Electoral Reform Committee on Oct. 7th, 2016

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

Thanks to all of our witnesses for spending their Friday night with us, and everybody in the audience for making us the hot ticket in town. We are, right?

We started on electoral reform in the summer and had a number of hearings in July and August. A lot of that time was spent hearing from experts on different systems and looking at strengths and weaknesses. We've been on the road for three weeks now hearing from Canadians about electoral reform. With a committee like this, what I enjoy is getting to kind of poke around at things. As I have poked around at proportional representation, PR, and at MMP in particular, I have been charged with perpetuating the lies and myths about it. So there you go.

I'd like to start with Professor Howe and actually take the first couple of minutes of my time to help dispel some of those myths and lies. You don't have to feel as though you're the last line of defence for PR or anything, but I really do want to get your take on some things.

I've done a number of town halls. I've heard people who, as we heard today at the open mike, feel that going to a proportional representation system is the best thing to do. I've heard others who have spoken very strongly about keeping the existing system. One of the things I've heard is that if we have coalition governments, in many cases they'll be either Conservative or Liberal, or maybe NDP, but in order to form a government they're going to have to rely on a smaller party. It could be the Greens or it could be others, but the sense is that those that have been the main parties will have to give up some of their voice, and have almost a compromise in policy, such that we'll end up with different kinds of policy decisions being made. Some people see that as a strength, and some see it as a weakness.

How do we frame this in a way, if we go in that direction, that will ensure Canadians that having a coalition government and a sort of compromise set of policies is not a bad thing for our country?

[Paul Howe]

I think you have heard from witnesses, people like Arend Lijphart, who have studied it pretty closely and have said that coalition governments in many places work very effectively and they can lead to governance that is as good as or better than what you have under first past the post.

It's also useful to point out that the larger political parties that have held power in our country have typically been, internally, coalitions of a sort. They bring together different viewpoints and factions. We can say that under first past the post, the large parties that we have probably have more of a coalition quality to them than do the larger parties under PR, because under PR, the smaller factions can more readily split away to form their own party and more fully express their factional view.

I suppose that might be part of the argument as well, as I say, that governing is always about working together with different groups in a coalition sort of format, whether that's the formal name or whether it's just more informal and tacit.

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

That's the kind of dialogue we're going to have to engage in as we move away from something that has been in place for 150 years. It's served us well. There is that whole sense of going to something new and having an element of the unknown. I think we're going to have to give really clear thought to the messages we give about why we may not have to worry about some of the things, and how these types of changes can work in a Canadian context. I thank you for that.

In your opening comments, you also talked about mandatory voting, and you indicated that there are better ways to increase participation, but you didn't give us what some of these might be.

I'm wondering if you have any, your top two or three, ideas for increasing voter participation without actually going to that final step of making it mandatory.

[Paul Howe]

Some of them have been mentioned. I think that lowering the voting age could actually have surprisingly strong effects. Countries that have done it have found that the turnout among those who are 16 or 17 can be 15% higher than it is for those who are 20 or 21, because of the factors mentioned. They are in an environment that's more conducive to their being encouraged to vote by school and parents. Then you can build a number of things around that, including educational initiatives.

Obviously, you would then be lowering the registration age to 16. Now you can have online registration. Even though we don't have online voting, you can register online. That, too, can be a civic learning exercise for young people in high school.

Of course, proportional representation is typically viewed as something that will improve voter turnout by a few percentage points. It is not a panacea, but it will likely have some positive effect. I do think that, more broadly, civics education is very important. Obviously, with some of my remarks, I think that's a significant issue that we have to look at. Those are some things.

Just coming back to some of the earlier questioning, I think that if you are contemplating the idea of mandatory voting, another possibility is to do that in conjunction with lowering the voting age. It's the simple idea of saying, “You have to vote your first time only.” The first time you are eligible to vote, you have to vote. After that, it's up to you. That might be a little more palatable as an option, rather than imposing it on everybody. You at least have to try it once, and then, hopefully, you become a habitual voter.

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

That's very interesting. Would you see that kind of mandatory piece apply to, say, new Canadians as well? Once you get your right to vote in the country, the first one could be mandatory.

[Paul Howe]

I think that would be a reasonable thing to do. I don't think it would be seen as an imposition. It would be seen as a welcoming embrace of sorts.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you, Mr. Aldag.

