Absolutely.
Evidence of meeting #37 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 seats.
Evidence of meeting #37 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 seats.
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
I might come back to you if I have time.
I want to ask Mr. Dixon a couple of questions.
You talked a little about civics education more generally. Again, I don't want to repeat what has been said, but I think that is such an important aspect.
When we were in Montreal we heard from Rémy Trudel, a former provincial cabinet minister. He talked about the idea of a referendum as a good opportunity for education. I want to get your input on that from an educational perspective.
Ms. Reid, you can chime in on that as well because you did mention that it's important to take a two-year period at least to have the educational component to go along with the new system.
I want to offer you both an opportunity to comment on that.
4:05 p.m.
President, Newfoundland and Labrador Youth Parliament
I'll go first.
Going back to my point about referendums, I think it was Brian Mulroney actually—
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
It was Kim Campbell who said that elections are “no time to discuss serious issues”.
4:10 p.m.
President, Newfoundland and Labrador Youth Parliament
With referendums, essentially, the conclusion is a vote.
I think that because of the amount of mud-slinging that can come out during an election—we just need to look south to see that—the amount of misinformation that comes out during a referendum, and the capacity to fearmonger, which tends to happen in referendums as well, it is a pretty bad time to be....
Just look at the Brexit vote. All this education, all this material, and all this information came out all at once. I personally think, and maybe there are some people who would concur with me, that if people had had more knowledge before the referendum, maybe we would have ended up with a different result. You had all the fearmongering and misinformation come out, though, and no one really knew what was going on.
I think that in times of elections and referendums, you're in a whole different world. I think it is a very bad time to start educating. We should be educating people beforehand anyway.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Sherry Romanado Liberal Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC
I'd like to thank our two witnesses for being here.
Again, to the members of the audience, some of whom were here earlier, thank you so much for being here. I'm looking forward to the open-mike session as well, following this.
Ms. Reid, I'm looking forward to reading your brief. We actually just received it, so I will be reading it for sure. It looks interesting, but as my colleague Ms. Sahota said, it's in the practice or in the applicability of a voting system that we will see the consequences of doing this.
One of those things is, in fact, the votes in the House. If we have different weights for different members of Parliament, the ability of a member of Parliament to miss a vote, then, would probably depend on the weight of his or her vote. If you have a high-weight vote, you're likely not going to be sitting on any committees, versus somebody who has a lower-weight vote.
I'm just speculating, but in terms of applicability, we'll definitely check that out. Maybe we'll be able to flesh some things out.
I've spent my career in education, so hearing from youth and from a retired teacher in education is something that's very important to me. We don't have any control over provincial jurisdiction. As education is in fact a provincial jurisdiction, we can recommend until we're blue in the face that civics courses be reintroduced, but at the end of the day it's not our jurisdiction. We hope that will in fact happen, but we'll see. We can all champion that cause.
I'm curious about the knowledge that our youth have of the current situation. Mr. Dixon you mentioned that it is probably 1.5 out of 10. My concern is where they are getting their information from. I'm just flipping this on its head.
When we were in school and we had civics courses, it wasn't partisan, party-based, or advocacy-based. It was very neutral. We've now seen a whole generation of Canadians who are getting their information from the Internet, advocacy groups, and political parties. Quite frankly, I don't think they're getting the full information. They're not getting the good, the bad, and the ugly on everything.
What happens is you have.... I'm not just saying you. A lot of folks go on the Internet. It's on the Internet, so it must be true, right? They go on the Internet and they get this information. They don't get all sides of the story. Then they're out there championing a cause without a lot of knowledge. As a politician, I didn't know anything beforehand. I thought I knew a lot. However, only when you are actually in it do you realize this.
Whose job should it be to educate Canadians about our electoral system? We have so many folks who don't know, yet they're out there advocating for a change. That's my concern. Those who are coming to these meetings are folks who have a vested interest and/or have heard from partisan or advocacy groups. Whose role should it be to educate Canadians? We can't force the provinces to do it.
4:10 p.m.
President, Newfoundland and Labrador Youth Parliament
It should be Elections Canada, an independent body that I think is world renowned for its ability to conduct elections. As a citizen of Canada, that's my thought on Elections Canada. That's one area, but again, I see your point.
I'm inclined to agree on the amount of misinformation from all kinds of sources. I saw a video where there was one MP who asked the Prime Minister a question and only one part of the clip was shown, but if you watched the rest of the clip, it wasn't actually that bad. Teaching where to get your information from is another big mess. That comes down to schools, provincial education, and Elections Canada.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Sherry Romanado Liberal Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC
I'm going to put this on its head. You said you took a course when you were in grade 12, a poli-sci course. It was optional and you had nothing prior. Somewhere along the way, something piqued your interest; something there said, “Oh, I like politics.” Maybe you were born a political nerd, but somewhere, somehow, you were exposed to the electoral process.
