Electoral Reform Committee on Oct. 7th, 2016

[John Gagnon]

I won't take much time. These are a few points I couldn't make this morning because my time ran out.

To me, it's fundamentally unfair and undemocratic when a party receives 50% of the vote and has 100% control in Parliament. There's something wrong with that scenario. Throughout the morning we heard a lot of people talk about not enough women in Parliament, not enough visible minorities in Parliament. We heard about the youth. We heard about low voter turnouts.

The countries that have proportional representation, which we spoke about this morning, have higher voter turnouts than our system currently has. The countries that have proportional representation have more women and more visible minorities in their governments.

We had all these preoccupations this morning. I think we should go into a system that's more democratic, where if you get 50% of the votes—or 30% of the votes—you get 50% of the seats. When you have party after party forming government with less than 50% of the vote and getting 100% of the power, it makes me question the democratic process of this country.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you, Mr. Gagnon.

I'll invite Mr. Maurice Harquail back to the mike, please.

Go ahead, Ms. Moody.

[Andrea Moody, As an Individual]

First, I'd like to thank the committee members for their diligence and hard work these last few weeks. I'm grateful for the opportunity to speak to you this evening.

I'm here today as a private citizen, as a young Canadian woman, and as a future social worker. I was really fortunate to be raised by politically engaged parents. Growing up, I had a lot of discussions and, to be fair, arguments about politics around the supper table with my family. That's a luxury I had that not everybody gets, so it's not something we can control. What we do have the power to change, though, is education and information dissemination.

I'm from Newfoundland and Labrador, actually, and I didn't have the opportunity to access civics education until I was in university. I really believe teaching young Canadians about our democracy is essential to engaging the youth vote. It can't wait until university—an institution, I want to add, that not everybody can afford to attend. I'm aware that it's not directly in the mandate of this committee to address civics education, but I do believe we have a responsibility to establish a national mandatory curriculum in our middle schools and in our high schools.

As important as that is, it won't solve the issue of disenchantment and disenfranchisement with our current system. When the time came for the federal election last fall, I heard from many of my social work classmates at St. Thomas the same sentiment I heard echoed by others here today, and that is, why vote when my vote doesn't really count, when I won't really make a difference? I think there's something fundamentally wrong with our system when a bunch of future social workers, people who are passionate about upholding human rights, whose professional code of ethics mandates them to fight to empower the marginalized and the oppressed whose voices go unheard, don't want to vote because they don't think their own voices matter or will be heard.

I believe some of the biggest problems with our democracy and government stem from an attachment to the way that things have always been done. We can't let that kind of fear and the complacency of “why fix what isn't broken” attitudes allow us to maintain a system that silences the votes, voices, and values of millions of Canadians with every election. We need to move to proportional representation.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Maurice Harquail.

[Maurice Harquail]

Mr. Chairman, and honourable members of the House of Commons, it was mentioned many times today about respect for democracy, and you mentioned the attendance. I want to show respect for our member, because it also shows respect for our local member that we had this kind of support in attendance.

I'm on the second round from this afternoon. I mentioned that I was for mandatory voting. When I went to the House of Commons, my first vote as a rookie was to vote on capital punishment. That was my introduction. Then I voted on the ousting of Mr. Clark's government in 1979. We went into opposition for a brief period. He didn't call the House back until about this time in October. We sat for about 33 days, and then, bingo, we had a confidence vote. I voted the government out and had that experience. I voted on the repatriation of the Constitution in 1982, and then I served on the committee for the reform of the Senate in 1983-84. Today, on CPAC, they're talking about reforming the Senate again.

On the question of the referendum, I didn't get a chance to mention this this afternoon in my remarks. I feel that with 338 members of Parliament—and we're talking about basic economics and economies of scale—I don't think we need to have this kind of an approach where we're going to transfer that power and the rights that we give members in the House to go out and have referendums. We have protests today. We have all these issues that are not really accurate. The term is “fair”. We want to be fair, but at the same time we want to be practical.

I think with 338 members of Parliament in the House of Commons, they should be able to come up with the recommendations you're going to bring forward. As the debate goes on in the House we should be able to achieve what we're looking for on this question of electoral reform.

Best wishes for your going home for Thanksgiving. Thanks for coming to New Brunswick, one of the founding provinces of Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you, Mr. Harquail.

We'll give the mike to Ms. Romana Sehic, now.

[Romana Sehic, As an Individual]

Thank you.

