Yes.
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.
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.
4:05 p.m.
Bloc
Gabriel Ste-Marie Bloc Joliette, QC
Then going back to the subject raised by my colleague Scott Reid, under that kind of system, a Saskatchewan voter could influence the election of a member in Alberta.
4:05 p.m.
As an Individual
That's a bit of a misrepresentation of what would happen. The voter in Saskatchewan would participate into equal weight as someone in Alberta for the regional voting results. The regional voting results allocate the seats to each party on a proportional basis, and the allocation of those seats is strictly determined by the local voting results.
The votes in Alberta would have no role in those results, and the votes from Saskatchewan and Alberta would be on equal footing to determine the regional outcome, which they should be. One person with one vote mandates that be the case.
4:05 p.m.
Bloc
Gabriel Ste-Marie Bloc Joliette, QC
Consider a hypothetical situation. The Parliament of Canada must decide between the interests of Alberta and those of Saskatchewan in the case, for example, of a mega-business that has to determine in which of those two provinces it will set up operations. Could it be difficult for a voter from one province to determine which candidate from which party was elected where and how?
I do not know whether my question is clear.
4:05 p.m.
As an Individual
Yes, I understand the question.
There would be complete clarity on that. Candidates would have run and received votes only from people within their districts. They would be elected largely based on the votes within that district, so it would be completely clear who a candidate represents. It would be as clear as it is now, the only difference is that there would be two candidates per district.
4:10 p.m.
Bloc
Gabriel Ste-Marie Bloc Joliette, QC
I am eager to read your brief.
I had some questions for Mr. Bailie, but I hope my colleagues will ask them for me.
Thank you.
4:10 p.m.
Green
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Thank you.
I'm pleased that you're with us today, all three of you. Thank you so much.
I have to say, Sean Graham, I'm astonished at you having invented a voting system. In 2013, as a I understand it, you were a student in mathematics at the University of Alberta, so forgive a personal question, what are you doing now?
4:10 p.m.
As an Individual
I currently work with the Alberta government as a policy researcher.
4:10 p.m.
Green
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
They figured you were brilliant and hired you. Good for them.
I'm impressed with the system, and I want to dig into your system a bit more. As the sample ballot you've given us shows, and I don't think we've dug into this, the concept is that a party could, but doesn't have to, put forward two candidates on the ballot for a voter to choose, but the voter doesn't get to rank or show a preference for one over the other. They vote for the party, but they know their candidate's name on the ballot.
Can you explain the significance of that in the way the system becomes more proportional, or what strategies the party might employ to decide what the benefit is in running one instead of two, or two instead of one?
4:10 p.m.
As an Individual
Take a case where a party thinks it doesn't have the opportunity to win both seats, and let's say it anticipates coming in third place. In that case, they would probably deem it more reasonable to allocate all three resources to one candidate. The one candidate gives the party the possibility of winning that second seat when that decision-making process comes into play, but it also allows the party to get votes that count toward the regional result for allocating seats to each party on a proportional basis.
Running the second candidate is only necessary if the party anticipates it can win the first seat in the district. That would maybe show strength for the party when they can nominate that extra candidate, but otherwise it's not necessary.
4:10 p.m.
Green
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Okay.
In the discussions we've had, it seems to me there's a theme that the simpler the ballot for the voter, the more complicated the calculation exercise for Elections Canada later. With your calculations we'd immediately know one group of top winning candidates and the calculation for the second seat, but with a two-member district, it would take longer.
How long do you anticipate it would take in real life for Elections Canada to do the calculations to ensure there are dual members? When would the second member be named?
4:10 p.m.
As an Individual
I ran simulations for the past five federal elections, and each one takes about 60 seconds to determine the outcome.
4:10 p.m.
As an Individual
The thing that took awhile was writing the program to do it. The steps are mathematically simple. It's just you're doing it on a large scale with 100 ridings in each region, roughly. That's not the difficulty. The thing that you would have to wait for is for all the votes to come in, because under this system each vote would count and each vote would matter, and you would actually need to know every last vote before you could determine the final outcome.
On election night, for example, when you watch the news, what they would be able to tell you first is who wins the first seat, as they do now, and based on the regional voting results, they'd be able to tell you what the composition of the House of Commons would be. But they would have to wait until every last vote is cast to determine who those second MPs would be.
4:10 p.m.
Green
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
To make sure I understand, because I have been thinking that you would need to know every last vote cast by region for four regions, do you have to wait for every last vote to be cast and counted across Canada to be able to name, for instance, the second member in Atlantic Canada?
4:10 p.m.
As an Individual
No. Each region would be a unique entity. Only votes in the Atlantic region would count towards the results in Atlantic Canada, and the same for all the other regions.
4:10 p.m.
Green
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
I do understand your system. Since it's been promoted and discussed over the last three years—I know it's not fair to ask you this because you're the inventor and promoter—have you been confronted with the weaknesses of your system? Has anyone said, “Ah, Sean, you forgot to think of this, and this is a disadvantage to an otherwise perfect system”?
4:10 p.m.
As an Individual
The only complaints that I've run into that I see merit in for some people is the fact that for some of these second MPs, most of them would be elected in second place, so you elect the first-place candidate and the second-place candidate from each district. In a small minority of districts in the simulation I provided in my submission, it was 13% of the candidates who would have been elected in third place or lower. Some people object to the idea of having those runner-up candidates elected. Personally, I think the objection is unwarranted. Those candidates would be top performers for their party, and whether you elect them in third place in a district or you put them on a list, in an MMP system, I don't think they have any more legitimacy on the list in MMP.
4:15 p.m.
Green
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
That has aspects of Baden-Württenberg in terms of next-best winner, or the best-loser system.
4:15 p.m.
Green
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Thank you.
I'm sure my time is up, but thank you so much for your dedication to a brilliant idea. I'm not saying it's the one I prefer, I'm agnostic, but it's simply brilliant.
