Electoral Reform Committee on Oct. 7th, 2016

[Hamish Wright, As an Individual]

Thank you.

My name is Hamish. I've worked with Student Vote for four years. I've represented New Brunswick at national debating championships three times, where I've argued about proportional representation. I'm originally Australian and I'm 18 years old, so as a young Australian person, I consider myself an eminently qualified witness, for the amount of time it's come up.

My first point is about a referendum. If we are going to change the fundamental way we elect members of Parliament, then the citizens of this country must decide how that takes place.

Before I go into my point, I'm a paid employee of the New Brunswick NDP, but I speak for myself, as a private citizen, as you might well tell.

I believe that we must have a referendum. Why is that? I've heard some elitist arguments here today about how people are uninformed and can't make that decision. Let me tell you something. You are all here because citizens of this country elected you, and if you concede to the argument that Canadian citizens are uninformed about the way they vote, then you have no mandate. I don't think that's true. I think you all have a mandate. I think Matt DeCourcey got a clear mandate from the people of Fredericton. I think you have a mandate to decide things.

What I say is that a referendum is not doomed to fail. A referendum has been confirmed twice in New Zealand, in 1994 and 2011. It passed in B.C. Unfortunately, due to an arbitrary threshold, it didn't work. So if we're going to change the way we vote, it must be approved, in principle, by the citizens of this country.

To quote Frank Underwood, I don't like the way the table is set, so let's flip over the table. What do I mean by this? We're concentrating on a House that isn't broken. First past the post elects people. It shows a clear mandate switch between the Conservatives and the Liberals, for example, in the last election. It allows for effective decision-making.

What is broken in democracy in Canada? It's one word: Senate.

The Senate is broken. We do not elect senators. The Senate can veto any democratically elected law by the House of Commons. I have a consensus solution for you. We can have proportional representation. We can have effective decision-making. Why not make the Senate the proportional body that represents the provinces and represents the points of view of the citizens of this country?

There's a reason why the Liberals can afford to get rid of Atlantic Canada's Supreme Court seat. There's a reason why they can afford to ignore Atlantic Canada. That's because the provinces are inadequately represented in our federal government, and that's why we must have an elected Senate.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Sheppard, go ahead.

[Margo Sheppard, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and panellists.

My name is Margo Sheppard. In 2015, I had a life-sized Stephen Harper dummy in my living room, for a month. Right there.

Why? It was as part of a Leadnow.ca campaign to defeat the Harper Conservatives. The dummy came with me to various public events. It was loaned to me by PSAC, the union, which has a Moncton office.

I mention this because it is an example of the extremes to which a normally well-adjusted and sane person will go to get rid of the first-past-the-post system. Not only was the dummy a symbol of an oppressive government, it was also a symbol of a broken electoral system—and it really creeped out my kids and pets.

In seriousness, I want the system to change, to become more representative of the will of the people and to become fairer. In my book, that's mixed member proportional representation.

The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, promised no more first past the post. Please make good on this promise. No more dummies.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Howe.

[Joel Howe, As an Individual]

Thank you.

I just want to urge all of you to reject proportional representation. PR has many shortcomings, but with my limited time to speak, I want to focus on how it amplifies fringe political viewpoints and discourages moderation.

Under PR there is no need to try to broaden your party's message in order to appeal to enough voters to form a majority government, because everyone knows that it's just going to be a coalition government anyway. The problem is that then you have duly elected MPs receiving taxpayer dollars to promote extreme fringe viewpoints that might only be shared by 5% or 6% of the population.

Televised debates would feature moderate politicians, like yourselves, sharing the stage with, for example, anti-immigrant or anti-French party leaders, granting their messages legitimacy and some measure of equivalency. We're already seeing far-right parties polling in first place in many European countries that have adopted PR. These are parties that not long ago had only a handful of seats, but all it took was an economic downturn and a refugee crisis and now these fringe parties could be leading coalition governments.