My name is Romana Sehic. I live here in Fredericton. I've been voting since 1998, and I think it's time to do something about this process.

There are two principles that any new system should respect. One is our local connection to the MP. They are in about the same proportion to the seats of the House of Commons, and it's proportioned to the vote each party receives. The best way to make this happen is mixed member proportional representation: one ballot with two votes. With one vote we vote the local MP, and with the second vote we select the party. The MP could be with the party voted for.

The other is that the locally elected MP would be elected in exactly the same way as they are now, and they would function in the same way. We could elect up to two-thirds of MPs locally. The party list MP could have extra duties, such as committee or regional work. Mixed member proportional representation has been used in some other countries with very positive results.

It's quite simple. Mixed member proportional representation is the best solution, in my opinion. I repeat: one ballot, two votes, two principles, one local connection to the MP, and proportionality.

Thank you

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much.

Mr. David Amos, the floor is yours.

[David Amos, As an Individual]

Mr. Chair, I ran for public office five times against your party. That said, I ran against Mr. DeCourcey's boss right here in Fredericton in the election for the 39th Parliament.

I was not aware of this committee meeting in Fredericton today until I heard Mr. DeCourcey speaking on CBC this morning. I don't pretend to know something I don't, but I'm a quick study. I thought I had paid my dues to sit on the panel. I notified the clerks in a timely fashion, but I received no response. At least I get another minute and a half.

The previous speaker answered the $64,000 question: 338. I can name every premier in the country. Governor Maggie Hassan is my governor in New Hampshire. The people there who sit in the house get paid $100 a year plus per diem expenses. I think that's the way to run a government. There are lots of seats in the house for a very small state.

My understanding of this hearing is that you have to report to Mr. Trudeau by December 1, because he said during the election that if he were elected Prime Minister, the 42nd Parliament, which I also ran in, would be the last first-past-the-post election. You don't have much time, so my suggestion to the clerks today, which I published and sent to the Prime Minister of Iceland and his Attorney General, was to do what Iceland does. Just cut and paste their rules. They have no first past the post. They have a pending election.

A former friend of mine, Birgitta Jónsdóttir, founded a party there, for which there is no leader. It is the Pirate Party. It's high in the polls right now with no leader. That's interesting. I tweeted this. You folks said that you follow tweets, so you should have seen what I tweeted before I came here this evening.

That said, as a Canadian, I propose something else. Number one, my understanding of the Constitution and what I read about law.... There was a constitutional expert named Edgar Schmidt who sued the government. He was the man who was supposed to vet bills for Peter MacKay to make sure they were constitutionally correct. He did not argue the charter. He argued Mr. Diefenbaker's Bill of Rights.

In 2002 I read a document filed by a former deputy minister of finance, Kevin Lynch, who later became Mr. Harper's clerk of the Privy Council. Now he's on an independent board of the Chinese oil company that bought Nexen. As deputy minister of finance, he reported to the American Securities and Exchange Commission on behalf of the corporation known as Canada. It is a very interesting document that I saved and forwarded to you folks. It says that he was in a quandary about whether the charter was in effect.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Could it be in relation to a particular voting system?

[David Amos]

According to Mr. Lynch, because of the failure of the Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords, he was in a quandary as to whether the charter was in effect. I know that the Supreme Court argues it on a daily basis. That charter, created by Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Chrétien, his attorney general at the time, gave me the right to run for public office and vote as a Canadian citizen. However, in the 1990s, Mr. Chrétien came out with a law, and because I am a permanent American resident, I can't vote. Yet the charter says I can.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

That's a—

[David Amos]

That said, that's been argued in court. In 2000, Mr. Chrétien came out with a law that said I couldn't vote. Right? He also took away my social insurance number.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I don't know about the case—

[David Amos]

No, he did.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

But I don't know about the case.

[David Amos]

I did prove, after I argued with Elections Canada's lawyers in 2004.... You might have taken away my right to vote, but you can't stop me from running for public office, and I proved it five times.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Given that you're an experienced candidate—

[David Amos]

Very experienced.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

—does that experience provide you with a particular insight on the voting systems we're looking at?

[David Amos]

In Mr. Trudeau's words, he has to come up with a plan and no more first past the post. My suggestion to you, in my contact today, is to cut and paste Iceland's rules.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

What kind of system does Iceland have?

[David Amos]

It's just what you need, just what Mr. Trudeau is ordering now. It's proportional elections.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Is it MMP, or is it just...?

[David Amos]

I tweeted you the beginner's book for Iceland.