Electoral Reform Committee on Oct. 3rd, 2016

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good evening, ladies.

Thank you for your presentations. Usually, many more men than women testify before us. I think you are the third group of entirely female witnesses. It is greatly appreciated because the standard is always a little higher.

I wish to acknowledge Mr. Holland's presence.

We are delighted to have you here. It's greatly appreciated. Thank you very much.

Mrs. Tremblay, I see that you work in communications. Your document and your presentation are very interesting. You express an opinion on many aspects, including the need to have as many female candidates as male candidates and to have minorities represented. Your position on the referendum is clear.

However, you issued a warning. It's the first time I've heard it, and it's very important to mention it. You said that if the committee's work leads to nothing, it will fuel the disillusionment of the public, when one of the goals of creating this committee was to fight disillusionment while improving the electoral system. We are taking note of that. Still, I will come back to the criticisms made by my colleagues Mr. Rayes and Mr. Boulerice.

A few witnesses have presented a similar model to yours. I will tell you about the criticisms we are hearing by giving an example. If we go by the proportionality by province, Alberta would have an MP from the Green Party but, under your system, that MP would probably hold the third rank in the riding, and the first rank would be held by a Conservative. So constituents of the riding would have voted by a majority for the Conservative, but would be represented by an MP from the Green Party. There would almost be a risk of civil war!

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Participants have told us that there is the constituency, but that there is also proportionality in general, and it needs to operate in a certain way.

Could you quickly defend that perspective?

[Mireille Tremblay]

If a candidate did not have the majority but was elected—

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Let's suppose he is third and is elected.

[Mireille Tremblay]

Yes, that certainly could happen. Many conventions could be adopted. Thresholds could be created. For example, if someone doesn't receive a minimum of 25% of the votes, that person wouldn't be elected. With math and statistics, we can do all kinds of things. We could anticipate that with simulations of this type of situation.

However, I think the work MPs do in their constituencies is important, but it isn't the most important place of governance. The place of governance is the House of Commons and the Government of Canada. That's where I think the issue lies.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Dassonville, so far, people have been telling us that they don't want voting to be mandatory. In the consultations I've attended, no one has ever told us that it might be worthwhile to make voting mandatory. The worst thing is that your arguments are convincing.

As my colleague Alexandre Boulerice said, mandatory voting has an impact because it encourages reducing social inequalities. Could you speak to that?

You also said that when these people go and vote or when voting is mandatory, it doesn't necessarily help the parties to the left or to the right, and that the effect is mitigated. I'd like to hear your thoughts on that.

[Ruth Dassonville]

Thank you for the question.

Indeed, inequalities are reduced depending on who participates and who doesn't participate. That's it in a nutshell.

Studies show that the economic inequalities in societies in general are somewhat less pronounced in countries where this system is in place. The mechanism is that the parties and candidates speak to voters who, in other contexts, are very difficult to mobilize. The parties and candidates have an interest in reaching out to voters and talking to them.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Right. Thank you.

I have one last question for you. This is my economist side talking.

For mandatory voting, if we impose a fine of $20 on people who don't vote, will the administration costs of the system be covered? Is it a cost-neutral system or does it cost money?

[Ruth Dassonville]

We would have to do the calculations. I don't think this is a concern in Australia, for example. No one is saying that the system is too costly. That's not the biggest issue.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Thank you very much, ladies.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

Ms. May.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank all my colleagues.

I'm sorry I missed all the other testimonies today. This is one of the times I greatly regret being the only MP for the Green Party. I had to take part in the debate in the House on the Paris agreement.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for being here this evening. This is very interesting.

I'll start with Ms. Dassonville.

While you were talking I was remembering a proposal that used to be put forward in every Parliament by a mutual friend of the chairman and mine, Charles Caccia, the Liberal member of Parliament for Davenport from 1968 to 2004. In every Parliament where he had a chance, he put forward a private member's bill to make voting mandatory, but to have the ballot have an option for “none of the above”. When you said “none of the above”, I started thinking that I've heard this before somewhere. It would not surprise you to hear this never passed our Parliament despite being put forward repeatedly by Charles Caccia.

In looking at mandatory voting, I think that certainly would be something a lot of voters would find empowering, to know that they didn't have to spoil a ballot. They could make their views clearer.

Have you turned your mind at all to the idea that if we did have mandatory voting, whether we should have it on a Saturday, a weekend day? We heard not from a witness who was actually invited to the committee, but from one of the open-mike participants who talked about it in Australia and said that the mandatory voting election day became a great family event. People congregated. Communities were involved. I don't know if you've looked at the social cohesion aspects of how one organizes a mandatory voting day.

