Thank you.
Ms. Sahota.
Evidence of meeting #34 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 north.
Evidence of meeting #34 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 north.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
I appreciate, Mr. Bevington, everything that you're saying. You come from a place of awesome experience in the system. We are sitting in the committee, looking at how we can work together to accomplish this. You're correct that a promise has been made, and this committee is trying to take it very seriously and figure out a method in which we can present something to the Canadian people that they'll be happy and satisfied with.
We'll be hearing from a lot of the public afterwards in the open-mike session, but I think you'll have probably a good sense of what people are thinking, having campaigned and door-knocked and been in the political sphere for a very long time. We often hear people say their vote doesn't count and that's why they want a change, or that their political views belong to none of the big parties and therefore they're not represented in the system, things like that. Did you often hear those types of complaints at the door and hear the desire for a different system? If so, what type of change did they want to see implemented?
4:10 p.m.
As an Individual
The most common was that they wanted us to work together. Canadians are very much like that. They want to see people working together. That was the most common talk I heard at the door. Of course, you have a variety of points of view. Some people love the fact that we hammer away at each other. But most people want us to work together. Most people want Parliament to be functioning in a good fashion. As I said before, we often treat it like a hockey game: we're on either side of the ice, we're battling and scrapping, and the winner takes all. That's not the way we should be doing business in this country. It's not a hockey game.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
I understand you were saying that it was your perspective as well. How often does that occur at the doorstep?
4:10 p.m.
As an Individual
It occurs quite often. If you talked about Parliament, that was the major thing, “Why can't these guys work together?”
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
Minister Sebert, you mentioned that whatever change we make you would suggest that it be simple and that it would be bad if it was complex. I know it's difficult for you to make specific suggestions, but is there something you could tell us to avoid doing because it would be too complex?
4:10 p.m.
As an Individual
The Parliament of Canada might have some experience with having clear questions on a referendum. If it comes to that, I would suggest that there be a lot of advertising in advance. I mentioned earlier that a lot of people here still rely on the traditional press, the newspapers and the radio. I know all of us at the assembly listen very faithfully to the CBC each morning, concerned that our names will come up in some unfortunate circumstances.
If it does go to a referendum—I have no idea whether that's what you're proposing—I think it would take a lot of work to have a referendum that people could easily understand. I don't know whether you would present a menu of possibilities or a simple yes or no. I don't envy you your task.
To give you a bit more information about our system here, we don't have parties at the assembly. It's a consensus type of government. When the 19 were elected, then seven were selected as cabinet ministers, so to some degree we're always in a minority government. When I went door to door in my election last November, I heard that they wanted us to work together, the same thing that Mr. Bevington heard in the federal election. I think to some degree our system, a small territory, works very well in that we in the cabinet always need some members from the opposite side.
To repeat, if it does come to a referendum, I don't envy you in your attempts to make it simple enough for people to understand.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
There's one more thing I wanted to address. Yesterday, we heard a lot about this issue being a minority rights issue. They were trying to suggest that the political view was a minority view, and that therefore this was a minority rights issue and we couldn't put it to a referendum.
Given that you are the Minister of Justice for the Northwest Territories, I think it's appropriate to ask you if you feel that this is a minority rights issue and should not be put to a referendum.
4:15 p.m.
As an Individual
I'm going to be very cautious in answering that question. It's not my area of legal expertise, but if there is a referendum, I guess you have to decide what would constitute a clear question and what would constitute a clear majority. I understand that some of the referendums that have taken place required a larger than 50% vote. I can't give any constitutional legal issue at this point, but again I—
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
Do you see the voting system as being a minority rights issue?
4:15 p.m.
NDP
Georgina Jolibois NDP Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK
Hello everyone. I'm glad to be here today with the group.
My question goes back to what Ruby's talking about. We in the north—I say “we” because my riding is in northern Saskatchewan. We have similar issues to what you have here. We have the language issue, the accessibility to Internet issue, issues with other services from health care to education, and other pieces. The distances are great.
I want to spend some time on the language piece. What does Northwest Territories do in terms of language? How many languages are there? Are they recognized? Are they official languages?
