Electoral Reform Committee on Oct. 4th, 2016

[James Bickerton]

From my point of view, I'm not in favour of a referendum. I'm not really big on plebiscitarian forms of democracy, to be honest. I wasn't even in favour of the referendum on the Charlottetown accord, although I realize that's probably not a popular position now.

We have a representative democracy. I think most people, whether they always trust their representatives or not, realize these are very complex public policy issues and they can be quite highly technical, too. To expect that voters would be able to take the time to school themselves, educate themselves on these issues sufficiently to render judgment, is asking too much of them, I think.

It's not a question of changing the Constitution. As long as whatever system you come up with or recommend maintains representation by population, then I think it's incumbent on our representatives to do their best job, to try not just to maintain a representative democracy but to improve the quality of it to these kinds of measures that are being proposed.

I'm not in favour of a referendum on this issue. I think a referendum has been used and can be used to block change mainly because people, when they are unsure or when they feel they don't have sufficient knowledge to make a judgment, will lean toward voting no, and I think that's a reasonable position for them to take. But I don't think any campaign that would be launched to educate the broad public on these issues would be successful in the end.

I teach students about this. They are in my classroom. They are supposed to be interested in these issues, and their eyes start to glaze over after I start talking about it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

You're making us feel bad here. We're doing some important work, we thought.

We'll have to stop there, and we'll go to Mr. Cullen.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

My eyes didn't glaze over once throughout the entire testimony, so we're doing well today.

I want to step into one thing, Professor Bickerton. You join a long list of very esteemed academics and experts on this, calling for change that improves the connection between what voters want and what they get. I don't want to oversimplify your testimony.

One of the things you talked about was that you illuminated us on the what, in answer to my colleague's question: a proportional system. In response to the how, as was just asked by my Conservative colleagues, you talked about a “sufficiently broad agreement”. I think those are the words you maybe used.

I'll reading a quote from Mr. Mayrand, who runs our elections right now, as to how we validate whatever this committee comes up with and recommends to the government. He said recently:

Not a single government, whatever the majority is, should be able to unilaterally change the rules of election. Changing the rules of that competition among them should require a broad consensus—the broadest possible.

By unilateral, I assume he means single party or majority party, and that one of the tests for what we get done is that it be accepted by more than one party, through the House, through the process we're going through right now. I don't want to put words in your mouth. Is that fair?

[James Bickerton]

I don't think that's unfair, and I would agree. I don't think this is the kind of change that you would want to proceed with without getting some consensus among the—

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Why not?

[James Bickerton]

I think it's one thing to include it in a party platform in an election campaign—and politicians will always claim they have a mandate to do whatever they have in their platform—but voting behaviour studies and electoral studies continually show that, when people vote, most of the time they are not aware of most of what's in a party's platform. So it's not quite kosher to claim a mandate for everything that's in your platform and proceed in that fashion.

At the same time, consensus is not unanimity, as the Supreme Court has very nicely pointed out on a couple of occasions. I think you can still generate a fairly broad consensus now that we no longer have just a two party system. I think it was very difficult when there were only two parties.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

If I'm getting your level of legitimacy right, it doesn't need to be a consensus of every single vote in Parliament, but a broad consensus.

[James Bickerton]

That would be unanimity, wouldn't it?

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Wouldn't it, though? Okay.

You used a phrase, and I'm not sure I caught it right, that the bias in the Westminister model is an exaggerated executive dominance.

[James Bickerton]

Yes.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

What do you mean?

[James Bickerton]

One of the big criticisms of Canadian government, as Professor Savoie and others have pointed out, is the tendency for the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister's Office to essentially wield all the levers of power, with very little check on how they do so.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Has that had much difference between the two parties that have run this country?

[James Bickerton]

No. I think both.... That's been very well illustrated since at least the time of Pierre Trudeau.

Professor Russell published a book called, Two Cheers for Minority Government. He pointed out that it's not a bad thing to have minority governments in Canada, because there is a need to seek a broader consensus before moving ahead with legislation, to get the support of at least one other party.

I would think there would be a greater check on executive dominance, in other words prime ministerial dominance, if we had sort of permanent minorities.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

So it's not just that check on the power—we know what power, particularly if it's in large doses, does to people over time—but also on the policies. We had Mr. Broadbent testify earlier at this committee about a sequence he had with the senior Mr. Trudeau, who'd won a majority but virtually no seats from the west. Mr. Trudeau was looking to bring in an energy policy, yet with no significant input from western Canada, and tried to bring Mr. Broadbent and some others into that cabinet to balance out the enactment of the policy that became the national energy program, which, and I don't want to exaggerate, didn't land very well. It was not received well both in substance and in politics at the time.

Mr. Dewar, we've heard testimony from countries that use proportional systems. We asked questions about the two types of MPs and about voter dissatisfaction. We heard very strong evidence from Irish, German and New Zealand officials that this was not the case, and that under the system Mr. Bickerton and others have advocated, for about three-quarters of Parliament there remains a direct geographical link. You suggested that there are worries about that. Our system right now does a great job on geography but not much else. It really emphasizes geography, solely almost.

Would a mixed system alleviate some of those concerns, as has been the experience in countries that have chosen a hybrid type of voting system to increase proportionality but not lose the local links?

[Kenneth Dewar]

Perhaps so. I don't think, however, that the only thing our system does now is address geography. On the question you've just been discussing about executive power, there's too much executive power and then there's good executive power.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

It depends on your point of view, I imagine.

[Kenneth Dewar]

That's right.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

It depends on whether you're currently the executive.

[Kenneth Dewar]

I guess I would say that one of the strengths of the current system.... You have these five criteria, five principles, and they don't all point in one direction, do they? There are trade-offs and balances. It seems to me that one of the things our current system does offer is not only geographical representation but also a measure of stability and a measure of visibility between the voters and the government. Proportional representation is especially concerned with voters and members. Voters elect members, and the leaders of the parties that the members represent get together and they negotiate to form a government. Well, in this current system, there's a greater visibility between what voters have voted for and the government that ends up being in power.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thanks very much.

We'll go to Ms. May, please.

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

This has been a really superb set of evidence. I want to thank both of you for being here.

Mr. Dewar, in terms of your biography, were you a professor at any point in your life? I know you are appearing as an individual, but I don't know enough about your background.

[Kenneth Dewar]

I was a professor for most of my life, except for a half dozen years when I owned a bookstore.

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

Okay. Well, those are both very worthy things to do.

[Kenneth Dewar]

That's right. I was at various places, but I was at Mount Saint Vincent for almost 30 years before I retired.