I don't know quite what you mean.
Evidence of meeting #36 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 riding.
Evidence of meeting #36 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 riding.
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
We often see that indigenous communities don't tend to have a high voter turnout. By tying this to a percentage of overall turnout in the community, do you see a way that may be a challenge to certain communities like indigenous communities overall?
As an Individual
I don't think so. I'm an institutionalist like Dr. Bickerton. I fully believe in institutional incentive shaping behaviour. This would incentivize the candidates who are running to try to get as many people in their riding out to vote for them as they can and to up their own turnout against other people in their party. All the incentives are not about everybody being lovey-dovey and warm and fuzzy and working for the greater good. The incentives drive you there for your electoral success. I don't know quite how that would disenfranchise certain minorities, certainly not more than the current system does.
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
I'll leave it there, because I do want to go back to something else you mentioned.
You said that about 81% potentially could have stayed home and the electoral result would have been more or less the same. The logical step I want to take is that there were people who actually did stay home.
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
That's where I'm going with it. Is there a challenge, or is there an opportunity for us to be looking more so at mandatory voting, compulsory voting, some kind of fine or incentive for people to vote, as kind of a first step to address that 30-plus per cent of the population who simply don't show up?
As an Individual
I would argue that you should exhaust all carrots before you move to sticks.
I don't think it benefits us to take a system where people find their voice isn't included and then force them to vote. Number one, I don't think we should talk about mandatory voting. Mandatory attendance, the fact that you would have to show up at a poll and take a ballot, that I'm a little more open to. I haven't voted in past elections for some of the reasons Mr. Cullen was talking about. A “none of the above” option wouldn't have satisfied my concerns. I wouldn't have wanted to cast a ballot. That would be an issue of free speech for me, really.
I'm not, on spec, against mandatory attendance, and I don't think Denis is either. But I don't think trying to legitimize an archaic system of power works the same way. You should use that when there are other alternatives available.
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
Mr. Majka, do you have any comments on compulsory voting or mandatory voting?
Director, Democracy: Vox Populi
I agree with Mr. Risser. I'm not sure that this is a productive direction. Like him, I think carrots are much more interesting to wield than sticks. I think there are many things within our power to incentivize democratic participation. This committee's considering quite a number of those.
It seems to me that if we make an electoral system that really makes manifest that people's voices can be heard, that will draw lots of people, and people who are engaged. There's an argument which says that those who show up make the decisions, and I think there's some merit to that. If people are completely disinterested in politics, so be it. That's a democratic choice as well.
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
In your opening comments, you mentioned young people as being one of those groups that don't tend to show up. Would you support some kind of change to the voting age, to lower the voting age to perhaps 16, as an opportunity for students to have that first opportunity to vote when they're still in school, when they're still in educational institutions?
Director, Democracy: Vox Populi
I think that's something we should look at very carefully. Other jurisdictions around the world have lower voting ages. I think there are lots of ways in which we want to engage people early on in understanding that politics are important, that there are salient and consequential decisions for everyone, including particularly young people, who will be around the longest. Consequently, we should do what we can, reasonably, to draw them into that process.
Liberal
John Aldag Liberal Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
Mr. Risser and Mr. Falvey, I have to tell you that I'm a bit stuck in the weeds here in the details. I need you to explain, because I'm not catching something.
I think it's an intriguing option. I commend you for having spent some time on coming up with something that could be made in Canada. I think, well, this may be the one, but then this is where I get stuck. As I understand it, you have five parties in a region. Would each province be a region? Have you taken it down to that level? What are the regions?
As an Individual
Under our preferred model, the six smallest provinces are regions. The four large ones of B.C., Alberta, Ontario, and Quebec we would recommend you divide up into regions of 10 to 15, something like that.
I know you heard in some of your testimony in the north that the northerners, like Atlantic Canadians, don't want to be grouped together, but we grouped the north into a three member region, each with an individual riding on the same boundaries as now. The votes in the different ridings would affect who got elected in each of the individual ridings.
Liberal
John Aldag Liberal Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
Okay, we have regions. Votes are cast. You have a breakdown. Each party would be ranked. You could have whatever the breakdown is. Then you go through the top-ranking candidates, and you assign the top....
I've been trying to work with some numbers here. If you have 52%, would you then assign five of the top-ranking candidates to the ridings they've won?
Liberal
John Aldag Liberal Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
Okay. Where I get lost is in the next piece of it. Could you actually have the second-ranking candidates representing the party in that same riding?
As an Individual
No. This is what happens. In an instance where there's a clash, where two parties would match one candidate to the same district, then whoever won the plurality in that district wins the seat and you would take the other party and give it another riding somewhere—
As an Individual
Yes. Where no other candidate, except one from that party, ranks sufficiently in—
Liberal
John Aldag Liberal Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
Then how far down do you go if you have a party that gets 3%? Does it get a seat?
As an Individual
Our system doesn't really require a formal threshold because, if you go by 10 to 15 in each individual region and break up the country into regions, or the four largest provinces, then I think you have a pretty solid, effective threshold, meaning you need this number of votes to be assigned a seat, whether or not there's a formal threshold. Right? There are formal thresholds at the national level, but because this is broken up into regions, you don't need a formal national-level threshold in the same way.
Just as a matter of interest, we tend to think of thresholds as necessary, and perhaps they are for a country like this, but the Netherlands doesn't use one, and it seems to be working pretty well.
I tend to be ambiguous about thresholds.
Liberal
John Aldag Liberal Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
In some of the systems, we hear about two classes of MPs. I guess that's not an issue with this. You're simply elected. It doesn't matter if you're sitting in the House with 5% of the support of your district or 75%.
Are people still seen as equals in that kind of scenario?