4:15 p.m.
As an Individual
There are 11 official languages. We don't have interpretation in the assembly each day for those languages, but when someone wishes to present or speak in a language—English, French, whatever—they certainly can have interpreters there.
4:15 p.m.
NDP
Georgina Jolibois NDP Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK
Okay.
Mr. Bevington, you alluded to it earlier and I can understand what you said in terms of feeling like a second-class citizen. Where I come from, we feel that way the majority of the time because of the complexities we have in northern Saskatchewan.
As parliamentarians of Canada, we are Canadians first. That's what I heard yesterday and as we started today. How do acknowledge the first nations and the Métis? How do we make sure that we protect what we have?
4:15 p.m.
As an Individual
Both in Parliament and in a personal way, I have always supported the development of political rights for indigenous peoples. Without that, it fits in with that colonial state. We have to recognize it. Our courts recognize it. There's so much need to move ahead with all aspects of settling land claims, recognizing culture, and dealing with the injustices of the past.
Those are all issues that we can work on here, and part of it comes from better representation in the House of Commons. I hope that's what will come out of this issue. I hope that the committee recognizes that one of the injustices of Canada that we need to fix is what happened to indigenous people who owned this land at one time and still have rights that go back for thousands of years.
What can you do to fix those issues through the electoral reform? I see a body of common interest across the country. I've suggested what I have because I know that in reality, in Parliament that's generally what happens. We can work together with people from the north because we do have those common interests. We do have citizens that need our joint efforts to get something done.
We can get beyond this party thing, which I see differently in other countries. Yes, they are in different parties, but they know darn well that they come from the regions and that the regions very much have a common interest. That's something that I hope you will actually get with proportional representation.
For many years there was only one representative from Alberta. That made the Alberta representation wrong because it didn't make the interests fit together, so you had a balancing act in Parliament from Alberta. I'm sure it was the same thing when there were 100 Liberals from Ontario. It made it very difficult for everyone to work together because that balance was lost. Whatever you can do to restore balance in Parliament through this process I think will help immeasurably.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
The time is up.
Thank you, Ms. Jolibois and Mr. Bevington.
Mr. Kelly.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Pat Kelly Conservative Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB
Thank you to everybody for attending today.
Mr. Sebert, thank you very much for your remarks. I found them to be very helpful and instructive in helping us understand the challenges of the territories. That's very helpful.
I'm going to address most of my remarks to many of the things that Mr. Bevington has raised in his remarks.
If I heard you correctly, in your opening statement you characterized the current voting system as bad because it is a colonial inheritance. A colonial inheritance, even if something were such, is not a value proposition. Many things and ideas of how our society should look and what it should aspire to have very ancient roots. The idea that the crown can't seize property is an old idea. We're not going to abandon that because the Magna Carta is 801 years old. Tolerance and freedom of conscience, and the pluralism that has flowed from that, we're not going to abandon simply because it's a legacy of the Enlightenment from hundreds of years ago.
We have to really decide what's the best system on the merits of a system and not just throw out.... We've heard it not just in the testimony we've heard today, but we've heard repeatedly from a variety of speakers that if the current system is old, then we have to get a new one. I reject that as a reason to abandon a system. If the system is not serving present needs, that is a different matter, and we should be wise to not forget that.
Mr. Bevington, many things that you did raise as difficulties and obstacles to effective government, and things that Canadians raise quite frequently, about frustration over rigid party discipline, or the perhaps disproportionate power of a prime minister's office, and the erosion of the individual role and powers of the member of Parliament, these are things that are very important, but perhaps can't and shouldn't be expected to be simply solved with a change in the way a voting system works.
Party discipline and the accountability of a cabinet and a prime minister to Parliament have changed throughout, even under the current system, and for better or worse. There was a time when a government was, on a day-to-day basis, very much aware of its accountability to its own Parliament, not to its party membership, because it was the Parliament itself, not the members of a political party, that chose a party leader. These are all issues that have come about and changed within a system, and perhaps they're not going to be solved overnight by moving to another one.
