Electoral Reform Committee on Oct. 4th, 2016

[Larry Pardy]

I'm sorry.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thanks.

[Larry Pardy]

You said I had five minutes, and I figured I could do it in two and a half.

It thereby maximizes opportunities for contact between voter and representative rather than under a PR system, which increases the riding size in order to accommodate multiple representatives.

Fourth, confidence in our democratic system is enhanced under first past the post when every voter in every riding adheres precisely to the same election rules—single-member plurality support, directly elected, same ballot format, same counting procedure—as opposed to the many models being proposed that would involve different approaches across the country.

As a former resident of Labrador and presently living in the largely rural riding of Cumberland—Colchester, I am particularly sensitive to the question of local representation and the impact of enlarging riding sizes to accommodate proportional representation. PR advocates have claimed that such a change would not undermine representation, since there would be four, five, or six members of Parliament to serve a much larger area. However, if we are retaining the notion of individual MP accountability to the voters, there has to be individual MP responsibility based on individual actions and individual relationships with voters. These would all suffer in the expanded ridings. At a minimum, switching from first past the post to PR would result in less effective local representation, a diminished level of democracy, decreased accountability, a weakening of national parties, and a loss of an electoral system that is consistently applied countrywide.

Beyond these trade-offs, it is also my position that PR will not work in Canada, unless this committee is prepared to explore and define those mechanisms utilized in successful PR countries to achieve stability in government formation, dissolution, and operation. Clearly many countries operate well under PR systems, with Germany in particular offering an apparently successful model.

However, if proposed changes are strictly limited to the voting system, the success of these PR countries would not be adequately replicated in Canada. Canada's conventions and practices for government formation and dissolution are simply not compatible with a government elected under a PR system. The stability of PR governments depends on features such a chancellor's majority, in Germany; constructive votes of no confidence; dissolution powers not held by the prime minister; the head of state, preferably elected, possessing responsibilities for government formation; governments being sworn in after obtaining confidence, not before; and they have coalitions. We have none of these.

Since the King-Byng affair, certain practices and conventions have been strictly and consistently applied in Canada: the party with the most seats on election night is given the opportunity to form the government; governments are sworn into office on this basis, and then proceed to meet Parliament to seek the confidence of the House; Parliament is dissolved any time that the government loses a confidence vote, or at the time of the prime minister's choosing; and the Governor General leaves political decisions to the politicians.

As a consequence, our federal Parliament does not lend itself to coalition governments, to second-place parties being asked to form a government, or to changes of government from one party to another within the same Parliament.

In the absence of formal changes, these mechanisms would remain in effect even if we moved to a PR voting system. This would clearly be a recipe for instability given the frequency of minority governments, yet there has been virtually no discussion regarding the potential changes to our institutions or conventions that would be required in order to effectively switch to a new voting system.

Therefore, my recommendations are, first, to retain the current first-past-the-post system for the positive governance outcomes it has provided to Canadians; and second, if you do offer a PR system, to detail the mechanisms employed by PR countries that we would need to adopt in order to make it function effectively.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much.

We'll start the round of questions with Mr. DeCourcey.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Thank you very much.

Thank you to all three presenters this evening. I'm going to try my best to engage with each one of you.

Mr. Coffin, if I can start with you, take me back to the comments on the open list that you had. You talked about it differing from party nominations.

Could it be argued that party nominations in themselves are one of a two-step approach in an open-list process? I'm maybe challenging or trying to dig into the comment you made there.

[Mark Coffin]

Yes, perhaps if I were to try that line—

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Could you give an analogy about water?

[Mark Coffin]

Not yet.

As I see the nomination process, there's no reason that it would change at all in any of the systems I understand the committee to be considering. In any electoral system, the nomination and candidate selection process could be as closed or as open as the party itself decides, with the party being the membership. Then, members in that regional district or in that single-member district would be able to nominate their candidate or candidates.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Are you thinking there's a way to have an open nomination followed by an open-list process?

[Mark Coffin]

Absolutely. Yes.

You would take the current nomination process, which I understand is virtually identical across parties—with some small differences—and instead of electing one nominee, you would elect several, as members. The next step would be to have an open list in either the MMP or list-PR system, and then give voters in that region the chance to select the candidates of their preference from within the party of their preference.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

What about the idea of an element of proportionality whereby somebody who ran and wasn't successful was provided the proportional seat because they were the highest—

[Mark Coffin]

In dual candidacy...?

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Effectively there's no list. I'm forgetting the terminology—

[Mark Coffin]

Dual candidacy, I think, is the...where you can be on the ballot for a district in an MMP system, but—

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

There's no list. Voters vote once and then the nearest runner-up is able to secure the proportional seat.

Would that be palatable, in your mind, if there was an element of proportionality?

[Mark Coffin]

That wouldn't be my personal preference, but I think it could be a very legitimate system if that's the one that were decided upon.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Okay. Great.

