Electoral Reform Committee on Oct. 5th, 2016

[Earle McCurdy]

It would depend on the issue, probably. There may be some issues where it would—

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

I'm going to stop you there. The issue is simple. A proposed replacement for the current electoral model would be presented to Canadians, and they would be asked whether they supported the proposed voting system, yes or no.

Do you think that would be a good opportunity to educate and inform the public?

[Earle McCurdy]

I'd have real doubts about what kind of turnout you'd get. I don't favour a matter that is fairly technical in nature being decided on a referendum basis.

That's a personal view. It's not something our party has dealt with.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

A number of provinces and countries seeking to reform their electoral system have held a referendum. My understanding is that turnout is quite high.

I have one last question for you, Mr. McCurdy. Let's take the provinces, for example. Let's say Alberta. Right now, the NDP is in power even though the party received a percentage similar to that of the Liberal Party of Canada and the Conservative Party of Canada, in other words, 39%. If we were to add up and combine the votes obtained by the two other farther right parties in Alberta, would you accept the idea of having those two parties form a coalition government in the province, in the wake of the most recent election results?

[Earle McCurdy]

I don't think you retroactively change what happened in an election. They ended up with three parties, and, as I understand it, there might have been a fourth, with seats in the legislature. We are talking federally here, but if they had some kind of rep by pop in Alberta, there would be a minority government, just as there would be in virtually every other province. In those provinces, whoever happened to have the most seats would be able to govern only as long as they could command the support of a majority of the legislature. In the event that this failed, somebody else would, presumably, have the opportunity to do so.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

But, had Alberta voted using a proportional system, the two other farther right parties, together, would have obtained more than 50% of the votes and seats. In that scenario, those two parties would be governing Alberta, on a coalition basis, instead of the NDP, which currently has a majority. Would you support that?

[Earle McCurdy]

What I said was that a result that more closely mirrored how people voted would be desirable. We would not have had the outcome we had in the last federal election, either, for that matter.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

On that note, we'll go to Mrs. Romanado, please.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Thank you.

I'd like to thank you, Mr. McCurdy, for being here this evening.

To members of the audience, thank you for spending your time with us. I know electoral reform is fun, so thank you for being here. It's a delight to be in St. John's. I am hoping that maybe later this evening we'll be able to get screeched in, as they call it, for the record.

We've heard a lot about the pros and cons of the various electoral systems. As you know, we have been given guiding principles in our mandate, that whatever we propose or come forth with has to be legitimate, effective, simple, and so on.

We also have a very tight deadline. We have until December 1 to put this into place. If we want to change the voting system we currently have for the 2019 election, time is of the essence. You yourself said that there is a lack of information out there, in terms of education for Canadians. Whatever we do, we are going to have to do a massive public awareness campaign.

Given all those constraints, what form of PR do you think would be best for us to look at, if we were to go that route?

[Earle McCurdy]

There are probably an endless number of possible ways of designing it. The mixed member proportional has good features. It might be possible to design a made-in-Canada one that's not exactly the same as any of those, and not exactly the same as what anybody does in any other country, but has similar ideas.

To me, the key thing is, when you look down at the legislature from the gallery, does that roughly reflect how the people in the province, or in this case in the country, voted in the election? I think an outcome that comes closer to capturing that is progress.

I do agree that there would be very significant communication responsibilities associated with the change, to make sure people understand, as best they can, how the new system would work so that when they cast their vote, it can be as informed a vote as possible.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

On that note, instead of doing something that would include a massive undertaking—such as redistributing the ridings, significant changes to ballots, and so on—would it be possible to do something where we keep the 338 ridings as we currently have them, and we add a ranking so we can assess by the majority question and then add on proportional regional seats, so it's that extra layer on top of the current system? That would satisfy some of the proportionality.

