Famously.
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.
7:05 p.m.
Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Prince Edward Island, As an Individual
This is terrific, because that breaks down the other problem that the public sees. They only see the little snippet, which is called question period. They think that's everything. They think that's the entire shooting match, that it's absolutely all you guys do. They don't know all the work that you do, so the more that you do this and the better we can see that parliamentarians work together and work together well, the better I think they're going to want to be involved, and they also learn how the process works.
Therefore, I'm really keen on the committee system as a tool you already have, that could be exploited far greater than it has been in the past.
7:10 p.m.
Liberal
7:10 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Thank you to our witnesses. I apologize for not being here earlier. I was dealing with some stuff back home.
Mr. Desserud, I think calling question period a “whole shooting match” is more appropriate than maybe you intended it to be.
Also, I have some caution when you talk about doing a sort of incremental step, a smaller change. We've been studying this for almost 100 years and we haven't done anything about it in Parliament. Parliament has been engaged with this topic on and off for almost a century.
It seems to me that there's the urgency of now. If you have an opportunity in which you have a government that has made a black and white promise to change the first-past-the-post system, we should seize the opportunity and come up with the best we can right now. I don't know when the next reform opportunity will come, and I think that then says to me that we should aim for consensus and aim for the best.
You also mentioned the collegiality of the committee. Some committees operate that way, and some don't. I don't know if you know, but this committee is based on a proportional representation of the vote in the last election, which by everything we do requires some amount of conversation among all the parties. No one can push one agenda. I've sat on committees in majority and in minority governments. The difference is incredible, from a member of Parliament's experience but also from the public's experience, where we've brought witnesses and tried to go on tour and been denied and all those sorts of things. I guess our first working model on proportionality is what is sitting in front of you today. I think it may also be just the personalities that we've collected, but I don't think it's just that. I think there's more.
I haven't spent a lot of time in previous committees talking about mandatory voting, and I will admit that my initial inclination toward it has been negative, just in terms of tone, sending to the voters that voting is a thing that if you don't do we'll punish you. We only do that for a few things: taxes, speed limits, and other fun things. We want voting to be an enfranchisement and the right to not vote to also be a choice.
Let me ask this, perhaps of you, Ms. Keenan, and Mr. Desserud after that.
Follow this logic out: that the long-form census, when it was not mandatory, was not representative in Canada. It didn't take a representative sample. It was a self-selected sample. Our voting is a self-selected sample as well. Therefore, one could argue it is not wholly representative.
It is overrepresented in our voting system right now toward older male, pale voters, right? We know that they disproportionately vote more than other groups in society, and there is no doubt then that we elect parliaments that don't look like Canada as a whole. So I'm making a pitch for exploring mandatory, maybe with an incentive rather than a punishment. Could you comment on that, Mr. Desserud? And I apologize if these questions have been asked already.
7:10 p.m.
Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Prince Edward Island, As an Individual
I wondered whether someone was going to bring up the long-form census question.
7:10 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
People can get so pumped up about a long-form census. I don't know if it was seizing other democracies, but it sure seized ours.
7:10 p.m.
Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Prince Edward Island, As an Individual
I don't have an explanation of why. I was very disappointed. I didn't get the long form. I remember waiting by the mailbox. What's wrong with me? Come on. So I get that.
7:10 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
You can tell us how many bathrooms you have in your house.
7:10 p.m.
Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Prince Edward Island, As an Individual
Two.
7:10 p.m.
Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Prince Edward Island, As an Individual
I do understand that. A lot has to do, I think, with history as well. As Anna has said, she grew up with the system. They had that system since 1924, in fact, at some of the state levels even before that. They have over 100 years of experience with it, so it's a very different culture with that idea. It's about 22, or maybe 24, countries in the world that use mandatory voting by the way, and the vast majority, except for Australia and Belgium—and they are not such an exception and in a second I'll explain why.
Countries, when they went into some form of democratic system, had to make a cultural shift really quickly, or thought that they should, because people had no habit of voting. It just didn't exist. This was the way in which they thought they would do so.
7:10 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
It was just for a crisis that preceded, or a movement from authoritarian governments into one in which people were voting. There was no culture of enfranchisement, so let's bring that culture in—
7:10 p.m.
Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Prince Edward Island, As an Individual
That's right, yes, and even in the Belgian case and in the Australian case, if you go back to the time when they were doing it, this is a different world in terms of what we are thinking of with voting as well.
7:15 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
To Matt's point earlier, the potential crisis we could be looking at is that people aren't voting, and when they don't vote they don't pay attention, etc. Maybe you could finish that thought, and then maybe Ms. Keenan could comment.
7:15 p.m.
Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Prince Edward Island, As an Individual
My point is, if you try to bring this in now, let's just say the backlash would be incredible. They basically will say that you're ignoring the real problems and you're trying to paper them over. From a political standpoint—
7:15 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Okay. Could you answer that question? Also you talked about voter inequality, and I love the idea of seeking systems that give us voter equality. That idea in my mind resonates, that whatever systems in proportional seek that, that a vote cast anywhere by anybody for anybody is treated equally.
7:15 p.m.
As an Individual
Yes, I agree. That applies to urban and rural voters as well, and this is again one of the things that I really like about dual member proportional. It doesn't discriminate against you based on where in the country you live.
On the topic of optional and mandatory voting, one of the things that I see as a problem with optional voting is that for the people who don't vote, you don't know why they haven't voted. You don't know if it's because they are disengaged or because they are expressing a protest vote and saying, “None of the above; you're not good enough.” I would propose that if you are to introduce mandatory voting in Canada you could potentially also consider the inclusion of a “none of the above” option on ballots for people to express an active protest vote.
There have also been instances in some Australian elections where there was an active campaign for people to drop empty ballots in the box. If you turned up at the ballot box and you got checked off the list, you voted, but people dropped in empty ballots as a form of protest. If you are to introduce mandatory voting, it does need to be done in such a way that you make it clear to people that they are not being forced to choose, but you're making it mandatory for people to engage and learn and educate themselves, to show up. It's making it a citizen duty.
7:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
I will just follow up on that point, and then we'll get to Mr. Rayes.
You said something quite interesting. You could require people to show up. That seems more dubious to me than requiring them to vote, because when you require them to vote, you're requiring an action that will benefit the democracy. It's like requiring someone to fill out the census. You don't just want them to open the envelope, you want them to fill out the census, because you need the data. When you require someone to pay their taxes, it has a tangible benefit to the society, but what is the tangible benefit of having someone show up at the polling station and then walk away?
7:15 p.m.
As an Individual
Dawn, you would probably know the actual statistics on this more. When you require people to show up, you get 95% voter turnout.
7:15 p.m.
As an Individual
Exactly. You can't stand over somebody and force them to make a choice, but you can require that they show up, and whether that's virtual or in person is a great question.
7:15 p.m.
Conservative
Alain Rayes Conservative Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
Hello.
I'd like to say that the more the committee work progresses, the more I'm becoming a firm believer in mandatory voting. I'm developing a greater and greater appreciation for the arguments on the subject. I think we'd solve a good portion of our problems with civic engagement and social inequality. The politicians don't take into account a certain social class, since fewer people in that class vote. I don't want to go back to the subject, but I did want to mention it. Several people have spoken about it.
My first question is for Ms. Wilson, and it concerns how we could get more women to vote.
Most people who speak to us about the proportional system think it would result in more women being elected to Parliament. However, experts tell us that it wouldn't have any impact and that incentive measures should be implemented instead.
People have suggested using open or closed lists. We could implement measures that would require the political parties to include women on the lists. This could ensure a certain amount of female representation in Parliament, in case other women candidates in the constituencies aren't elected.
If we have the power to include women candidates on the lists, why couldn't we simply implement measures that would require the parties to have 50% women candidates, without even changing the electoral system? I have trouble seeing a link between the electoral system and the percentage of women elected. If these measures could be implemented in the proportional system, why couldn't they be implemented in the current system?
I want your opinion on the subject.
October 6th, 2016 / 7:20 p.m.
Executive Director, PEI Coalition for Women in Government
Your question is about mandatory voting in relation to women's election in government. We as the Coalition for Women in Government do not have a position on mandatory voting. I know Dr. Dessurud had mentioned some research to me earlier. What we know from the number of women voters in P.E.I. during the last provincial election is that almost 5,000 more women than men voted. The Up for Debate campaign to bring party leaders together to discuss issues of importance to women during the last federal election noted that almost 500,000 more women than men voted in Canada.
In terms of what parties can do, I think it goes back to incentives. Can we obligate parties to have 50% more women? There are negative and positive incentives that are possible, definitely. We as an organization do not have a position on that either. Our research on voluntary methods or regulatory or legislated, shows that on their own they do not lead to significant or substantial change.
A voluntary method that I might use as an example is a leader who really champions gender and diversity among candidates being nominated. It's fantastic. It can go a long way to encouraging more women to run. However, that may only live through that leader's tenure unless it's formalized in the form of a policy or a legislative change. It has to go hand in hand, I guess, is what I'm saying.
7:20 p.m.
Conservative
Alain Rayes Conservative Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
People tell us the advantage of closed or open lists is that the parties could be required to include as many women as men on the lists. If that's possible, what is preventing us from doing so starting today in our current electoral system?