Evidence of meeting #35 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 young.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Kevin Dobie  Director, Quebec Community Groups Network
Carolyn Loutfi  Executive Director, Apathy is Boring
Stephen Thompson  Director, Policy, Research and Public Affairs, Quebec Community Groups Network
Raphaël Pilon-Robitaille  Coordinator in Sociopolitical Affairs and Research, Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec
Santiago Risso  President, Forum jeunesse de l'Île de Montréal
Rémy Trudel  Guest Professor, École nationale d'administration publique, As an Individual
Lee  As an Individual
Marie Claude Bertrand  As an Individual
Robert McDonald  As an Individual
Jacinthe Villeneuve  As an Individual
Selim Totah  As an Individual
Douglas Jack  As an Individual
Gerard Talbot  As an Individual
Guy Demers  As an Individual
Samuel Leclerc  As an Individual
Gabrielle Tanguay  As an Individual
Olivier Germain  As an Individual
Benoit Bouchard  As an Individual
Veronika Jolicoeur  As an Individual
Cymry Gomery  As an Individual
Steven Scott  As an Individual
Daniel Green  As an Individual
Johan Boyden  As an Individual
Daniela Chivu  As an Individual
Ian Henderson  As an Individual
Jimmy Yu  As an Individual
Mireille Tremblay  As an Individual
Ruth Dassonville  Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Université de Montréal, As an Individual
Fernand Deschamps  As an Individual
Marc Heckmann  As an Individual
Diane Johnston  As an Individual
Michael Jensen  As an Individual
Jean-Claude Noël  As an Individual
Samuel Fanning  As an Individual
William Gagnon  As an Individual
Katie Thomson  As an Individual
Diallo Amara  As an Individual
Pierre Labrèche  As an Individual
Resham Singh  As an Individual
Fred Bild  As an Individual
Alexandre Gorchkov  As an Individual
Kathrin Luthi  As an Individual
Rhoda Sollazzo  As an Individual
Sidney Klein  As an Individual
Alain Charbonneau  As an Individual
Alain Marois  As an Individual
Serafino Fabrizi  As an Individual
Sylvie Boulianne  As an Individual
Laurie Neale  As an Individual
Anne-Marie Bouchard  As an Individual
Jean-Sébastien Dufresne  As an Individual
Maksym Kovalenkov  As an Individual

5 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia

Thank you, Mr. Boyden.

Could Ian Henderson come to the mike, please.

Madam Chivu.

5 p.m.

Daniela Chivu As an Individual

Hello everybody.

Thank you very much for listening to us, although I shouldn't say thank you. I see everybody feels honoured to feel listened to, although it is our democratic right to be heard, which was actually violated in a way by the Minister of Democratic Institutions when she decided to have a survey online, which in accordance with our Constitution, freedom of expression, either online or not, Canadians do have it.

I am in favour of the current voting system. It's not broken. The current voting system is broken by false promises. It's broken by people who got elected based on personal agendas. I will not go any further than that.

I come from a post-communist country, and coming from a post-communist country, my democratic right to a vote through a referendum is very important. Whether I agree with proportional representation or not, I want to have the right to have a referendum. I want Canadians to have the freedom of expression through a vote. This is how making every vote count begins. It would be extremely appreciated if public consultations could be held on the weekends, when we would be able to actually have a full room and where senior citizens would be acknowledged, more than just a few times. They make up 16.5% of the total population as of July. They need to be taken into account.

Thank you.

5 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia

Thank you very much.

Would Jimmy Yu come to mike number one, please.

The floor is yours, Mr. Henderson.

5 p.m.

Ian Henderson As an Individual

I do want to thank the members of the committee for listening to us. Your presence here is something hopeful for Canada, but be careful of giving people hope.

I've lived in several countries around the world, including Germany, where I've seen a proportional system functioning well, in my opinion, allowing voices to come to the table that in Canada are kept rather firmly marginalized. I would therefore welcome a system in Canada much more like the system in Germany.