[Ruth Dassonville]

There's definitely this socializing aspect to it. I'm not sure it absolutely has to be on a weekend. Research tends to show that turnout rates are a bit higher on weekends than they are during the week. But if you have a system where you have several days to have the opportunity to cast your vote, the time really isn't the most important issue.

You might consider changing it in general that if you decide that voting should be mandatory, then it should be made as easy as possible, and the weekend might be a bit easier, yes.

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

There is another proposal that was put forward by one of the people at an open-mike session. Have you considered that rather than a penalty for people who do not vote there be a very small tax benefit for people who do vote, so that there's some monetary reward for turning out to vote? Did you consider that in preparing for today?

[Ruth Dassonville]

It is one of the ways in which you could implement it. I think most countries have penalties rather than incentives. The incentives don't work the same way for everyone and it's not really as effective as a punishment, even a small punishment.

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

Mrs. Tremblay, this is the committee's 35th meeting, and the electoral reform approach you are presenting is entirely unique. We have heard all kinds of ideas, but yours is completely different from the ones presented previously by other witnesses. I agree with my colleagues that voters have a problem when a candidate is third or fourth but wins the election.

I have another question about the idea of holding a referendum. With that approach, you proposed holding a referendum at the same time as the next election. You also proposed that the reform be used for the election that would be held no later than 2020 and the ones that might be held in 2024.

You also said that there was a risk of increased public cynicism if Mr. Trudeau did not keep his promise. He mentioned that the 2015 election would be the last to use the first-past-the-post voting system and wants to replace it with another approach in the near future. Would there be a risk of more cynicism from the public if this didn't happen?

[Mireille Tremblay]

If a referendum were held at the same time as the next election to ensure that the changes suggested would be in effect during future elections, it would be clear to the public that progress was being made. We are used to having discussions that keep coming back and seeing referendums cancelling things in British Columbia or Quebec. The public has rejected some proposals.

However, if something changes because the public supports it in the next election, if there is an action plan and an assessment is done for the following elections, I think it would be appropriate. And it all depends on the extent of the reform. I read the first review of the Chief Electoral Officer and of the constitutionalists regarding the complexity of introducing electoral reform and the legitimacy and responsibilities of the various players to make these changes. Specifically, the Chief Electoral Officer mentioned the need to change the electoral districts.

Basically, it depends on the extent of the reform and the proposal that will be put forward and that you will pass on. You could use various ways to confirm whether it is clear and easy to understand. The other option that I think remains democratic would be to put it in place for the next election and still have methods of evaluation that would be ratified by the public. Sooner or later, it's going to need to be ratified by the public. So if it isn't through a referendum during the next election, it should be ratified in future elections. So it involves evaluating, ratifying and continuing to use it or making changes to it.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you, Ms. May, but your time is up.

Mr. DeCourcey, you have the floor.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to thank the witnesses who are with us this evening. Please excuse me for being late.

My first question is for Ms. Dassonville.

We've heard the idea of a voting holiday. I've heard echoes elsewhere, not as testimony here in front of the committee, that that's a bad idea, that there might be research to suggest that is a bad idea. Have you done any research, or do you have any advice on the idea of a civic holiday for people to go and vote?

[Ruth Dassonville]

I wouldn't know what research has to say on that. If it's a weekend when people don't have to work, then turnout tends to be higher. I'm not sure that you want to create a holiday during the week by having a day off, since there are weekends already.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

We've also heard the geography of Canada makes it difficult to properly time the closing of polls across the country so that people from one end of the country to the other have the same information when they go to vote. As an Atlantic Canadian, I'm culpable of causing some predetermined thought, perhaps, for those who go to the polls out west. Have you done any research, or do you have any advice to share on how polls should administer themselves during election day so that voters across the country have equal knowledge of what's going on from one end of the country to the other?

[Ruth Dassonville]

Equal knowledge would mean no knowledge about the results before the polling stations are closed, and that seems like something that's feasible. I'm not quite sure what the effects would be of doing that. The effects on the electoral results of being informed about the results are minimal. That's what research is showing, but I'm not sure it would change that or if it's that important an issue.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Thank you very much.

Professor Tremblay, I think we heard a proposal similar to yours from other witnesses, but it wasn't exactly the same thing. For the first time, I think that a system like this might boost strategic voting.

If I were a Liberal candidate in New Brunswick, where Liberals won 51% of the votes, and I thought I would come fifth or sixth out of the 10 Liberal colleagues, I could ask voters who wanted to vote for the NDP or the Green Party to vote for me so that the Conservative candidate wouldn't come first or second on the list in the overall votes.

Would it end up increasing strategic voting? The witnesses who support the proportional system tell us that it would reduce it.