Electoral Reform Committee on Oct. 6th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thanks very much.

Finally, we have Mr. Cheverie, please.

[Leo Cheverie, As an Individual]

Thank you.

I'm Leo Cheverie. I'm a member of a number of groups, but I am a member of CUPE P.E.I. and represent CUPE P.E.I. in the PR coalition. CUPE national, Canada's largest union, has also endorsed proportional representation as an electoral model that they are supporting.

I want to talk very quickly about a bit of history because I think it's really important. I know when P.E.I.'s legislature formed, it was white, propertied, Protestant males who composed the legislature. By 1864, when we actually had all the fathers get together—I've never been a father, but I've played one—for Confederation, there still wasn't a very inclusive system in terms of women and other groups. We could go through the whole history here. Even on P.E.I., we had to go to a Charter of Rights challenge to actually have single-member ridings that reflected the population more accurately in our legislature.

I also want to tell you one little story. I know this came out later on, but I know that Prime Minister Trudeau's father Pierre Elliott Trudeau approached the NDP caucus when Broadbent was leader to suggest we should have PR, and asked for their support. It didn't happen at that point in time.

They did it because they wanted a Canada that was more representative, so that in actual fact, with people elected MPs across the country, you would have Liberals in Alberta, you would have Conservatives or other under-represented parties in Quebec. Part of that was a vision, recognizing that we need a system that better represents all the people across the country. That's why he proposed it.

I think we have to remember that as well. I also think that in terms of MMP and a plebiscite referendum, Brenda spoke very well about what happened in the only two countries that voted, Switzerland and New Zealand.

I also met Darren Hughes, who's a part of the Electoral Reform Society in London, U.K., and he is a former parliamentarian from New Zealand. He said the circumstances there were unique in terms of how that came about because they actually elected governments that had fewer votes than the other parties. He would not recommend a referendum or a plebiscite. He said that's not the way to go in terms of moving forward, and he talked about New Zealand's example being unique in terms of why that came about at that point in time. So, I don't think that is the way to go.

Also, in terms of healthy collaboration and the democracy that we have—both Josh and Marie spoke about it—we actually have to change the nature of politics, to make it more inclusive, to include more voices, but also how it's done in terms of people coming together and trying to solve problems together, whether it be climate change or whatever. Extreme polarization does not help in a healthy democracy and actually turns voters off.

Look at younger voters who are looking at what's happening. We're trying to encourage people to be more involved, and I know there are many examples around the world. For example, there's lots of movement towards participatory budget-making, where people get involved in helping to determine the budget as opposed to—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Sir, could you just slow down a bit, because our interpreters can't keep up.

[Leo Cheverie]

I'm sorry. Yes. I agree.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

In any event, we are over time. Maybe you could do a short wrap-up, but slowly.

[Leo Cheverie]

A very deep democracy means getting people more engaged and more involved, and feeling that their voices are heard. When voices aren't heard or when, for example, people are elected with 38% or 39% of the vote and get 100% of the power, it negates people's voices and their ability to play a role.

I know around the world there's a thing called participatory budget processes that happen in terms of people coming together and helping to decide what the budget could be, as opposed to, say, omnibus budget bills, for example.

All I'm saying is let's move forward. Most countries have it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Our time is up. Thank you very much.

Thank you to everyone, in fact, for your points of view, and as I said earlier, for the frank discussion that we've had. We really appreciate it. It has been a great day in Charlottetown, and we look forward to a good evening session.

The committee is going to break for about an hour, and we'll back at six for a third panel and another open-mike segment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Welcome back, colleagues.

I welcome our witnesses for the third panel of our day here in Charlottetown.

This evening we have Anna Keenan, electoral reform advocate; Dawn Wilson, executive director of the PEI Coalition for Women in Government; and Don Desserud from the Department of Political Science of the University of Prince Edward Island, who is appearing tonight as an individual.

Each witness will have five minutes to present, and that will be followed by a round of questioning. Each member of the committee will be able to ask questions or engage the witness for five minutes.

Without further delay, we will ask Ms. Keenan to kick off the session.

[Anna Keenan, As an Individual]

Thank you very much to the committee for inviting me to be a witness tonight.

I had three topics that I wished to discuss, but in five minutes I can really only do justice to one. At the end, I'll mention what the other two were, and if you'd like to ask me questions about that, feel free.

I want to speak today about dual-member mixed proportional representation, or DMP, designed by Mr. Sean Graham, who I understand gave you a great rundown of that system in Alberta last week.

First, I'll speak about what I like about DMP and why I decided to advocate for this model as one of the options in the provincial plebiscite coming up, which, obviously, was successful because it is now on the ballot in P.E.I.

Second, I'll speak about my experience of how DMP has been received by the island's public in our work today.

These are the top four things that I like about dual-member proportional and why I think it would be an excellent choice, not only for P.E.I. but also for Canada.

First, it is a strictly proportional system; however, it relies entirely on local district candidates. Open-list MMP and STV agree very well with my personal values, but I do know that any form of a regional list, which is a reality in both MMP and STV, and a two-tier Parliament are two real sticking points for a lot of people. I especially find that true for people who strongly value accountability to local geographic communities. DMP is a proportional system that satisfies that criteria.

Second, DMP demonstrates diversity within small geographic areas. You've heard a number of times today that it's just not right that the Conservative Party has been entirely shut out of the Atlantic provinces despite having 40% of the vote here federally. Likewise, looking at the first-past-the-post map of Canada, the U.S., my home country of Australia in the lower house, and the U.K., you would get the impression that everybody in this region votes red, and everybody in that region votes blue, and there's no showing of the diversity of both communities.

In my few short years that I've lived in this country—I have been here for three years, in Montreal for two and P.E.I. for one and a half—I've learned that Canadians strongly value diversity, and the electoral system here should reflect that, not only across the whole country but also within the communities that we elect our representatives in.

In dual-member proportional, diversity is visible in a very small geographic area, not only in the large regions. In DMP, each local riding would be represented by two candidates who are likely going to be from two different parties. What this means is that many more voters are locally satisfied than in the current system.

The other two points that I like about dual-member proportional, very briefly—there's a long list, but these are my top four—are that DMP allows for the theoretical possibility of a legislature that is composed entirely of independent candidates. I don't know of any other proportional system that allows for that possibility. I think we're probably 50 or 100 years off that, but I think it's an interesting theoretical feature of the system. Finally, it has an extremely simple ballot for a proportional system; you mark a single X.

My second point is how DMP is being received by the public in P.E.I.

Through my work as the founder of the PR action team and also now as an employee of the P.E.I. PR Coalition, I have personally spoken with hundreds of people one-on-one across the island, on the street and at their doors, about the upcoming provincial vote. I'm very happy to report that most people who prefer proportional representation are not fussy about which model they want. Where it gets interesting is speaking with people who don't object to the principle of proportionality but who are uncomfortable with some of the specifics of one of the proportional models.

As an example, I will share some words, which are available on the public record, from Sidney MacEwen and Brad Trivers, who are both Progressive Conservative MLAs here on the island. Both of them have expressed publicly that they are in favour of either dual-member proportional or first past the post in the upcoming plebiscite, but not mixed member proportional. Why is this?

In a recent CBC article, Mr. MacEwen was quoted as saying:

First and foremost, the MLA gets elected on a district level...The MLA or the MP must be responsible to its constituents...Before I got into politics, I might have thought maybe a mixed-member proportional system might be OK. Now when I look at it, it creates two tiers of MLAs where you're not directly accountable to a constituency, so in the next election you don't have to go back to the doors and answer for the decisions you made in the house.

You can agree with that or not, and I personally would argue with some of those points. I'm quite a fan of MMP personally, but I know there are some people, like Mr. MacEwen, who just can't square their specific values with that particular model, because their values are so strongly rooted in local communities.

I'd like to suggest that DMP offers a way for people who share those values regarding local community accountability to feel comfortable supporting a proportional representation model.

I'll leave it at those initial points. I truly think that DMP could be a model that could gather majority support or perhaps even consensus support from this committee. I'm happy to answer questions on the technical details or the values behind DMP, as well as on two other topics. One is the question of a referendum on Canada and why I—acting as one of the campaign directors for the P.E.I. plebiscite campaign— think it would be a terrible idea. I'm also happy to answer questions about features of the electoral system of Australia, the country of my citizenship, regarding things such as majoritarian preferential voting, mandatory voting, or STV in the Australian Senate.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much for the clarity of that presentation.

We'll go now to Ms. Wilson, please.

[Dawn Wilson, Executive Director, PEI Coalition for Women in Government]

Thank you.

The PEI Coalition for Women in Government thanks the special committee for the opportunity to appear here this evening as a witness. It's particularly meaningful to appear on this topic during Women's History Month.

For some context, the PEI Coalition for Women in Government is a multi-partisan coalition of individuals and organizations that works to advance opportunities for women to be elected to all levels of government here in P.E.I. It's important to note that the coalition has a long history of participating in electoral reform, specifically proportional representation at the provincial level here. The focus of our submission is specifically on the opportunity for greater accessibility and inclusiveness of women in under-represented groups within electoral systems.

We know that women make up more than half of the Canadian and island population but are under-represented at both levels of government. Despite more women than ever before being elected to the House of Commons in 2015, the percentage of women MPs is 26%. Without any changes to the current system, it will take approximately 90 years to reach gender parity at the federal level. The numbers are even more concerning provincially, where women make up just 14.8% of members of the legislative assembly here in Prince Edward Island. Women can only make a substantial difference to the political discourse when they are present in more than token numbers, according to the United Nations, which has identified the critical mass of women in government as 33%, or one third.

History and examples show that the number of women in government will not rise naturally on its own. A concerted and sustained effort is needed to increase the number of women elected and includes a combination of approaches that also address structural and systemic barriers, which includes the electoral system.

The biggest barrier we have found to electing women lies with getting women's names on the ballot in the first place. Political parties provincially and federally are simply not nominating women at high enough numbers to make substantial change. There's also significant variation between parties in number of women candidates. Historically, smaller parties have nominated more women; however, this has not translated into electing more women within the current system.

While our work has always focused on collaborating with individual women and political parties, it has always remained clear that the whole electoral system requires a significant overhaul to ensure a truly representative democracy in which elected representatives reflect the diversity of the population.

When we look at democracies with the most balanced proportion of women, we find that most of these have some form of proportional representation. Almost all of the top countries outlined by the Inter-Parliamentary Union use some form of proportional representation.

Proportional electoral systems contribute to the election of more women because there's more diversity among parties elected. Under some proportional systems, parties are responsible for developing a candidate list, either closed or open. In these cases, parties are more likely to look at the list holistically in terms of gender, diversity, and perhaps geography, a balance between those identities, and a contagion effect is more likely within proportional systems. Contagion is a process by which parties adopt policies or practices initiated by other political parties. Proportional electoral systems are more likely to include smaller parties with more diverse candidate lists, which inspire other parties, then, to ensure their lists are also representative of the population. This would be true of P.E.I. and Canada, where smaller parties have historically nominated more women candidates than larger, more dominant parties.

According to research by political scientist Arend Lijphart, proportional representation has a positive impact on the number of women elected to government. For instance, he found that countries using proportional systems elected 8% more women to Parliament than majoritarian systems. In comparison to the recent federal election, where we saw a small 1% increase in the number of women elected to the House of Commons, an 8% jump in the number of women elected would bring Canada much closer to gender parity.

When we look at democracies with the most balanced proportion of women, we find that most of these have some form of proportional representation. Canada has a unique opportunity to develop a new proportional electoral system designed with a gender and diversity lens to best meet the needs of our increasingly diverse population.

In closing, we would like to thank you for this opportunity to provide input into your process and we look forward to the outcome.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you, Ms. Wilson.

Professor Desserud, for five minutes, please.

[Don Desserud, Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Prince Edward Island, As an Individual]

Thank you very much.

I should start by saying that I may be here under false pretenses, because I'm going to speak to you about mandatory voting. I do not claim to be an expert on mandatory voting. I am an expert on Senate reform and the historical origins of its residence requirement, and I can speak about that at great length if you'd like.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

It might come up in question period

[Don Desserud]

I am interested in the question of civic engagement, and mandatory voting connects with that very well. It also connects very well with the discussions you're having over electoral reform because I would argue that at least one of the purposes of electoral reform is to try to improve civic engagement among Canadians, the theory being that the current system is not conducive to many Canadians believing that their vote counts or that they have a voice.

What is mandatory voting and why is it being considered? The theory, as best I can understand, is that voting is more than a right, it's also a duty, and that people sometimes need a bit of a nudge in order to be convinced to perform that duty. The general claim is that in systems like ours there is a disproportion, or a skew if you like, in the population who are voting in any one election. Older people vote more than younger people do. Better-educated people vote more than people with less education. Wealthier people vote more than people who are not so wealthy. As a consequence then we have a political system that tends to favour those groups at the disadvantage of the groups that are not voting.

The theory continues that if you make voting a duty that is mandatory, that is enough of a nudge or incentive for the groups that are not voting now to get out and vote, and that this would provide a better socio-economic voting distribution among the public.

I'll let Anna speak about this if she likes, but systems that do use mandatory voting like Australia do not have an onerous penalty. It's around $20 if you don't vote, and there are ways in which you can explain why you were not there. It's not like it's a major problem.

Some of the comparisons that are made are between mandatory voting and things like seat belt legislation. There was a great public campaign for us to all wear seat belts. I remember that growing up, but we didn't wear them until they made it mandatory, and now we do. If you ask people what is the fine for not wearing a seat belt, I'd be willing to bet most people don't even know. They just accept it as something that we're supposed to do. That seems all very well.

However, having said all that, I'm not in favour of mandatory voting and I'm hoping that the committee will not recommend such a system. My concern is that we're missing the point. Yes, voting is a civic duty and is itself a form of civic engagement, but it's also a measure, a reflection of the engagement of the community. In other words, people are not voting for other reasons than simply because they haven't been nudged, and if we have mandatory voting we risk overlooking those or masking those. So I'm going to suggest some reasons why I think people are not voting, and why voting turnout is going down.

It's kind of ironic to be talking about this in Prince Edward Island, by the way, because we regularly have the highest voting turnouts at provincial elections in the country. In the mid-80% is normal. But I would suggest to you that people don't vote because they have come over time to see elections as not making a whole lot of difference. In other words, they see the results as being little different from what they were before or they don't see that the choices are valid to them, or they don't think that their vote counts. A substantial number of people have been turned off by the electoral system.

The conclusion I have then is that if this committee is going to be looking at electoral reform, what I'm hoping they will do is keep clearly in mind the question of civic engagement because I think that should be the main goal in whatever improvements you are able to recommend or any improvement that you want to make.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much, Professor.

We'll go to a round of questioning now, starting with Mr. Aldag.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Great, thank you.

I'd like to thank our witnesses for being here this evening, and the members of the audience who have joined us. I look forward to your comments once we wrap up this panel.

I'm going to start with Ms. Keenan. We talk about referenda a lot in this committee. I have not taken a position nor has our government but when somebody comes up with a strong position either for or against it's always interesting to explore it. In your case you left me hanging a bit on it being a terrible idea. Why do you think that? I have to go there.

[Anna Keenan]

I suppose the best answer to this is to think about who I am and who you have heard present to you from the P.E.I. Coalition for PR today.

I'm personally a climate change and renewable energy expert. I've spent 10 years working on this issue. For the last year, I've diverted all of my effort and energy from working on that issue to working on this issue. Likewise, people from the Coalition for Women in Government, the Status of Women organization, Council of People with Disabilities, Federation of Labour, CUPE, all of these organizations, and the Cooper Institute, trying to advance social justice, environmental sustainability, really trying to advance these issues.

All of us in the coalition feel, in common, that the current first-past-the-post electoral system is a barrier to progress on all of those issues, so we are willing to put aside our time that we should be spending pushing each of those issues forward, trying to fix this broken system. If a referendum is called, federally, what will happen nationally is the same thing that has happened here, where I've now spent literally a year of my time—I have a nine-month-old son—but aside from that, all of my time has gone into this campaign.

I don't know if we're going to succeed or not. There are so many factors at play. We are working so hard. We have volunteers going door to door who have made things like this, taking photos of people, explaining the difference between what we voted for and what we got, at people's doors. We're a very under-resourced group, but it is taking so much time from progressing these other issues.

If you want to call for a referendum in Canada, I want you all to know that you would be setting back social justice progress by a huge amount. You have the capacity to simply make a decision in this committee and that would free up the resources of all.... It's not only the financial costs to the taxpayers, it is the time cost of the advocates who would need to be running the campaigns, to educate people across the country.

I feel very strongly about that.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

I would say both, those wanting to educate and...there would be a group that would mobilize to oppose.

Really quickly, Professor Desserud, you mentioned key civic engagement. We've heard things like getting back into the schools. As a federal body, we have limited ability to influence provincial curricula. What are the things we can do on the civic engagement piece, your top one or two ideas?

[Don Desserud]

I appreciate the federal-provincial division of powers problem here, but education in schools is absolutely essential. It has been dropped by most school curriculums across the country. I went to high school in 1971 to 1974 and by the time I got there, the political science courses were gone. They've been gone for a long time. I would start with that.

I think the federal government can play a role in advocating for that, and working with ministers at the provincial level to encourage them and provide incentives, perhaps, as well. That would be the one that I would think is absolutely crucial.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Is there a second idea on how we get citizens engaged in this awareness?

[Don Desserud]

I think the second idea is to come up with a fantastically brilliant proposal from this committee on how to reform the electoral system.

But seriously, I do think that's the main problem. Obviously not everyone, but a substantial number of people have lost confidence in the system as being meaningful in their own participation. I'm fundamentally neutral on the different options that are available. I think they're all very interesting in different ways. They seek to solve different problems. That's one of the reasons why people are advocating for preferential ballots, for example, versus proportional representation, or a mixed member system and so forth. They have a different idea of what they want to see.

They all have some good things, and they all have some drawbacks. At least, if it was seen that things were changing in a way that people thought when they cast their ballot it would make a difference, and I think they don't now, that would be the way in which they would want to get more engaged in the system.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Mr. Reid, please.

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

Looking at TPP, we had the Alberta Sean Graham, not the New Brunswick one, talk to this committee about a week ago. He outlined the system. He was very compelling, but at the same time, there were some things I wasn't able to get out of the questions to him that I'd like to ask you because you are clearly very familiar with how the system would work.

As I understand it, you take all the ridings in Canada, you pair them; neighbouring ridings and some sort of expedited redistribution could do that. Each riding now has two candidates running. You cast a single ballot, but when you do so presumably you're aware of the fact that candidate A for the Green Party has, in some sort of internal party selection process, been put ahead of candidate B. Assuming the Green Party wins that particular seat—let's say it's Elizabeth's riding and Victoria—you get those two ridings. I'm going to guess that she would be the top of the candidates. Assuming they win, she's now the MP for that riding. In some way that I haven't quite got my head around, all the other pool of people who were not the first-place candidates in their ridings become the people from whom some kind of list is populated.

How do you now choose among those other people who did not win in their ridings? Can you help me on that?

[Anna Keenan]

Sure. I want to clarify that in Sean Graham's models and also the models that I've done for P.E.I. for the last six elections for the MP, pairing his neighbouring riding would be a convenient way to manage the data, but in practice it wouldn't be a prudent thing to have a boundary commission look at redrawing the boundaries rather than just pairing them because then you might end up with some quite strange riding shapes. But yes, you're correct. There's a single ballot, and we're using the primary candidate and the secondary candidate in every riding. To use Elizabeth's riding, if Elizabeth were elected as the primary candidate for an adjoined riding, then the secondary Green candidate who was not elected would be considered for the second seat in that riding, along with the first candidates from the other parties or any independents who ran in that district.

That is the list of candidates who have potential to be elected to the second seat in that district. The second seat allocation works by having the proportional calculation for the region as a whole calculated. The first seat's subtracted and which parties are due the remainder of the seats, then the aim is to award each party their deserved seats in the places where they have the strongest relative support.

In P.E.I. it would be a common situation when the NDP or the Greens did not win any of the first list seats, but they had their strongest performance in one particular area. It would try to allocate the NDP seats for their top candidates as the second candidate in that riding.