You had mentioned the need for consensus, and the importance of consensus, the desirability of consensus among our committee, and among parliamentarians, and indeed among Canadians. Yet we have heard from both experts and from [Technical difficulty—Editor]
I'll wrap up quickly. I've probably burnt all my time and I don't know if we'll get to a question or if this is just going to be a statement.
Mr. Bevington and indeed others who have spoken before us have talked about not only the desirability of consensus but the need for consensus. We've had discussion about what would constitute the legitimacy necessary to change a voting system. We've been told by many people who advocate a proportional representation system that it's necessary, but in the same breath they say we shouldn't put it to a referendum, because it would likely fail. We've heard that a referendum is simply a way to prevent change from happening.
I would reject that notion with due regard and understanding of the importance of getting a question correct, and having a good debate, a robust and fair and civil debate, but indeed, I don't know what legitimacy would look like in the absence of a referendum. I am also bothered by the assertion that maintaining the current system is unfair and unjust because it's an unjust system, but that we should use the power of that unfair system to impose something without a referendum.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
That's a good conclusion. We'll leave it at that.
We'll go now to Mr. Aldag.
September 30th, 2016 / 4:25 p.m.
Liberal
John Aldag Liberal Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
It's a pleasure to be back in the NWT. I had the privilege of living in Fort Smith for five years back in Dennis's day as mayor, and as I sit here on a Friday night, north of 60, I just have to give a nod to the Roaring Rapids Hall and hope we can maybe have some Yellowknife experiences this evening when we're all done here.
Anyway, it's great to see both of you today.
Mr. Sebert, I wanted to talk a bit about voter turnout. You mentioned the lower rates of participation in the NWT amongst voters. Are there any discussions under way about increasing voter participation or turnout, and if so, is it a concern? Are you looking at trying to increase it in the future, and what might that look like?
4:30 p.m.
As an Individual
I can say that it has been a concern in that we appear to be going in the wrong direction. In the last few elections, there has been less of a turnout than there had been previously. When I first ran for election a long, long time ago in my community of Fort Smith, there was a turnout of over 90%, of which I garnered 4%.
We are concerned about it. I think a bit of the downturn in numbers this last time might have been due to voter fatigue, because there was not only, of course, the federal election on October 19 but also municipal elections in many of our communities on the same day. We are concerned about it and we're trying to get out to make the voting easier. We just had a report from our chief electoral officer. We're looking at that. We're looking even at electronic voting, as a possibility, and yes, it is a concern. We hope to address that concern.
There's one other thing. The territorial election, because of your election, was later in the year, and the weather on November 23 was not terribly pleasant in a lot of ridings, and that may well have kept numbers down. We want to turn that around and have as many people out as possible. The committee is presently reviewing the chief electoral officer's report and we are looking at changes.
Thank you.
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
John Aldag Liberal Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
I don't know if the report is public, but taking a look at the chief electoral officer's comments would help us understand the challenges of the territories.
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
John Aldag Liberal Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
I want to ask you about another thing. You're one of two governments in Canada that work on a consensus basis. When I left here, I found that absolutely fascinating, and although the national system is quite different, with the political parties and how we're set up, this idea of moving to something that may bring about more collaboration.... Could you share your thoughts, sitting in a coalition-based government, about the strengths, the weaknesses, and the things we could either anticipate or look forward to if we moved away from the kind of opposition we've heard from Mr. Bevington? I think being part of a coalition government would be quite interesting for our group to hear about.
4:30 p.m.
As an Individual
Yes.
We have had this system of consensus government for many years. It's always evolving. Initially, before I ran and before I was elected, I thought that a party system would actually be better. Then we could be bound to some of the promises we made on election day or before election day. But since I arrived in the House and was lucky enough to be selected for cabinet, I found it works very well. As I mentioned earlier, we are in a perpetual minority situation, as it were, so we do need help from the other side of the House.
Also, one of the things that we have decided to do in this assembly is to have a formal mid-term review. If that goes poorly, in essence we may have a change of some or all ministers. We also went through a long and exhaustive process at the beginning to set a mandate, so that the government will be measured against that mandate at the mid-term, which will be next year.