[Earle McCurdy]

My understanding is imperfect to say the least, but from what I gather with these mixed member proportional ones is that this is, essentially, how a number of them operate anyway. I think Germany and New Zealand would be a couple of places where you have x number of people who were elected to represent districts, but then you have others who were elected from a general list, which I presume is on a regional basis, and that would make sense. You could have a Parliament with 338 members where not all 338 are from a defined district in the same manner they are now. You could have some from that form and some from a list. You could have dual seats where one of the members runs in the riding and one comes from a list. There are any number of possibilities, but I think if the outcome is that the legislature reflects the vote of the people, then I think that's the fundamental goal.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

I have one last thing. We heard from a Professor Cam in Vancouver who debunked this whole “my vote didn't count” because in that argument he said if that were the case, then every candidate who got at least one vote in the election should technically be a member of Parliament. No matter what electoral system we put in place there is always going to be somebody who doesn't win the election. Let's be honest. You can't elect everybody, right? What do you say to those Canadians who equate that their preferred candidates didn't win equals that their votes didn't count, because that's what they are equating it to. They are saying, “because my candidate didn't win, then my vote didn't count”. This is not true, but they feel their votes didn't count. No matter what system we put in place, somebody's vote is not going to count.

[Earle McCurdy]

In any election there will be people who win, and there will be people who lose. That's politics. If somebody votes for a party, and they may be in a district where the party they support has never had much luck, then they may live a long time before they see someone from a party they support get elected. If there are additional seats that come from a list that reflects the popular vote overall, then people voting in a seat where their party didn't get elected will still see their votes—and it might be a small one among millions—go into a pile that might help the party they support get an additional seat in the House of Commons. In that way I believe it does.

Somebody who is supporting an independent or a fringe party, or somebody who doesn't have any national standing, might end up casting a vote that doesn't result in anyone getting in the House.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Our time has unfortunately run out. Sorry.

Mr. MacGregor.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I wanted to stay on the regional aspect of this discussion, because part of our discussion is that we all realize that reforming our electoral system is not going to solve everything about our democracy. I think one big thing it can solve is the regional lopsidedness that we get in our elections.

You quoted the 1993 federal election where the Progressive Conservatives got more of the vote share than the BQ, but got 52 less seats than them.

In British Columbia, we had very lopsided results back in 2001, where the NDP was reduced to two seats out of a 79-seat legislature, despite the fact that one in five British Columbians voted for them. They didn't even have enough seats to get official party status, and they had no resources to even be an official opposition.

When you look at the current makeup of our federal Parliament, I want to hear some of your thoughts on having those different regional voices within the parties. Atlantic Canada has 32 Liberal MPs, with less than 60% of the vote going toward that result. I'm sure there are Atlantic Canadians who wish they had some New Democrats and Conservative MPs, just so those caucuses had the most up-to-date issues.

Similarly, if you go to Saskatchewan, we have one lone Liberal MP, despite almost a quarter of the population having voted Liberal. I am sure there are some Liberals who are feeling left out. Minister Goodale has been there for a long time.

I would like to hear your thoughts on that, because I think it's really important for parties to have that broad representation in their caucuses.

[Earle McCurdy]

I think those are bad outcomes. When you have a party that gets 25% of the vote and gets one out of whatever number—and I forget what number Saskatchewan has now, but a considerable number of seats with 17 or something—the representation in no way reflects how people cast their ballots, or for the two out of 79, or for any number of examples.

When you have a region, or a province for that matter, shut out in the House of Commons, then that's not a healthy outcome. This is especially so when a lot of people voted for somebody else, and because of the way the first past the post system works you end up with a sweep. With the concerns of people in the Atlantic region now, not one single MP can rise in the House of Commons in question period and talk on behalf of the people of Atlantic Canada. There needs to be an opposition member who's not tied to the whip and who can get up in the House and say whatever the issue might be that's causing a burr under people's saddles in his neck of the woods. There needs to be someone to get up and express that issue, have it on the news, and have people hear that at least being brought to the floor of the House of Commons, with or without a successful outcome. Then they'll at least have their issues raised.

I think that if there were to be some form of a mixed system of some of the members being elected in geographic ridings, as is currently the case, and some would be add-ons to balance out the number of seats, then that can be done on a regional basis.