Mr. Pardy, you mentioned what I think is a psychological barrier that we would have to overcome in moving to a more proportional system; that is, despite the fact that voters vote for a member, it's the collective will of members that determines the government from there. It could be argued that a convention of our system is, in effect, that voters are expressing who they want to choose as government, as opposed to proportional systems that tend to see the parties determine what the government formation will be later on.

Mr. Blair, Mr. Coffin, is that a psychological barrier that you think we would have to work with the Canadian public to overcome?

Whether it's the reality or not, people have the perception that they're expressing their will in terms of who they would like to become government.

[Andy Blair]

I think that with the adoption of any new system there's going to have to be a process of education. Elections Canada will have to play a leading role in that to accustom them to the new system. Also, elected members and people running for office will have to inform their party members and their substantial supporters of how things work.

I think that, over time, people will see the truth of the system. If you end up recommending a system that emphasizes party control, then they'll see that. If you don't, then they will see that there's not necessarily any greater level of party control under a PR system than under first past the post. It really depends on the particular system that you choose.

[Mark Coffin]

I'm sorry. Are you asking if Canadians will have a challenge accepting that their vote—

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

May not be expressed in a way that chooses government, yes.

[Mark Coffin]

I think the short answer is maybe, and then the long answer is maybe, but that's not the most important thing. I may be oversimplifying here, but I feel we've had it easy in Canada until relatively recently when new parties started to emerge and it became apparent that we're more diverse when it comes to political opinion than just left and right and Conservative and Liberal.

In my lifetime, which isn't very long—I'm only 30—my experience has been that, generally, we are getting more diverse, more accepting, and more understanding toward all of the different needs that we have to accommodate when making decisions. Keeping first past the post because it's easier for Canadians to see how they chose their government, which a lot of Canadians would not agree with, is not necessarily the easiest way.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much.

We'll go to Mr. Richards.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Thank you to all of you.

I'll start with you, Mr. Pardy.

You made the comment that proportional representation won't work in Canada. You had a chance to elaborate on that a little bit, but I want to hear a bit more of your thoughts on it.

Obviously, one of the challenges to apply a proportional system to Canada, which is different from many countries that utilize that system, is the large geographic area that we cover. We already have some very large ridings, and when you start to create multi-member ridings or things like that, they can become very difficult. If you have one or two very large communities and a lot of other smaller communities out there, sometimes those smaller communities tend to be ignored, specifically when combining certain ridings. Those are some of the challenges.

Of course, there are some regional differences in Canada as well. You already see the more fringe parties in a lot of countries that utilize a proportional-type system. You've seen neo-Nazi-type parties being elected. There was talk today in the National Post about the Pirate Party. It predicts they may win the election in Iceland. It says they would be at a point where they would have to create a coalition government. That was one of the challenges you also raised. Sometimes it takes weeks after an election for coalitions to be formed behind the scenes, in the backrooms. Voters aren't really a part of all that.

Those are some of the challenges you alluded to, but I wanted to hear your thoughts a bit more in terms of what you see as some of the unique challenges in Canada that would mean PR, in your view, wouldn't work for Canada, and why.

[Larry Pardy]

The geography is a crucial challenge, as well as the provincial boundaries that we have. A lot of the advocates of proportional representation seem to be willing to offer that there would be exceptions for the very large northern ridings, but as you indicate, as you move further south you start combining ridings.

How big is too big? If you make exceptions for Labrador, the Territories, or the largest ridings in northern B.C. and northern Ontario, when you take the next step down, there are still very large ridings. You combine them to achieve proportionality and you have another problem.

If you look at P.E.I., you're looking at a different scenario. You only have four seats to work with, and as I understand it, proportionality works best with five-plus seats.

In Nova Scotia, the challenge I think you'd have geographically is that you have 40% of the population around the Halifax area. You could probably create a five-member riding right in the Halifax area, but then what do you do for the rest of the province? You would have another five or six ridings, spread out from one end of the province to the other, which I think would be totally unmanageable.

It's the same in Newfoundland and Labrador. You give an exception for Labrador perhaps—I would hope—and then as you move to the island, most of the population is centred on the Avalon Peninsula.

How do you create multi-member ridings that will adequately represent the rural areas of those provinces?

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

I appreciate that point. I look at my home province of Alberta as well, and I look at my riding. It's certainly not a northern riding by any means. It's what we would call central Alberta. In some cases, people might even call it southern Alberta. It's right around the Calgary area. If you were to combine it with a few of the ridings next to it, it would become larger than many of the northern ridings would, so you're going to start creating that problem elsewhere as well.

I wanted to get your thoughts as well on making sure than any suggestions, any recommendations that are made are legitimized by the Canadian public. My view is that the best way to do that is through a referendum. I'm curious as to your thoughts on how we ensure that any changes that are proposed by this committee, and then the government if it follows along with those recommendations, would be legitimate for Canadians. How can the government make sure it has the consent of Canadians to make a change to our electoral system?