Electoral Reform Committee on Oct. 6th, 2016

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

Yes.

[Jordan Brown]

The process that came together in the end was ultimately a process that we put together as a committee. In other words, it was the part that we had something to do with, the consultation part. I think the process overall leading into that, which was envisioned, I guess, by executive government, was also a legitimate and good process to follow for the discussion that was being sought to be had.

I think the consultative process we've followed as a committee to date has also been good. I'm not going to say it's been perfect by any means. In a democracy, I doubt very much that it would be perfect. There will always be different people who think you should do things in different ways. By and large, however, I think it's been effective.

Perhaps I could take up Mr. MacGregor's question a little bit in answering yours. As I said before, we dealt with this issue when we started into it. The reality is that the construction of the committee really doesn't matter in terms of what colour your party's flag might be. Really, you have to operate by some sort of consensus. Otherwise, you'll be open to criticism no matter what. The numbers really don't matter, I would argue. It really only matters whether or not you got to consensus.

That's probably the first thing you should consider, and move forward from there.

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

I have a second question.

You said your mandate was to engage people and give them proper information so they make a good decision, without necessarily being guided. I find that fantastic. Well done.

Do you think your work resonated with the population, particularly young people?

Please answer quickly, because I'd like to turn the floor over to Scott Reid.

[Jordan Brown]

I think the reality is that it's probably too early to tell at this point in time. The actual plebiscite doesn't start until the end of this month. We'll know when we start to see the numbers come in. We'll know day by day how many people have voted and what the demographics look like. I can tell you then.

Right now I can tell you that half of the 4,500 students who would be eligible to vote have signed up to vote. I think that's fantastic, based on the traditional numbers you would get at a school level.

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

Thank you.

I'll let Mr. Reid ask the question he didn't have time for earlier.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Russell, I wanted to follow up by delving a little more deeply into the comments you made in response to Mr. MacGregor's question.

You indicated that you think a single question on the ballot is preferable or a single option versus the status quo, as opposed to multiple options. It sounds to me, although you didn't quite say this, that you are expressing a fear that I have also had, which is that if you have multiple options, by necessity, they are not as fully fleshed out as a single option would be.

This leaves the executive branch ultimately responsible for working out the details and claiming they have a mandate from, in our case, the committee that gave it to them or alternatively from the voters in a referendum. However, they're not actually bound in all the particulars and potentially could adjust a little bit here and a little bit there in ways that may not be visible. This would result in a system that is not as fully proportional as would otherwise be the case. Once it's not proportional, by definition, that means that one party is getting more seats than its votes would warrant.

Maybe I missed it, but was that a concern you had?

[Leonard Russell]

I think that captures it pretty much.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Thank you very much. We have a little bit of time left over, but you've been very indulgent, Mr. Chair, in the past, so....

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

Ms. Sahota.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We've confirmed from both Mr. Brown and Mr. Russell that you sense that the federal government and this committee through our recommendation would be able to go it alone without a referendum. We hear a lot of criticism that if we go to a referendum it would be because we wanted to kill the idea of reform and we didn't actually want reform. Whether it's valid or not, that is what we constantly hear from people who want change.

Despite that, your committee chose to go the referendum route and you're doing it not only for the first time but the second time. In answer to my colleague's question you said you're doing it for confidence. Is that correct? Is that what you said, Mr. Brown, that you needed to be confident in your decision this time around?

[Jordan Brown]

I'll clarify two things again. One is that it wasn't our decision as to whether we have a plebiscite or not. That was a decision of the legislature and the executive government leading into it. The underlying presumption was that we did not start out from the supposition that change was something that Islanders wanted.

To give you a better context, historically, we have a very high voter turnout on Prince Edward Island relative to the rest of the country. That's not to say people are fully satisfied with our electoral system, but I would argue it does indicate some level of confidence in the democracy that we have. That aside, there was a recognition that a conversation would be a good thing to have to test that level of confidence and to see if there was a better way to do things.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Was your committee responsible for setting up the plebiscite the way it is, with the options that you have come to and the different systems on your ballot?

[Jordan Brown]

Yes.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Looking at the ballot and all the options that you have, do you find that you're going to confidently be able to gauge public opinion as to what kind of change people in P.E.I. want, because you're really splitting public opinion many ways? I know you said that when you had consultations, most of the people said they wanted change. They knew they wanted change, but they had a whole bunch of systems in their minds.

Essentially, are you not going to get that again as the result of your referendum? You're not going to have one system ranking all that much higher than any other.

[Jordan Brown]

Yes.

I think for us that probably is Leonard's elephant in the room. When I say that, what I really mean is that this has always been the fear that we've had. By putting too much on the plate of Islanders, they have the potential to get overwhelmed. It would be ideal if you could have, say, three systems on a ballot and you put them to Islanders. The problem with that is that when we went out to try to bring together the principles that Islanders had advanced to us and bring them down to a fine enough point to get them on a ballot, they didn't easily fit into three different silos.

We're charged with a mandate to engage Islanders and to effectively move the conversation along and so—

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

You might engage them, considering you have high registration rates. I'm quite impressed by the numbers you were citing. You might spark their interest and educate them through this process, but are you really going to get a result that will accurately state which way they are going? I have my doubts about that.

You have an option for first past the post plus leaders. That's not an idea we've entertained yet. Could you explain that system a bit?

[Jordan Brown]

Yes. Basically, the “first past the post plus leaders” system was presented to us on a number of different occasions. We first heard about it on the day we had Mr. Russell and former chief justice Carruthers in to present to our committee. Then, we heard about it from a couple of former and a couple of sitting MLAs, and consistently from a few others. It's something that's been floating around Prince Edward Island for a little while.

The essence of the system is that you maintain, for the most part, the first-past-the-post voting system, but that leaders do not run in their own seats. They run with the whole island as their constituency, on the popular support of their party. In order to attain a seat, their party has to surpass the 10% popular vote threshold. When they do, that party has a seat for its leader in the legislature without having to be elected in a particular jurisdiction.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Interesting. I have heard that people want to vote for their leader, just as people do for the U.S. presidency. I've heard that notion among friends and other people before, but I don't think anyone has brought that proposal before this committee.

[Jordan Brown]

Particularly on Prince Edward Island, it became.... What we first heard about it is that it would help to eliminate one-member oppositions, in a way. Parties that end up getting to that 10% threshold are automatically there to represent the perspective of those who have voted for them, so the likelihood of a one-member opposition is probably greatly diminished by that system.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much.

This has been really wonderful. Before the panel got started I was speaking to Dara Lithwick, the analyst right here next to me. She said, “Great panel”, and I said, “Yes, great panel, great location, a great day, in essence a perfect moment.”

Thank you for providing that for us. We learned a great deal, obviously, so we appreciate your making the time.

We're going to break for about five minutes and then we'll get going with the other panel.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Welcome back everyone.

Welcome to our new panel. We have with us Jane Ledwell, executive director of the Prince Edward Island Advisory Council on the Status of Women. We also have with us Marcia Carroll, executive director of the P.E.I. Council of People with Disabilities. Finally, we have Marie Burge from the Cooper Institute, here in P.E.I.

Each witness will have five minutes to present. If you were here for the first panel, you'll know the way we operate. After the presentations from the witnesses, we have one round of questioning of five minutes for each member, and the five minutes includes answers as well as questions.

Without further ado, I give the floor to Ms. Ledwell.

[Jane Ledwell, Executive Director, P.E.I. Advisory Council on the Status of Women]

Thank you very much.

I'm honoured to be here today on behalf of the P.E.I. Advisory Council on the Status of Women. The advisory council is an arm's-length provincial government agency made up of members from across Prince Edward Island appointed to the council by the provincial government.

The provincial government strives to ensure that the appointments reflect diversity. Current members include women of a variety of ages, abilities, and backgrounds. We have members who are newcomers to Canada and to Prince Edward Island; and women who are part of the LGBTQ community, the francophone community, and indigenous communities.

The advisory council has a legislated mandate to advise the provincial government and to provide education to the general public on issues that affect the status of Prince Edward Island women. The under-representation of women at all levels of government is an issue that profoundly affects the status of women.

For more than 10 years, the advisory council has had a position in favour of proportional representation as an electoral system. We are persuaded by evidence from around the world that jurisdictions that use proportional representation systems tend to elect more women to their Parliaments for a variety of reasons. We advocated for proportional representation during Prince Edward Island's 2005 plebiscite. Today, in 2016, we are working very hard as part of the P.E.I. coalition for proportional representation to encourage Islanders to vote for proportional representation in the plebiscite that begins at the end of this month.

Because our mandate is provincial, when we talk about electoral reform, it's primarily in the context of electoral reform for Prince Edward Island. Our analysis is focused on the five electoral options that will be listed on the Prince Edward Island electoral reform plebiscite ballot, but I hope you will find these have some relevance for the federal discussion.

Along with the P.E.I. Coalition for Women in Government, from whom you'll hear in their own right this evening, we recently did some gender and diversity analysis—what is sometimes called GBA+ at the federal level—of the five electoral options for Prince Edward Island to determine which options support women's equality and greater diversity. We've provided copies of our full report entitled “A Preference for Equality” as a reference document.

The five ballot options on the P.E.I. plebiscite ballot include three winner-take-all options. These are the first-past-the-post system, first past the post plus leaders, and preferential voting as part of a winner-take-all system. There are two proportional representation electoral systems. These are dual-member proportional, which is a new mixed proportional system you'll hear more about later today, and mixed member proportional, which I think you've heard plenty about.

The model of mixed member proportional that's being proposed for P.E.I. is based on two-thirds of the seats being elected at the district level and one-third of seats elected from province-wide lists in an open-list model, where voters, not parties, directly choose the top candidates from that list. I made that distinction because it does have relevance to our analysis.

Our analysis of gender and diversity factors demonstrates, we believe, that proportional representation options have some distinct advantages in promoting some factors that are really important to us, with an increase in the number of women elected being the first and most important factor. The number of women elected under the first-past-the-post system has been stagnant or decreasing in P.E.I., and electoral systems worldwide that use PR elect an average of 8% more women.

We looked at the likelihood of more women, more diverse women, and more diverse candidates being elected from smaller parties, because smaller parties, the third and fourth parties in Prince Edward Island, have tended to nominate more women, more diverse women, and more diverse candidates overall, except as leaders.

The note about leaders is important because one of the options on the ballot—first past the post plus leaders—would almost certainly result in seats in the legislature for some third and fourth parties, but only for leaders. We've only had four female party leaders in P.E.I. history, among all the parties.

Promoting an increase in collaborative processes is another value according to which we assessed the options. Some women have described combative legislatures as a barrier to running for office, and some systems increase the likelihood of collaboration because they often result in a coalition being needed to advance the political agenda.

We next looked at promoting a decrease in negative campaigning because an electoral system that reduces the rewards of a personal or partisan attack in campaigning could be supportive of women. We know that negative campaigning is frequently influenced by biases about gender, race, class, ability, and other diversity factors. It should be noted that our analysis suggests that preferential voting would also have a positive affect on negative campaigning because it would reduce the rewards. Anyone seeking someone's second, third, or fourth ranking, if not their first ranking, doesn't want to run down opponents.

Those were the advantages we saw in proportional representation. Our further analysis suggested some specific advantages for mixed member systems as a result of the changes that would happen in the nomination processes. I can answer questions about those later.

As part of our analysis we also put together a quiz for Islanders to help them match their democratic values with the systems that are on offer in Prince Edward Island. Over 450 people have taken that quiz and the results so far are that 87% of respondents have stated a preference for democratic values that align best with one of the two proportional representation options that are on the P.E.I. plebiscite.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thanks very much.

We'll go now to Ms. Carroll.

[Marcia Carroll, Executive Director, PEI Council of People with Disabilities]

Thank you, members of Parliament and members of the Special Committee on Electoral Reform, for inviting me here today to talk about how electoral reform can assist people with disabilities in being better represented in our elected bodies.

I'd also like to take a moment now to acknowledge the Mi'kmaq first nations peoples whose traditional land we are gathering on today.

Statistics tell us that 3.7 million people are living with disabilities in Canada. This represents over 10% of the Canadian population, yet this is not reflected in our elected bodies nationally or provincially. Our current federal government for the first time in history appointed a minister responsible for people with disabilities. This is a first good step, but we believe if we had a proportional electoral system, we would see elected bodies truly reflect the diversity of our communities.

If we had a PR system, it would allow for the number of seats captured in the legislature to truly reflect the percentage of popular votes cast at the ballot box and move us away from the winner-loser mentality that we currently have in our first-past-the-post system. A PR system encourages parties to be more conciliatory, more open to co-operation and collaboration, thus eliminating and reducing the adversarial nature of our current first-past-the-post system. This has the potential to create an environment for people from diverse groups to feel more valued, which will increase our participation in the electoral process.

A PR system would greatly reduce wasted votes, resulting in increased voter engagement and a reduction in voter apathy. A PR system would ensure that minority parties had access to representation, resulting in a multitude of voices being heard to shape legislature and policy. A PR system would encourage parties to campaign beyond the districts in which they are strong or where the results are expected to be close. PR systems are designed to maximize the overall vote regardless of where the votes might come from, resulting in a system where all votes truly matter. A PR system is less likely to lead to situations where a single party holds all the seats in a given province or district, again honouring our diversity.

A PR system would lead to greater continuity and stability in our policy development. First-past-the-post systems make long-term social and economic planning more difficult. PR coalition governments help engender stability and a coherence in decision-making that would allow our national development to benefit the majority of citizens. This is a key point for people with disabilities. When we have opposing parties with ideologies that are very different from one another, which continue from one election to another so they can get elected, we see extreme changes in social policy with regard to dealing with vulnerable people. We've seen that in our last government, as funding was stripped away from many sectors that serve our most vulnerable in this country. Now we're seeing that being reversed with our current government. This is a huge cost to the taxpayer, to the well-being of the individuals whom government is supposed to be serving.

All these reasons listed above would create more diversity in our House of Commons and our other elected bodies. It would result in more people living with disabilities running for office, as they would no longer be at the whim of a two-party system that uses the disability rights movement as a political football.

Fairness and plurality are fundamental Canadian values, and a PR system would honour those values and create a true democracy.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much.

We'll go now to Ms. Burge.