Electoral Reform Committee on Sept. 30th, 2016

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

That wraps up our third panel.

Thank you very much to the witnesses for your eloquence and insights. I must say, you've made some profound observations and added to the perspectives that we're gaining through this cross-Canada trip, so thank you very much.

Of course, you're free to stay with us as we go to the public session, which includes seven citizens of Yellowknife who would like to speak to the issue of electoral reform.

I'll just explain briefly how we function and how we functioned in other cities. Each individual is provided two minutes to make their statement about electoral reform. We have two microphones. We try to keep both microphones occupied. In other words, while one person speaks, the other person is at the other microphone preparing their remarks.

I'll call to microphone number one Tasha Stephenson, and I would call to microphone number two Chief Georges Erasmus.

Nice to see you again, Chief Erasmus. I don't know if you remember.... Well, I'll mention that when we get to your intervention.

Go ahead, Ms. Stephenson, for two minutes, please.

[Tasha Stephenson, As an Individual]

Thank you for coming.

I put my name on the list to speak simply so there would be a citizen here, because really, honestly, Friday night.... Anyway, I'm happy to see that there actually are other people who have found this more important than their social lives.

I am here to reiterate what I hope you have heard loud and clear from across the country, that we really, really want you to fix the broken system that we have and replace it with something representative, and proportionally so. That's my main point.

Thank you for coming to Yellowknife and hearing what we have to say. I'm really grateful to all of the wonderful presenters this afternoon who said very eloquently and insightfully everything that I wanted to hear. I hope you heard it too.

Thank you for your time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much.

Chief Erasmus, it's nice to see you again. You probably don't remember, but we met about 20 years ago when I came up here when I was working for a member of Parliament, Clifford Lincoln.

[Georges Erasmus, As an Individual]

Oh, yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We met maybe twice. We came up for the meeting of the Arctic parliamentarians here in Yellowknife, and I think we also met when I came up with the environment committee and we were doing a study on water and the oil sands. I think you were making a film at that time.

Anyway, welcome, and we look forward to hearing your comments.

[Georges Erasmus]

Thank you.

I recently became aware of this organization called Fair Vote Canada, and I've had a chance to look at the three different proposals they have for proportional representation, something I've been very supportive of all my life, although I've never gone into all the different details. It was very interesting to read their proposals and some of their ideas. In the end I'm supportive of anything that brings us as close to 100% representation in Parliament of the vote across Canada. I want an opportunity for Canadians to be able to vote with their heart and their beliefs, and passionately say, “This vote is going to mean something because now I'm finally voting for somebody, not voting against somebody over there, but I'm voting for a party that I really want to vote for.”

I'm 68. I've been voting ever since I could, and it wasn't very long after aboriginal people could vote in this country that I was able to start voting. I have been very passionate about it. I remember working up here to get in our first aboriginal person when I was first able to vote, and working to get Wally Firth as an NDP member. For us to get an aboriginal person in was a very major thing,

Whether it's the mixed member, the multi-member, the rural-urban proportional representation, any one of those seem to improve.... Some are better that others, obviously. Then there's the whole question of how many members you're going to add. Are you going to keep the number of members in the House the same? It means only so many are going to be elected by a process where, perhaps, it's still first past the post, and then the rest are proportional, whatever, but I recommend that you try to get as close as possible to 100% representation.

For instance, in one of the versions, apparently, we would have had eight Green members this time. Wouldn't that have been an amazing thing?

I want to talk about something else. One of my previous jobs was as co-chair of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. In the report, in volume 2, “Restructuring the Relationship” there is a section that talks about not only self-rule or self-government for aboriginal people, but also shared rule between aboriginal people and the rest of Canada. We talked about a number of things. One of the things we talked about was perhaps having something like guaranteed seats, or if you're not going to change the Constitution, if you're going to go short of that, then obviously the recommendation made by electoral reform recommended the possibility of, I think it was, eight aboriginal districts, rather than having guaranteed seats. I think it's something we need to look at.

At the time when the royal commission reported, which was 20 years ago in a month's time, we had maybe fewer than 20 members who had ever been elected in Canada up to that time. Obviously, we're doing better; in this House I notice we have quite a few more members, but it's still not really enough. So I recommend that you take a look at that section of our report and see if there's anything there that you can garner out of it that would be useful for you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

[Georges Erasmus]

We also recommended an aboriginal parliament, which would be a step on the way to a house of first peoples. The reason we did that was we thought aboriginal people have not been interested about going to Parliament; there's been a lot of mistrust and all the rest of it. Not only that, but a lot of aboriginal people are under the impression that the relationship they had with the crown is one that's nation to nation, and we should have a different kind of relationship.

So if the Senate is there to represent the regions and the provinces and all the rest of it, the Commons is there to represent the people, Canadians, well then, what about an idea of having a third house that represents the first peoples.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I understand. Thank you.

[Georges Erasmus]

We have in the proposal a whole list of things we can do in the meantime—anything to do with treaties, self-government, the new land claims that are coming forth, any legislation of general application that would affect aboriginal people, section 35, the charter, and so forth. There's a whole list of things.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

You recommend that we maybe go back and have a look at the report.

[Georges Erasmus]

Also look at the electoral reform royal commission, because it actually dealt with what you could do now. The reason we recommend an aboriginal parliament is that you can do it with an act, with legislation. It could be a stepping stone. Twenty years ago we said you could start it with about 36 people. The way we did it, we said each province and territory would start with two members, and then you'd add a member for every 50,000 aboriginal people. Of course the numbers have changed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Yes, obviously there's some updating to do. Our analysts will go back and have a look at that.

Thank you, Chief Erasmus.

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

Thank you, Chief Erasmus.

What an honour it is that you came to an open mike. You should have been able to be here for 10 or 20 minutes as an expert witness. It's a real honour to have you here.

We have heard the recommendation. I believe it was Kirk Cameron, the former city councillor in Whitehorse, who told us specifically to go back and look at the 1996 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, so it's not the first time it's been directed.

But, again, mahsi cho.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much. It's very good to see you again.

[Georges Erasmus]

You're very welcome.

Good luck with your work. I'm very impressed that you're still meeting at this time of night.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

Marcelle Marion, go ahead please.

[Marcelle Marion, As an Individual]

It's such an honour to see so many MPs in the Northwest Territories. I think it's a first; I'm not sure, but it's amazing. Anyway, thank you so much for your work on this very important subject.

I too wanted to speak a little bit about the issue of aboriginal representation in our Parliament and in our electoral system and to see it improve. There are those studies that were pointed out. I'm not sure what the committee's going to do in terms of other new studies, but something I want to raise tonight is truth and reconciliation. I think it's important that you consider electoral reform in the context of a larger reconciliation agenda in Canada in a historic kind of way. I know that electoral voting wasn't really covered by truth and reconciliation, but some really important aspects of it can be reflected.

I think it's important that we have equity in our new system. I really believe in the MCS system. I'm sure you've heard about it. It's the made-in-Canada system. If it is made in Canada, then we need to have the aboriginal and the northern perspectives included. This is what I wanted to talk about today.

The other thing I wanted to mention is that internationally our electoral system has a really good reputation, so I wouldn't throw everything out with the bathwater and just say we hate our system. We need changes, of course, but we have a good reputation. I think we need to remember that.

The last thing I want to mention is that we're all operating under the idea that there is no perfect system. The fact is you can invent the best system possible, but if we're not careful about the financing laws regarding parties, then we're not necessarily going to get where we want to go. We have to be very careful about the financing laws of the parties.

I've been watching this on TV. Thank you so much for your wonderful work. I'm hoping to see great results

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you for the attention you're giving to the issue, and for participating tonight.

Mr. Mark Bogan, go ahead.

[Mark Bogan, As an Individual]

Thank you to all the members and to everybody for doing this.

I wanted to touch base with you on the growing number of Canadians who choose not to vote. Many of us have campaigned for a long time to people like you. My issue happens to be a broken family law system and how our family is slated to die without really knowing our kids or not knowing where they are now and stuff like that.

Our campaign started in 1999. If you were to open your files, you'd see that we sent a signature sheet from all members of our family to the Canadian Senate and every MP in Ottawa, and to date we remain left out in the cold. The situation has become so bad that we're still in court after 24 years. We waited three and a half years for a hearing date, and we've waited three months for a court order. However, we've lost confidence that the court order is going to surface.

I wanted to touch base with you on people who, for a very long time, campaign to people like you. We haven't stopped. I tabled an almost 2,000-signature petition, with signatures from Hay River to Inuvik, with our last MP. He gave it no value. Monsieur Ste-Marie spoke about toeing the party line or actually giving your constituents some value. Our last MP toed the party line. It was labelled as one of the largest petitions ever tabled in the Northwest Territories. I thought it was a prominent issue, one as big as climate change.

When you look at the role of an MP to enhance a family or quality of life, or to actually give their constituents value, I can't identify a political party in Canada that does, with the exception of Elizabeth May. When your back is to the wall with the Liberals, the Conservatives, and the New Democratic Party, who are giving this no value, you lose confidence in the Canadian Parliament as a whole. I am another one of a group—there are many, many people like me—who are choosing to no longer vote because my vote has no value.

I'm sure there are a lot of systemic issues in Canada and a lot of advocacy groups that feel the same way, but when you've been at it as long as people like me have and you're going to die without knowing where your children even are, we have what I would say is a big systemic problem with the culture in Ottawa, right across the board. Maybe we want to take a look at that.

Merci. Good luck with this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thanks very much, Mr. Bogan.

Karen Hamre is next. Go ahead, Ms. Hamre.

[Karen Hamre, As an Individual]

Thank you very much to the committee for their work and for coming here.

One of the questions that was put forward was, what makes the north any different? What could you take away from being in the north? A number of points have been raised about the rural aspects, the distances, and various things like that.

Here's what I would also add. Perhaps this has been brought up. I haven't listened to all the presentations. The representatives here also have to represent land in a different way than they do in most parts of Canada, where a piece of land is privately owned. That land in fact is represented by a person and a vote. Here, the vast proportion of our land is held collectively, either by the crown or by various first nations groups through land claim agreements. In effect, then, that doesn't have the same kind of voting power that you would have in much of Canada.

I think this is another reason that we should be looking at some increased participation and members for the Northwest Territories: because the people who are going to Parliament are representing the land in a very different way, the land that is not only for the aboriginal people but for those of us who choose to be northerners as well.

Quickly, a proportional system, from the research I've seen, would increase the number of women in Parliament, which I think is a good thing, and also minority members. I think that is good as well.

I think you guys have an extraordinarily difficult job to do with all the input you have, so in that regard, I'm not in favour of a referendum, because the weighting of all the information that you're taking from across the country is extraordinarily difficult. I'm glad to see a very diverse representation around the table to do that.

Our important needs rest in your hands.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much for that perspective.

Go ahead, Ms. Joldersma.

[Hermina Joldersma, As an Individual]

I'm very supportive of electoral reform, probably the mixed member proportional, which will result in as close to the number of seats in the House reflecting the popular vote as possible.

Many things have been said today, but two things in particular haven't been raised in a way that I think is valid. It's been suggested that a ballot for MMP would be so complicated that Canadians would have difficulty with it. I just had a look at the German ballot, which I'm most familiar with, and it is not rocket science. I don't think Germans are smarter than Canadians, on average. I think Canadians would in fact be able to understand a ballot that's different from first past the post.

I'm familiar with the Dutch and the German parliamentary debates. I speak both of those languages and listen to their debates sometimes. The level of debate in their parliaments makes our Parliament, what we see of it as Canadians watching TV, look like grade 1 out of control. Again, it's not because our parliamentarians are not as smart, or as nice, or as kind. I think our system promotes bad behaviour by parliamentarians.

I think mixed member proportional, when people would be forced to talk to each other in a civilized fashion because they needed their vote for a bill down the road, would improve politics in Canada immeasurably.

Thank you.