Whether it be provincial or bigger regions, I suppose, would be a matter for debate. For example, it wouldn't fix the problem if the opposition parties had a handful of seats to pick from a list and they picked them all from some provinces, but not from Atlantic Canada. Then it wouldn't address that problem at all. It would be illogical. I don't think an opposition party would do that, but it would be logical to tie them to a regional distribution in some form to try and not only have the House of Commons reflect on an overall basis the vote, but also on a regional basis.

If 25% of the people of Saskatchewan voted for the Liberals, and the outcome was that roughly 25% of the seats were Liberal, then that would be more reflective of the will of the people.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Yes. Our current ballots are very simple to understand. One great thing about our system is that it's very easy to understand. You make your one choice in this one specific geographic area for one representative. Often in that one choice you're having to make three different decisions: who you want as your local candidate, what parties and policies interest you, and who you like as leader.

It seems to me that throwing away those three choices into one thing can leave some people unsatisfied. I think you hit on some very salient points. If you're able to vote for a local candidate, but you also have a second choice to choose a party, then even if you're not getting your local candidate, you know you have that second choice contributing in some way to the national makeup of Parliament.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

We'll go to Mr. Richards, please.

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

Thank you.

I appreciate the leader of the Newfoundland and Labrador NDP being here today and representing his party.

You've obviously had a chance to give us some thoughts on your viewpoints and your party's viewpoints in terms of the systems and various things that you think need to be there.

I want to back it up a step. One of the things we've heard and probably all share a thought on is that Canada is a unique country, compared to almost any other country in the world, and any system that would be great for Canada would have to be a made-in-Canada type of solution, some kind of a twist, at the very least, on a system that is probably out there now. I wonder what your thoughts would be on that. What would be some of the unique considerations that we would have to consider in designing a system for Canada? What are some of the unique features that would be important in designing a system for Canada specifically?

[Earle McCurdy]

I think the regional question is pretty important. It's a huge country geographically, and there are a lot of regional issues, identities, concerns, policies, and so on that need to be accurately reflected. I still think we have to have a made-in-Canada one, but in trying to arrive at that, it's probably not a bad idea to have a look at what is done elsewhere and see whether there is any element of that where we might say, “That looks like we might borrow some of it, if not all of it.” It may be useful to do that, and I think there is a very good chance that we end up with something that's different. I don't think we would just take some other country's system lock, stock, and barrel.

There is an interesting one in New Zealand. As I understand it, they had something like 63 who were elected by ridings, as we elect people, plus 50 or so who were from lists supplied by parties to balance, more or less, the outcome of seats in relation to how people voted, but also seven Maori seats, aboriginal seats. That was an interesting wrinkle. I think something that helps with the gender balance issue and the representation of women in the House of Commons is something that would warrant trying to make some progress on. Language is a consideration, for sure, in a couple of provinces.

If the system is that you elect so many by ridings, and then you fill in the rest from a list, I think that type of system provides some flexibility, some dynamics as to how you fill a seat. Otherwise, it's tough. Parties have district associations that elect their candidate. Unless you had a bunch of dual ridings where there was a requirement to have, for example, a man and a woman, it would be very difficult to achieve that. Each district association has its own autonomy. Leaders can push on that and do what they can to try, but it's tough.

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

Fair enough.

[Earle McCurdy]

I think there may be some affirmative action opportunities in some kind of a mixed member system.

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

Obviously, you favour a proportional element to the system.

One of the things we've heard, over and over again, is that there is no perfect system, that everything has its drawbacks. You obviously expanded on what you see the merits being. I wonder whether you want to give us a thought on what some of the drawbacks are, because that might help us make the proper tweaks for Canada. In particular, do you think it would lead to more single-issue type parties, fringe parties, separatists, or regional-type parties getting elected with seats in our Parliament, and would you see that as being an issue at all?

[Earle McCurdy]

On single-issue ones, I think that's a risk. That is why I think some kind of a threshold is probably needed. One of the options, I suppose, may be to say that you have to get elected in a couple of ridings in order to get additional seats. I think you could have criteria that would limit that.

On the regional one, not so much. We've seen that at various times, for sure, the most obvious example being the number of seats that the Bloc got in a couple of elections, in particular the one where they became the official opposition by running candidates only in one province. That was a case where, if you take it to the—