Let me bring your attention to one more consideration. In most of the conversation today, I've been hearing what I would call generalized considerations in favour of electoral reform, the desire to include more people. That's admirable and I support it, but I think there's a particular consideration for people like myself who are living through a process of, could I say, radicalization.

I'm a professor of religious studies. I study religious political radicalization. In myself I've experienced a growing sense of environmental radicalization. I've lived in Quebec for 30 years. In that time, no one I've ever voted for has ever been elected to public office. You don't want my vote in the present system, but we are now entering times which will increasingly not be normal times. I think everyone here understands that we're facing deepening climate change that will be stressing our whole system.

In that context, people like myself will take action. We need to have the possibility of taking action within the parliamentary system in proportion to the voices that we represent. For those of us who are experiencing that push toward radicalization, it's vitally important that it be possible for the federal Parliament to accommodate those of us who need to speak hard things, urgently.

Thank you.

5:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia

Thank you very much.

Mr. Yu, please, you have two minutes.

5:05 p.m.

Jimmy Yu As an Individual

Thank you.

Good afternoon, everyone. Congratulations for the excellent work of the committee and for the public participation in that work.

My name is Jimmy Yu. I was a Conservative Party candidate in 2011 and 2015. So I have been part of the democratic process. I am not here to argue in favour of one voting system or another and to say which is the better. I am simply here to raise this question: why not hold a referendum?

As for the committee and its hearings here and in all the cities in Canada to which the committee has travelled, one might ask, as a previous witness did—and rightly so—why are there not a lot of people in this room at the moment?

In my opinion, you are basing yourselves on positions that do not represent everyone. So my wish, at the end of the consultation sessions, is for the committee to recommend that a referendum be held. Mr. Trudel said something very important. In Canada, we have a very powerful mechanism called a referendum. All Canadians can express their opinion on how to form a government.

Thank you very much.

5:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia

Thank you, Mr. Yu.

Our thanks to everyone who attended and took part in this afternoon's meeting. We are going to suspend our work for about an hour.

Before I bring this part of the day to a close, I would just like to make an announcement. The Centre for the Study of Democratic Citizenship is organizing a public forum on the Canadian electoral system. This forum will take place on Thursday, October 20, from 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m in New Residence Hall at McGill University. The address is 3625 Avenue du Parc.

Thank you very much and good evening.

I am informing committee members that the meeting will resume around 6:00 p.m.

6:10 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia

Let us resume the session.

Welcome once more to the committee members. Welcome to the witnesses who are appearing before us this evening.

This is the third part of our day of hearings in Montreal. We welcome Ms. Mireille Tremblay, as an individual, and Ms. Ruth Dassonville, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Université de Montréal.

I am going to take this opportunity to give an overview of the way in which we operate at this committee. The witnesses will each make a presentation for about 10 minutes, followed by a period of questions from committee members. Each member will have five minutes to interact with the witnesses. That includes the questions and the answers. If, at the end of five minutes, we have to stop in order to move to the next speaker, it does not mean that you cannot make your comments later when you have the floor. We are quite flexible about that. After the question and answer session, there will be what we call an open mic session or, more officially, a time for comments from the people in the audience.

So, without further ado, Ms. Tremblay, I ask you to take the floor and to provide us with your ideas about our topic.

October 3rd, 2016 / 6:10 p.m.

Mireille Tremblay As an Individual

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good evening to the committee members.

Good evening to all participants.

My name is Mireille Tremblay. I am a professor in the department of social and public communication at the Université du Québec à Montréal. I have been retired for six months. I worked in the health care and social services system for a number of years, in the area of public participation. My doctorate is on conditions for democratic participation in our health care and social services system. For a time, I worked with Jean-Pierre Charbonneau at the Quebec National Assembly. I have been a professor for eight years; my field of research is public and democratic participation and democratic governance.

In my brief, I answer the questions you asked. I did so reflecting the committee's mandate. In the first part of my presentation, if time permits, I will provide you with the results of my research into democratic citizenship education and the ethics of citizenship.

As for the reform of the voting system, I suggest a provincially-based first-past-the-post proportional system, nominating one member in each of Canada's 338 existing constituencies.

Having taken part in all the debates on reform in Quebec for a number of years now, I know that one of the reasons for hesitancy on the part of members of the public is that they may lose their constituency MNA in Quebec or their constituency MP in Canada.

I suggest finding a formula—as I have done—which would allow members to be designated as the result of campaigns in each of the existing constituencies in Canada. In each province, the proportional result would be obtained and everything would be distributed—a number of mathematical formulae could be used—according to the performance of each of the parties and the members. That would give a performance list of the candidates in each constituency for a given party and a candidate would be allocated to each constituency according to their performance there.

A number of other mathematical formulae would do the same job. The reason I propose this one is that I am opposed to lists being drawn up by parties, which would mean that the members would be beholden to their respective parties for their appointment. Members belonging to the local electorate and having a base in a constituency seem to me to be conditions for democratic participation.

A little while ago, in Le Devoir, I saw a proposal made during consultations on the reform in Prince Edward Island. It was for proportional representation in two-member constituencies. Under that system, two constituencies would be merged, but there would be two people in those constituencies. They would be distributed proportionately. The goal is to have absolute proportionality at the end of the process.

If that is the case, I cannot leave one aspect unchallenged. Belonging to a territory is extremely important. First, parties came onto the scene after the designated territory of those elected. In Ancient Greece, there were demes, districts, to which people belonged. Belonging is therefore one of the conditions. The other that you will get is a multi-party system. A number of researchers are working on the multi-party system, because it provides less effective governance and takes a long time to reach and to work at.

Personally, I find that a two-party system is outdated as a formula, based as it is on the idea of one winner and one loser. Alain Touraine says that we accept the pattern of winners and losers, and we submit to the power of the winner when one party wins an election, because the principle of alternance means that the losing party assumes that it will be in power after the next election, or at some point in the future. As a principle, that seems a little outdated to me. In my view, a multi-party system is based on dialogue, consensus and compromise. Clearly, it supposes that the complex issues have to be dealt with. Nevertheless, for me, that constitutes social progress.

As for representing diversity, no model guarantees that. Whichever reform you may suggest, proportional or not, I recommend that each party be required to ensure equal representation of men and women running for office under its banner. Each party must also provide a fair representation of Canadian cultural and ethnic diversity, as well as people with disabilities and people of different age groups. In addition, why not make the voting age 16?

Consideration must also be given to the impact of any type of electoral reform on the transformation of governance. I spoke about that previously.

I do not find compulsory voting to be appropriate. I am working on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and on promoting and exercising human rights for those with disabilities, for the poor and for members of cultural communities. Compulsory voting violates the right to freedom of expression. We have a responsibility and a duty to take part in a vote, but that should not come with penalties. I do not believe that putting penalties in place would increase electoral participation.

As for e-democracy, or cyberdemocracy, the era of Web 2.0 or even Web 3.0 provides a phenomenal capacity for interactivity. Some of you are very effective users of digital media like the Web, Facebook, Twitter and other media that allow us to open public dialogues. The Internet also allows everyone to put their proposals into a public forum. The relationships in the kinds of communications that the Web can give us are being overturned. However, we have to be very careful, considering the risks that electronic voting could pose in terms of security and confidentiality.

In order to minimize the risks associated with electronic voting and to reduce the number of obstacles faced by those with difficulty moving around, I suggest, as other colleagues have done before me, that an electronic voting procedure be developed, tested and validated in the next federal election. A number of colleagues who have come to meet the committee previously have suggested the same thing. I have read all the testimony presented to you up to last week. I take this opportunity to thank the witnesses who have gone before us.

This procedure would be available to a list of people requesting it and eligible to do so in a designated pilot area. Based on the results of the trial, a revised model could be applied in the future in other regions.

I will now talk about the process for adopting a new voting system.

Ethically, the voting system seems to me to be a democratic issue of such importance that any major changes should be ratified by all Canadians in a referendum. However good the quality of the consultations may be, it is not the same as a referendum. The public can be consulted and everyone interested can come and testify freely, but that does not guarantee the support of the public as a whole.

You are doing wonderful work, but you must be careful. A variety of methods of participation have been put in place by political parties and by members of Parliament. The procedure is extremely vast and generous, but it does not guarantee public support. You cannot run the risk of doing nothing. You have to move forward very quickly. When you hold consultations that come to nothing, you are helping to increase public cynicism.

That is why I am recommending that the reform proposal be the subject of a referendum in the next election. The election and a referendum can be held at the same time. If the public supports the proposed reform, the elected government would be required to make the amendments.

I will jump over the last proposals I make in the document in order to talk to you about the essentially deliberative nature of democracy.

I would like to talk to you about the final recommendation. It seems to me to be the most important: the need to establish a context. I would like voting system reform to be included in public and ongoing debate on improving Canada’s democratic institutions. I also suggest that we explore implementing other processes promoting civic and democratic participation in order to ensure a true code of civic engagement.

How much time do I have left, Mr. Chair?

6:20 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia

About 30 to 40 seconds.

6:20 p.m.

As an Individual

Mireille Tremblay

Okay.

Democracy is deliberative by nature. Democracy is an ongoing process of transformation. My research focuses more specifically on vulnerable people. I led a summit last May on harmonizing intercultural relations, research I've been doing in the past four years. A series of recommendations were made by citizens to improve participation. I have worked with youths from the Laurentians youth forum and with disabled people. There were several hundred people, perhaps close to a thousand. One recommendation that came back is to support participation through many platforms and to support education for democratic citizenship, so beyond the school's role.

We're talking about all platforms that would enable citizens to take part in developing their civic skills. Participation doesn't mean just voting. Being able to run as a candidate is also important. There is an entire process of political socialization that ensures that citizens become active in various duties.

6:25 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia

Thank you, Ms. Tremblay.

We'll now move on to Ms. Dassonville, who also has 10 minutes.

6:25 p.m.

Ruth Dassonville Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Université de Montréal, As an Individual

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank all of you for the invitation and the opportunity to present my point of view. The topic I'm going to be talking about today is compulsory voting, or more precisely, the obligation for voters to turn out, not actually the obligation to cast a vote as the vote is secret, but the obligation to turn out to vote because voting is a civic duty. Let me start by being more precise about what exactly is compulsory voting.

There are currently over 20 countries worldwide that have some form of compulsory voting. Citizens are obliged to turn out to vote. How exactly these countries implement compulsory voting varies quite a lot. There are some countries where it's just the law that stipulates that voting is a duty and they should turn out to vote. There are other countries where there are sanctions as well, and then there is a limited number of countries where those sanctions are actually enforced.

There are countries that hold that not all non-voters are punished or going to have to pay a fine if they're not turning out to vote. There are a considerable number of citizens who, even though they have the right to vote in those countries, they haven't got the obligation to do so. For example, elderly people in some countries and citizens abroad do not have the actual obligation to turn out to vote although they have the right. Furthermore, there are lots of citizens who can have good reasons for not turning out to vote, and if they provide such reasons, they're not punished either. They could be ill. They could have work obligations. They could be away from home on election day. Those are all good and valid reasons for not being punished at all in any of those systems.

For sure whenever voting is compulsory, is mandatory in a country, voting should be made easy as well. I think the Canadian context is a great case of a country where voting is relatively easy. Already though, more measures could be taken to make it even easier.

What are the effects of making voting compulsory or the participation compulsory? Obviously, it has an impact on turnout. We know from comparative research that turnout levels are considerably higher in countries where voting is compulsory, in particular, if the law is actually enforced, if there's some form of punishment and that punishment is enforced. For example, in the Australian case, non-voters pay a $20 fine for not voting.

For example, in elections worldwide since 2010 in voluntary voting countries, turnout was at 63%, while in compulsory voting countries where the law was enforced, it was at 85%, so there's a huge impact. Is this an issue in the Canadian context? I think it might be. The 2015 election obviously saw a surge in turnout, but the overall trend is still declining. You might be worried about that, because high turnout as such is an important goal, I think, and it is for two reasons.

First of all, it is an important goal because it increases democratic legitimacy. A government that's been elected based on high levels of turnout could more legitimately claim that it's representing the citizens.

Second, and this is really the crucial point, high turnout levels should reduce inequalities in who turns out to vote and who does not. The political science literature is quite clear that the less well off are less likely to turn out to vote. So lower-educated people, lower-income people, lower social class citizens are less likely to turn out to vote. Compelling them, mandating them, to turn out to vote will effectively reduce those inequalities. I think reducing those inequalities is important because it changes the dynamics. It would make sure that parties would actually care about those less well off citizens. If parties know that the less well off, the low-income groups, low social class citizens are not turning out to vote or are hard to mobilize, then they have no reason whatsoever to care about the interests of those citizens. Compulsory voting would change that dynamic.

Obviously, there are counter-arguments as well and that's probably the reason there are not that many countries where voting is compulsory. I'll talk about four counter-arguments, and then I'll sum up by saying that I think that the benefits are more important than the potential negative consequences of compulsory voting.

The first argument that is often used against compulsory voting is that it violates the principle of freedom of speech.

Once again, I'm not talking about mandating that people actually cast a ballot but about mandating that they turn out to vote. In the polling booth, people can still cast a blank vote or an invalid vote. We could even think of a system where there's an option that stipulates “none of the above”, which would actually be a more accurate measure of the extent to which people are dissatisfied with parties or alienated from parties.

A second argument often used against compulsory voting is that it would increase political dissatisfaction. If it does, that would be worrisome, although the empirical research on the topic is not conclusive that this would be the effect. There's some research showing there might be a negative effect on satisfaction with democracy, but there are other studies showing that people are actually more satisfied in compulsory voting countries.

A third argument often used to argue against compulsory voting is that it might have partisan effects, that some parties would benefit from compulsory voting. Yet again, research is not conclusive on this topic. Some research would show a benefit for leftist parties, other research for rightist parties, and other research for small parties. Really there's no conclusive evidence. To a large extent, that is because non-voters are not a homogeneous group. They would vote for different parties, and in the end it wouldn't have a strong impact on electoral results.

The fourth argument against compulsory voting is probably the most forceful; namely, that while it increases the quantity of the votes and you would have more votes being cast, it might be harmful in terms of the quality of those votes being cast. Research shows that there might be a cost indeed. There might be a cost in terms of voting for the ideologically most proximate party. However, research also shows that there are no differences whatsoever in terms of, for example, accountability mechanisms. People in compulsory voting countries hold incumbents to account to the same extent as is the case in voluntary voting countries, meaning that there might be a cost, but only if you consider voting for the ideologically most proximate party. We might argue about whether that should be the only good reason to cast a vote and the only element that informs people to pick a party. There are many reasons that could inform a vote choice. There's partisanship and there are accountability mechanisms. Ideology is just one of the many different factors that inform the vote. There is a cost, though a small one.

From my reading of the literature, the advantages of compulsory voting outweigh the costs. Compulsory voting increases the legitimacy of the system. Most importantly, it reduces those inequalities in who turns out to vote and who does not. This could be regarded as a matter of principle. If you're going to take policy measures, then you want to be able to be informed on what are the preferences of the citizens, not just the preferences of a small group of people. In much the same way the census is required, you want to have the best possible information. Why not require that citizens actually say what they're thinking and what their opinions are? It's an important information-gathering argument, really.

Other ways of influencing politics are not nearly as important or as effective. If we're thinking about non-electoral forms of participation, inequalities are even more pronounced for non-electoral forms of participation. That will not be the solution. You might think that opinion polls would inform us on what the preferences are of the citizens. Well, opinion polls suffer even more strongly from low response rates.

Really, making sure that as many people as possible turn out to vote on election day would give you the best possible information that you might have to represent those citizens in a good manner. That's why I think compulsory participation might be an effective means to strengthen Canadian democracy. We could think of a system with limited punishment, much like the Australian system, which would effectively increase turnout and reduce inequalities. Providing a “none of the above” option would also make sure that it doesn't violate any principle of freedom of speech.

I'd like to thank you for your attention. I look forward to any questions you might have.

6:30 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia

Thank you very much, Professor Dassonville.

We'll start the round with Sherry Romanado, please.

6:30 p.m.

Liberal

Sherry Romanado Liberal Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC

Thank you.

I'd like to thank all witnesses very much. I'd also like to thank the citizens in the room for attending this meeting.

Thank you so much for being here this evening.

It's always a pleasure to be at home in the Montreal region. I'm from Montreal's south shore, and so I crossed the bridge.

I would like to thank you both for your testimonies.

Professor Tremblay, you spoke about another way of calculating votes. I tried to make calculations for Quebec. I don't know if you have an example about how your system would work for the province of Quebec.

6:35 p.m.

As an Individual

Mireille Tremblay

I didn't do any simulations in that respect.

6:35 p.m.

Liberal

Sherry Romanado Liberal Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC

Right, but your model mentions 78 seats in Quebec. I don't know what the percentage of votes the Liberal Party received in Quebec, but if it's 40%, that means that 40 candidates who obtained the most votes in their ridings would be appointed. Is that right?

6:35 p.m.

As an Individual

Mireille Tremblay

That's right.

6:35 p.m.

Liberal

Sherry Romanado Liberal Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC

A candidate who won the election but was not included in the list of the first 40 candidates would therefore have lost.

6:35 p.m.

As an Individual

Mireille Tremblay

Yes. It's different.

In a majority system, someone who has the majority of the votes wins the seat. But here, we're not talking about a majority but proportional representation. Suppose there are 100 seats and the party wins 40% of the votes, that's 40 seats. The results obtained by the candidates in the ridings will be measured and ranked in order of importance. The results 45, 44, 43, 42 or 25, 22, 29 will be indicated by order of importance, and the candidates who obtained them will get a seat.

I consulted some people, but to develop this I mainly used members of my family. I didn't have time to go into this in more detail. The fault in this model is that a candidate from a smaller party could get 29% of the votes, for example, for a better performance. Ultimately, a party could end up with 2% of the votes or something like that. A threshold needs to be established to prevent this.

That's why I propose that, in the formula, we start with the smallest party for granting seats and then move to the party that came second in terms of the number of seats or results obtained. The purpose is to obtain a better match. What has been given to one party couldn't be given to another. There are several formulas to consider with this.

The other formula involves alternating, meaning giving one seat to one party, then one seat to another, and so on. It's based on performance. The ridings remain the same, but the list is created using the public's expression based on the number of votes. Of course, the more votes a candidate gets in a riding, the more chance that candidate has of winning it.

6:35 p.m.

Liberal

Sherry Romanado Liberal Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC

I understand that, but how can we explain to Canadians that the candidate they voted for in a riding won, but lost because there were too few votes compared to other ridings?

Basically, the voices of those Canadians would not be heard.

6:35 p.m.

As an Individual

Mireille Tremblay

On the other hand, how can we explain that a party came to power with 29% of the votes?

6:35 p.m.

Liberal

Sherry Romanado Liberal Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC

Fair enough.

6:35 p.m.

As an Individual

Mireille Tremblay

We know that there's a problem and that choices need to be made. So we need to determine which values to consider. I think that the governance of a country is more important than the governance of a riding, even if it is important in its own right.

6:35 p.m.

Liberal

Sherry Romanado Liberal Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC

I'm going to stop you there, not because I don't want to hear what you have to say, but because I also want to ask Ms. Dassonville a question.

Madam Dassonville, you spoke a bit about mandatory voting; actually, you spoke extensively about it. How would this impact on the way political parties work?

I'm throwing this out there as most of the people who've worked on political campaigns know that the majority of time political parties are trying to classify voters into the pointage, and then get the vote out. If you already have mandatory voting, you don't have to get the vote out.

How would this change the culture of politics in terms of political parties?