Evidence of meeting #39 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 women.
8:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Okay, we'll look at Iceland.
We're just checking on the kind of system they have, but I appreciate the input, especially from a candidate, from somebody who has run many times.
But we do have—
8:05 p.m.
As an Individual
I have two other points, because I don't think you can pull this off. I don't think it will happen.
8:05 p.m.
As an Individual
Look how parliamentarians are elected in the Northwest Territories. There is no party, and I like that.
8:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
That's true. We were just up in Yellowknife, in fact, and we learned all about that. That's why it's good for us to be travelling the country.
But, sir, I—
8:05 p.m.
As an Individual
Mr. Harper changed the Canada Elections Act and I still couldn't vote.
8:05 p.m.
Liberal
8:05 p.m.
As an Individual
Anyway, that said, when you alter the Canada Elections Act, make it....
The biggest problem we have is, look at the vast majority of people who, like me, have never voted in their life. Apathy rules the day.
8:05 p.m.
Liberal
8:05 p.m.
As an Individual
Let me finish.
I suggest that you make voting mandatory, such as Australia does. Make it that if you don't vote, it costs you money, just like if you don't report to Statistics Canada.
8:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Well, we're talking about that. That is part of our mandate, to look at mandatory voting and online voting.
You already had your last suggestion.
8:10 p.m.
As an Individual
Put in the line, “none of the above”, and if “none of the above” wins—
8:10 p.m.
As an Individual
You and I will be talking again, trust me on that one, by way of writing.
You answered my emails, Ma'am.
8:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Thank you very much, sir.
Now we'll hear from Julie Maitland.
8:10 p.m.
Julie Maitland As an Individual
I moved to Fredericton in 2009 and became a proud new-stock Canadian in November of last year, so I wasn't able to vote in the last election. It killed me to hear people say that they couldn't vote for who they actually wanted to vote for because this time around, they felt that they had to make sure they voted Harper out rather than voting someone in—no offence to my Conservative friends in the room.
Tonight my friend told me that last year she felt physically sick because she had to vote strategically. Strategic voting is soul-crushing. It's heartbreaking. It ends with a government that does not reflect the values or the will of the Canadian public.
I thought Mr. Trudeau was incredibly brave when he promised to make 2015 the last first-past-the-post election, and I applaud the decision to create this wonderfully multi-party committee. This gives me hope that this was not an empty promise and that the current government is willing to make a meaningful change to the system.
It's probably not a huge surprise for you to hear that I wholeheartedly support proportional representation. I'm not sure what form, as I'm not an expert, but I ask this committee to strive to enact a new electoral system that can achieve the highest level of proportionality in our next government.
Being from the U.K., though, I caution against a referendum. I can personally attest to how badly a referendum can get sidetracked from the actual question on the ballot and become about other problems. We've recently experienced a very painful Brexit referendum that became unbelievably vicious. Whole regions, cities, and families turned against each other. An MP was shot and killed in the street. What they were fighting over bore little resemblance to the actual question on the ballot paper. The U.K. doesn't have a history of plebiscites and referendums in the same way that Canada doesn't have a history of nationwide referendums, so when the opportunity arose, it became a lightning rod for all manner of unexpected grievances.
I sent a postcard to this committee—and I did receive a response, thank you—with the request that you be brave. Be brave enough to make the changes that lesser leaders have been afraid to make. I direct this message of encouragement and hope, especially to the committee members from the Liberal and Conservative parties, because your parties are the establishment, and the establishment always stands to lose the most power when we talk of changing the status quo. However, by being brave enough to allow true proportional representation in the government, you can show that this is bigger than your parties, that you're willing to collaborate with each other for the greater good.
In addition to having a cabinet that looks like Canada, we can have a government that represents the diversity of our values. To paraphrase the words of our Prime Minister: Why? Because it's 2016.
Thank you for listening.
8:10 p.m.
Liberal
8:10 p.m.
Daniel Hay As an Individual
The essence of an electoral system is to represent in government, by some approximation process, the will of the population. To be legitimate, such an approximation must, at the very least, strive to actually reflect the will of every citizen, and to be effective, it must be robust to distortion.
A fundamental problem with our current electoral system, first past the post, is that it does not really try to be representative in any meaningful sense, because it is oppositional by nature. The purpose of first past the post is to elect a winner, not a representative, in each riding, and that winner represents only those voters who supported them in the election. The remaining voters are left disempowered. If first past the post is ever representative, it is only by chance, not by design.
Just as rounding 50¢ to $1 over and over again leads one to precariously believe they have $1,000 in the bank rather than $500, electing representatives in a winner-take-all manner leaves us at great risk of having a non-representative, and therefore ineffective, government. This risk is empirically founded, given the preponderance of majority governments we've seen over the years elected without a majority of the popular vote.
Because of this inherent fragility and its infidelity to the essential purpose of elections, any oppositional system, including first past the post, is illegitimate. Given the existence of alternative proportional models that we know from evidence in other jurisdictions actually succeed in being representative, it is not just a risk to cling to our oppositional model but a wilful transgression against democracy.
Consequently, as a citizen who is deeply concerned with civics, I see it as being imperative that we reform our electoral system and that we institute a legitimate proportionally representative system in its place.
Thank you all very much.