We heard from a witness that it starts at home. Bring your kids to the polls. Talk to your kids about the importance of our electoral system, about democracy, being involved, and so on. I think it actually starts before high school. I'm going to ask both of you, but I'll let Ms. Reid answer first.
As a teacher, you probably saw the difficulties of trying to educate students who weren't getting that basic information at home or not being exposed to it. Could you explain?
4:15 p.m.
As an Individual
I'll give you a very surprising statistic from the 2011 election. In the province of Saskatchewan, they broke it down by age, and 99% of people aged 65 and over voted in that election. That is incredible: 99% of the men; less of the women, I think. At the same time, if you looked at the 18- to 24-year-olds, it was the second lowest in the country.
I've heard the argument, and it was made to me when we were lobbying the education system, that really it's the home, the family's responsibility, but it doesn't seem to be happening. Those 65-year-olds went through when medicare came in, so they know how important democracy is. To their grandchildren, it doesn't mean a thing. So yes, ideally it sounds as though it should happen in the home, but it does not. Again, I go back to the school, and I agree, Elections Canada; and also I think there's a role for the CBC.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Thank you.
I have to go to Mr. Dixon very briefly, because we're really over the time here.
4:15 p.m.
President, Newfoundland and Labrador Youth Parliament
I'm an odd case. It wasn't in the home, but I think being more politically aware comes from all kinds of different things. Let's talk about things we can control, rather than things we can't control. I think that's what this conversation should be about.
4:15 p.m.
NDP
Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I'll go with you, Mr. Dixon.
This is my first time being elected and last year's election was a marathon, but I always love getting out on the doorsteps and really engaging with people. When I talk to people who have been in politics for a long time and talk to youth, to tackle that problem of youth engagement, it seems to be a vicious circle. Politicians generally want to be efficient with their resources when they're out canvassing, and because youth don't tend to vote that much, they don't get politicians engaging with them. Unengaged youth tend not to vote, so we just keep going around and around in circles.
What I've found is that when I talk to youth, more often than not, I've been pleasantly surprised at their level of political engagement. It may not translate into them showing up to vote, but when I talk to them about the issues that matter, I've been pleasantly surprised at how knowledgeable they are and really passionate about the issues they care about.
When you look at the system, the way it is right now, it's obviously not working. We do need to do more. Could you give me your thoughts? When youth today look at political parties, what do you think they see?
4:20 p.m.
President, Newfoundland and Labrador Youth Parliament
You're all the same. I think that's probably what they see. They can't see the difference.
4:20 p.m.
NDP
Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Okay. Do you think that is a problem that's born out of the electoral system that we have or out of the parties themselves? It's getting back to that vicious circle. What do you think needs to be the change to get that going?
4:20 p.m.
President, Newfoundland and Labrador Youth Parliament
That is an internal change within party structures and party co-operation. That's more of a cultural change than I think an electoral system change.
I do think that changing the electoral system could help if you forced everyone to get along, co-operate, and work together. I think then you'd probably see more of a shift.
Let's talk about history for a second. Canada and the U.K. have traditionally never had to have parties working with each other, and that's in Canada more so than in the U.K. I think the U.K.'s first minority government in a long time was in the last election they had, even before this one—
4:20 p.m.
President, Newfoundland and Labrador Youth Parliament
—where the Liberal Democrats had to help the Conservatives out.
When you force parties to co-operate, then you can see the culture change a little, but I think when it comes down to it, we're not used to it. We're not used to having to co-operate.
I know there's a lot of co-operation that happens behind the scenes, but from a citizen's perspective, we don't see that. If one party says, “Dogs are good”, then the other party thinks, “Because they said that, we say dogs are bad”. That's what we see on our end, and I think a lot of youth see that divisiveness rather than the parties trying to work together and co-operate.
4:20 p.m.
NDP
Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Absolutely.
Marilyn, if you had any thoughts on that particular subject, given that you've been involved in teaching, could you add something to that, as well?
4:20 p.m.
As an Individual
I think it has to be done by young people, in the sense that speaking with someone with grey hair is not that effective with young people. It's your generation that needs to do it.
I suppose that sounds like a cop-out, but it's the reality that you can talk to them better than we can. I just think it's a long-term process, and we have to start talking about it. We need an intergovernmental conversation between the provinces and the federal government, and a major issue to me is that our young people aren't voting.
That's why I think it would have been great if a referendum could have got everybody excited, but I'm told it wouldn't work that way. It's unfortunate that it costs too much money, or whatever, so I'm throwing it back to you.
4:20 p.m.
NDP
Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
I think anything else I would bring up would go over my time limit, but I wanted to say that I really appreciated you both coming today.
I think every politician has that willingness to engage with our youth, but the structural system sometimes is the roadblock. There is a lot of goodwill in the House of Commons. One of the great things about being a new MP is getting to meet other new MPs and even some of the veterans. It's a fantastic learning opportunity. We've all been duly elected by our individual constituencies, and everyone gets into this job because they want to do good for their constituencies, but I think we have a structural issue at play.
Thank you.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal