Thank you.
We'll go to Mr. Cullen.
Evidence of meeting #38 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 pei.
Evidence of meeting #38 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 pei.
3:45 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Thank you to our panel, and thank you, Ms. Carroll, for recognizing that this meeting is taking place on Mi'kmaq traditional territory and to them for allowing us to do our business here.
There must be something in the water in Prince Edward Island. I'm finding the testimony today both incredibly revealing and somewhat breathtaking. Not only are we naming the elephants in the room, but we're kind of elephant hunting right now.
Ms. Carroll, you said folks with disabilities feel intimidated by the notion of running for another party because of the political consequence that might have. Did I hear you right?
3:45 p.m.
Executive Director, PEI Council of People with Disabilities
That's exactly what I said. Did you want me to elaborate?
3:45 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
No, but the remedy to this, I would say to my friends, is not that they should just run for one of those main two parties; it's that they shouldn't be intimidated from running for whoever the hell they want.
3:45 p.m.
Executive Director, PEI Council of People with Disabilities
Well, in an ideal world—
3:45 p.m.
NDP
3:45 p.m.
Executive Director, PEI Council of People with Disabilities
I think what Marie has just said in the context of P.E.I. and the level of patronage that we have here was that, if you're an extremely poor individual but very politically astute and very politically motivated and want to run for a party, and you want to run for a party that you know is not going to be in power, you wonder how that's going to play out when the person you ran against becomes the minister of social services and that's where you get your cheque every month.
3:45 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
This is devastating testimony.
Ms. Ledwell, Canada ranks 64th in the world right now in terms of electing women, being outpaced by such beacons of democracy as Iraq, Afghanistan, South Sudan, and other places. We get some folks coming to us and saying, “Well, if it ain't broke, don't fix it” or “It has worked out fine for me.” Nine times out of 10 people testifying that way are male, north of 60, and things have worked out well for them, broadly speaking, under first past the post.
Your research has shown 8% more women get elected under proportional systems. Is that what you said?
3:45 p.m.
Executive Director, P.E.I. Advisory Council on the Status of Women
On average, yes.
3:45 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
You're drawing a straight line between those proportional systems and the political cultures they create being more attractive to women. Is that what I understand?
3:45 p.m.
Executive Director, P.E.I. Advisory Council on the Status of Women
We started with the barriers that women in Prince Edward Island have reported in local research, whether the barrier was to running for political office or to then being elected. The evidence from the Coalition for Women in Government has been that voters don't discriminate against women at the polls, so there has to be something else going on.
There has to be a way of getting women on the ballot, because then they will be considered fairly. There are a lot of factors that go into a person's decision to be on a ballot or not. Some of those are values questions and some of them are structural impediments, so we've taken a look at both of those factors. On the whole, our assessment is that different electoral systems can influence a political culture in a way that can then create more opportunity for equality.
3:50 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
That, I would imagine, would be in combination with changing the way the parties conduct themselves. We have a bill in Parliament, which has been mentioned a few times now, in which there would be an incentive to parties in terms of how much money they would be reimbursed by taxpayers to have more women and people of diversity run for them.
Has this been something contemplated in Prince Edward Island and is it something your coalition might support?
3:50 p.m.
Executive Director, P.E.I. Advisory Council on the Status of Women
A lot of our energy has gone into electoral reform, for the obvious reason that we've had two plebiscites in the last 11 years. That's where the focus has been, because it's the biggest opportunity for the most significant change. But under all the electoral systems, there are opportunities and, really, advantages to establishing incentive or disincentive programs and increasing the supports for candidates to increase equality and diversity.
Clearly, we would like to support all of those things happening, those incentives and supports being put in place—
3:50 p.m.
Executive Director, P.E.I. Advisory Council on the Status of Women
It's not an either-or, because those are not inherent in the electoral systems. They're not natural to electoral systems and the electoral system can only contribute one part of a political culture. The evidence over time is that when you have a more diverse and more representative government, it should follow that those factors that affect equality and diversity in everyday life—
3:50 p.m.
Executive Director, P.E.I. Advisory Council on the Status of Women
—help to come through. Yes.
3:50 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Just because I'm running out of time, I apologize, but my last question is to Ms. Burge.
You said something to the effect that there's a lot of growing up we need to do and that a sign of maturity is that politicians realize democracy is not about the parties.
3:50 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
There was this sobering moment when Mr. Russell testified in front of us that once the calculations had actually been done by the parties as to what electoral reform might mean for them, never mind the voters, then suddenly it was undermined. Suddenly the whisper campaign...I heard that priests watched it happen in their church congregations. Organizations were employed. Is there anything that you want to elaborate on with that?
3:50 p.m.
Member, Cooper Institute
It's very obvious to us that in Prince Edward Island, everything that has to do with the political system belongs to two parties in the minds of people. What we're seeing is that the capacity of the two major parties to deliberately influence how people make choices in the community is very strong. Now we're in the midst of this plebiscite and our question is what are they doing because it's not very clear to us what the major parties are doing. A major Conservative and a major Liberal both came out saying clearly that first past the post is fine and they're major voices. People can just then think, well, it's just one person, but those are major powerful voices in the small community.
We have a great advantage on P.E.I. because we're very close to our politicians, but it's also a great drawback because the power they have over us is extreme.
3:50 p.m.
Green
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
I want to thank all three witnesses because it's a very helpful panel. I wish I could spend time with you, Marie Burge. Let me just say that I completely know what you're talking about. I'm from Cape Breton and I ran for office in Pictou county. I had people say to me, “I wanted to vote for you, but my uncle has the job in the winter with the snowplow.” I don't know that everyone around this table would believe the level of transactional political awareness that happens probably to this day and probably more in the Maritimes than anywhere else.
However, I want to dive into the question about women getting elected under PR systems because there is an ongoing little debate that happens around this table.
Jane Ledwell I want to ask you, because I think you put your finger on it, about the culture created by first past the post. It's not just the culture that happens in Parliament where we can exercise great collaborative tendencies on our own as individuals. You mentioned that with proportional representation, your analysis was—and I think I got this right when I was taking notes—we see a decrease in negative campaigning. My concern around first past the post and the incentives for hyper-partisanship and for wedge issues is that it resides much more in the people who are never elected and the public never sees, the political strategists who run campaigns.
I wanted to open up the campaigning lens and ask you more about that before I turn to a few other points. What did your analysis show about the nature of campaigning?