Mr. MacGregor, go ahead.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Professor Howe, I'll start with you. You have previously written about the elimination of the per-vote subsidy to federal political parties. Of course, we have also had changes: for every day over 37 days, the campaign budgets of parties are increased.

How do you think those changes have affected equality or inequality in our political system?

[Paul Howe]

When writing about the elimination of the per-vote subsidies, I argued against it. I felt that it was better to have a balanced system of individual donations and per-vote subsidies. The per-vote subsidies are a much more egalitarian method. Every single Canadian is able to provide for the party they wish through their vote, whereas, when you look at the system of individual donations—you can look at the numbers through Elections Canada data—you find that, although we've moved to a system where the maximum has gone down considerably to what seems like a rather low level, wealthier Canadians are definitely more likely to give the maximum or near the maximum. The total amount of money they are giving is substantially more than what those at the lower end of the economic spectrum are giving.

It's quite unequal. It's not as bad as it can be in jurisdictions like the United States, where there are few effective upper limits, but it is still highly unequal. Having a more level playing field on that front would be a much better situation.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

In your introductory comments, you mentioned that you were wary of a referendum because of the little attention being paid by Canadians and because the participation rate would give any legitimacy some question.

There has been discussion about how we can bridge the divide between those who don't want a referendum and those who do. We have seen examples from Prince Edward Island where they have reformatted their plebiscite question. Instead of being a yes or no question, it lists different systems for people to pick, so they have a list of systems. It forces citizens to figure out what those systems entail.

It has also been suggested that we try out a new voting system, with a sunset clause, and have a referendum after that so that people can at least make an informed choice.

Do you have any opinions on those two systems?

[Paul Howe]

It seems to me that, if you are going to look for a compromise, the second option seems like a reasonable one to go for. There is the question of how many elections people would need to try it. I think it would have to be a minimum of two. One is simply not enough. Ideally, it would be three elections, but of course that's pushing it down the road quite a bit, so it's going to be a tough discussion to decide if that's actually reasonable. I would say, yes, a referendum after the fact is a better idea.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Okay.

Mr. Filliter, I was really glad to hear in your introductory statement about researching the Constitution. I think it's been very well established in our hearings that Parliament is well within its right to change the voting system. The main reference is in the Canada Elections Act, in section 313 for anyone who's interested. It just states that the returning officer “shall declare elected the candidate who obtained the largest number of votes”, and that's it. Of course, Parliament was able to change the number of ridings unilaterally. We went from 308 to 338.

Yesterday in Prince Edward Island, there was a comment about how first past the post has not served Islanders well; it has served the parties well. Just looking at New Brunswick politics, does that kind of statement resonate with you? Can you give us a little bit of feedback on what it's been like here provincially, from your perspective?

[John Filliter]

Well, I'm a transplanted Nova Scotian, but I know a little bit about New Brunswick.

If you look at the current results, where the Liberals swept the 10 seats with 51.5% of the popular vote, under the system that I proposed...and it's just my preference. I figure that the committee is in the best position to tailor-make a system for Canada. I suggested that we aim for, say, as close to 50% as possible of the top-up seats. In New Brunswick I was suggesting five and five. The Liberals would be entitled to the first five as local candidates elected, and the other five would be split, I believe three to the Conservatives and two to the NDP.

I think proportional representation is really and strongly to the advantage of the provinces too, not just to the country, because it's desirable that they have representation on both sides of the House. When you look at what appear to be monolithic provinces, Alberta, for instance, used to elect straight Conservatives, but there was still a 25% Liberal vote and a strong NDP vote. If they included representatives of both parties, I think it would be a much healthier democracy.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you, Mr. MacGregor.

Finally, Ms. Romanado, please.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

My thanks to the witnesses and the people who are here this evening.

Thank you so much for your presence. It's great to see a full house on a Friday night. It's great to be back in “Freddy Beach”. I'm looking forward to going to Boyce Farmers Market tomorrow with your member of Parliament. I'm not sure what I'll find, but I'm sure it will be fun.

I'll start with you, Mr. Wilson. You talked a little bit about the weighted vote, and I know we talked about it here at the table. One concern that pops up is committee work. The way it works in the House of Commons is that members are named to committees. That's where we study legislation. That's where we do studies on issues at hand. Often, like our committee is doing right now, we have to travel to talk to Canadians, and so on and so forth.

My worry is that if, for instance, Elizabeth May had a vote that was worth five points and I had a vote that was worth 0.2, I'd be going everywhere. They'd be sending me out; it wouldn't matter. But if I had a vote that was worth two or three, I would never be able to sit on a committee, because I would always be required to be in the House for every vote.

In terms of the application of that, we'd have to see what we could do, because when it comes time to vote in the House, we have to make sure that the numbers are there. That's the job of the whip. I'm sure he would be happy to hear me bring this up, because it would make a nightmare for him. But we will look at that implication.

Ms. Duguay, I am very pleased that you are here. In my career, I have worked in higher education. So the engagement of young people is a priority for me.

My oldest son was 16 when he was recruited into the Canadian Armed Forces, but he had no right to vote. He could serve his country but he could not vote. Lowering the voting age is not in our mandate, but it is a way to encourage our young people to be engaged.

Right now, the average age of MPs in the House of Commons is 51. This means that we will need other MPs at some point. It is not enough to encourage young people to vote. Our hope is that young people will run for office.

In the last election, we had the youngest candidate in the history of federal elections. Ms. May knows her. I'm talking about Casandra Poitras, who turned 18 on the day of the vote. She ran for office and it was a real pleasure to see a young woman walk the talk.

So I'm interested in your idea of lowering the voting age to 16 while focusing on education. We will certainly look at that.

I think I'm the last speaker here, so for the rest of the committee, I want to throw this out to everyone on the panel.

We've heard a lot about tactics. We've heard about a lot of things we could be doing. We've heard a lot about the actual electoral system. We'll be deliberating on this, but after 39 meetings, I'm starting to think that there's not going to be one thing that will fix all of our boo-boos. We have a lot of things to fix in our electoral system, and I think we're going to have to put a basket of goodies, different things, in place to deal with some of these issues, such as voter participation, women, minorities, accessibility for those with disabilities, online voting, and even the counts.

Do you have any words of wisdom for us as we go into deliberations? We have one more trip to do, and that will be in a week, to Iqaluit. We'll have visited every province and territory across this great land. Do you have any words of advice for us as we go into deliberations to hopefully come to a consensus and table that report on December 1?

[John Filliter]

I have one terrible one that I put in my brief. I butchered the words of JFK by saying, ask not what the electoral system can do for your party, but ask what it can do for your country.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Okay.

Mr. Wilson.

[James Wilson]

That kind of put me on the spot. I think you're right that a basket of things will need to be recommended. For instance, my own system does not directly address the issue of getting more women involved in politics. That being said, first past the post itself has shown that women can become more and more involved. It is something I feel the parties need to look at more, but anything that can help out along the way, I'm in favour of.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Thank you.

Professor Howe.

[Paul Howe]

The electoral system is the big issue, obviously, and there is room for certain compromises. When we start to talk about systems that move us towards proportionality, there is room to hedge that in various ways so that it's not the full-fledged proportional representation. There are ways to make it a little less so, to make it more palatable to those who are sort of opposed to that idea.

At the same time, a lot of these other ideas are a bit of a hodgepodge. Voter turnout is a fairly complex issue, and there are definitely some interesting ideas that have been bandied about. It's a tough one, and you don't want to be too hasty in moving ahead on that front.

Coming back to the lowering of the voting age, I do think that's one that has a lot of merit and should really be given serious thought.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Okay.

What do you think, Ms. Duguay?

[Sue Duguay]

As I said earlier, although we represent 8,700 young people, as ridiculous as this may seem, we sometimes have trouble encouraging young people to participate more. That is consistent with your comment. We need to do a lot of things to solve the problems. In my experience, that's how you can achieve something that will appeal to even more people.

Good luck. We very much appreciate the fact that you have asked us, young people, to share our views.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Mr. Chair, may I have just one second?

For those of you in the audience with friends and family who are contemplating running for office, encourage them to do it. I ask that you give them the support they need, because a lot of times, when people are thinking about running for office, they'll turn to their family and friends. If they want to do this, encourage them to do this.

I'm just throwing that out there.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

My thanks to the witnesses.

Our evening is not quite over. We now have public input.

I'll explain how our open-mike session works. We have two mikes, and I'll call two people up to the mikes at once. Each person on this list will have two minutes to give us their point of view on electoral reform. While one person is speaking, the next speaker will be waiting at the other mike, basically getting ready to make their comments.

I'll call Mr. John Gagnon and Ms. Andrea Moody to the mikes, please.

Mr. Gagnon, go ahead for two minutes, please.