votes, a new NDP member is elected. The average number for the Conservatives was 48,000 votes per member. For the members of the majority party, under our present system, it took only 38,000 boats to elect every Liberal member. So we can say that this is a bargain because it is quick. Every 38,000-vote tranche elects a new Liberal member.

If I understand your system correctly, Mr. Green, people would still vote in the local districts as we do now, but seat distribution would be based on the best results of the candidates from each party. I find your system frightening.

if I understand correctly, in a district where someone comes first, and has therefore won the election, but by a very slim margin because of the division of the votes cast for the party, that person might not become an MP even after winning in his or her district. I think people would find it hard to accept that.

4 p.m.

As an Individual

Joseph Green

You're absolutely right.

Where shall I begin? I'll begin by simply pointing out that, out of the 338 ridings, 67 would be adjusted. By that I simply mean that the one who won first past the post would not get to be seated in Parliament. But here's the point: in most instances of these adjustments, they are going to the runner-up in terms of the number. They still are well represented in terms of the alternatives, in terms of parties.

Now I neglected to point out a criticism of what my system is. It's mechanical, and what it does is the third and the fourth-run parties that get filled, if they're that far down, get filled in a priority sequence. For example, in Alberta, the last seat allocated would have gone to the Green Party by this calculation, and there would have been perhaps under 1,000 votes in that riding. Still I argue that's a good thing. The reason I say that is one vote, one man, and all of our elected MPs are approximately equalized in terms of the numbers of voters for the party that they represent.

Now let's talk about St. Albert, because that would have been the riding with a Green member. It was under 1,000 votes. You would say, “What a terrible thing that would be. That's so undemocratic for St. Albert.” My answer is that democracy is wider than just St. Albert and, if you folks want a Conservative or a Liberal, work harder on the next election.

I should have pointed out that's a limitation.

I hope I answered your question.

4 p.m.

NDP

Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC

Yes, thank you very much.

4 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia

We'll go to Mr. Ste-Marie, please.

4 p.m.

Bloc

Gabriel Ste-Marie Bloc Joliette, QC

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon, gentlemen. Welcome to our committee. Thank you for being here with us.

Your presentations were very interesting. Unfortunately, we have not received the documents you submitted to us as a result of translation delays. As all three of you are proposing quite technical systems, it is difficult for us to get a clear picture of what you have in mind. That is why the purpose of most of our questions thus far has been to obtain clarification.

I will start with Mr. Green.

Under your system, in that Alberta district, for example, we would have elected a Green Party member who came third, whereas the Conservatives would have come first. I think that might cause a civil war.

4:05 p.m.

As an Individual

Joseph Green

I think I can give you an assurance that in St. Albert there certainly would not be a civil war.

We have a problem as a nation, and that is that the first past the post system, from my perspective, amplifies political cleavages. Alberta is not 100% Conservative, and Quebec is not 100% PQ. We want our representatives who are seated to be as close possible to an equal playing field as representatives of voters—

4:05 p.m.

Bloc

Gabriel Ste-Marie Bloc Joliette, QC

Mr. Green—

4:05 p.m.

As an Individual

Joseph Green

—who voted for that party.

I have one other thing, if I may. Please don't harness us with proportional systems that have memory from previous elections or preferential ballots where we somehow allocate the decision-making to a party we never voted for. Keep it simple. I'm an old engineer, and I'm crusty, as you can see. Please keep it simple.

4:05 p.m.

Bloc

Gabriel Ste-Marie Bloc Joliette, QC

Why not favour a mixed-member proportional system with a list of candidates by province?

The idea would thus be to increase the size of the current district slightly, and the Green member from Alberta, in the example you cited, would not be attached to St. Albert, which would avoid causing tensions. He would simply be a member selected from the province's list.

4:05 p.m.

As an Individual

Joseph Green

My answer is simply this: we do not have class A, class B, and class C provinces in this country, and we certainly should not have class A, class B, and class C MPs. MPs are elected to express the public interest of our country, and you do it with legislation in the various areas where you function, both provincially and federally. Please keep it simple.

4:05 p.m.

Bloc

Gabriel Ste-Marie Bloc Joliette, QC

All right, thank you.

4:05 p.m.

As an Individual

Joseph Green

It won't be perfect. One of the reasons it won't be perfect is we don't get uniformity from the Constitution about how many seats and so on go to P.E.I., to the territories, and so on. We can make an improvement, and it's dramatic when you look at the standard deviations and when you look at the analysis. As I say, it was a math trick. It may not have been obvious. What this does is maximize the number of voters who are represented in the legislature.

4:05 p.m.

Bloc

Gabriel Ste-Marie Bloc Joliette, QC

Thank you very much, Mr. Green.

I would like some clarification from Mr. Graham. The division into four major regions, that is Quebec, Ontario, western Canada and the Maritimes, as you suggest, would help make your system more proportional. Is that correct?