PR proponents will argue that we need to trust the voters to trust democracy, but that's a false dichotomy. If it were true, we wouldn't lock the Charter of Rights and Freedoms up behind a constitutional amending formula. If we really trusted democracy, then minority rights in this country would be subject to whims of 50% plus one, but because we understand that even democracy is not perfect, we organize our Constitution in such a way that we ensure that our better nature prevails against the occasional fleeting passions of the public. We should absolutely do the same thing with something as important as our electoral system.

With ranked ballot, for example, you allow for many parties, but they must each jockey to be voters' second or third choice. This means they cannot simply pander to their existing limited base if they want to get elected. This is the incentive toward moderation that a 5% or 10% threshold under PR can't hope to provide.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much, sir.

We'll go now to Mr. Andrew Maclean.

[Andrew Maclean, As an Individual]

Hi, there.

I feel I need to speak to this committee in favour of proportional representation, because I feel that our current system is doing a poor job of giving a voice to voters.

I have voted in every single provincial and federal election since I've been of age to cast a ballot, and not once have I voted for a candidate who won. This could mean that I'm just a bad luck charm, but it also means that the values that I voted for are not being represented, and I'm in good company. Some 17 million Canadians cast their ballots in the last federal election, but nine million, like me, voted for candidates who did not win. That means that more votes didn't count, than counted.

At election time you meet a lot of people, especially young people, who will tell you that they aren't voting. They say, “What's the point? My vote probably won't count anyway.” Well, statistically speaking, they're not wrong. If you check the news around the world, we see the effects of members of the voting public who are lashing out because they feel they're not being listened to. People have given up on a system that they feel has excluded them, on institutions they see as unresponsive, and on politicians they think care little about their voice.

It would be smug to think that we in Canada are uniquely immune to this rage. Our voting system is feeding this cynicism, this disengagement, and this frustration that leads to this rage, and makes no attempt whatsoever to create fair results. It gives us distorted majorities in which a party regularly takes control of whole provinces, and indeed the country, against the will of the majority of voters.

In most of the world, by definition, a government taking control of a country against the will of the majority is an illegal and fraudulent coup d'état. Here in Canada, it's sanctioned and publicly funded.

The 12 of you on this committee are uniquely poised to make changes that can truly allow all Canadians to feel they have a stake in our collective future, to allow all Canadians to know that they and their values are represented. I call on you to be decisive, to act boldly, and to implement changes to ensure that the voice of every Canadian is heard. You can choose a system that will serve and represent Canadians fairly and equally while better engaging them in the political process, and that system is mixed member proportional.

I call on you to support proportional representation, an electoral system that's fair, representative, and engaging, because Canadian democracy and those who live under it deserve nothing less.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

Finally, Mr. Richardson, please.

[Jonathan Richardson, As an Individual]

Hi, everyone. Thank you for letting me speak today.

I am before you today to speak in favour of proportional representation, simply because it is proportional and because I like evidence-based decision-making.

In the last election, the party that is in power now got 39% of the vote and ended up with 55% of the seats. These kinds of distortions feed cynicism and disengagement, and create frustrated voters.

Outside of politics, I manage a women's addiction and rehabilitation centre. Before I came here today, I went up to the women and asked, “Who here votes?” Only one woman out of the entire bunch voted, and the reason the remainder of them don't vote is that they don't believe their vote counts.

Our system is alienating people. The voter turnout is falling and it has been for decades. In 2008, it hit an all-time low at 58% of voters. In 2015, we reached 68%, and we thought that was a big cause for celebration. Guess what? With five more points, we would still not even reach the threshold of the eighties.

Proportional-representation-based systems help generate better voter turnout across the world. Of course reforming the voting system will not fix everything. No single reform is going to fix all our democratic ills, but implementing proportional representation will provide the tools for a fair, representative, and engaging electoral system that citizens can use to improve our country and all our lives.

I call on you to seize this moment and give citizens the tools of a voting system based on mixed member proportional representation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

Thank you very much for all your well-reasoned comments.

Thank you for all those thoughtful comments, some of them imbued with a bit of levity, which I think is never a bad thing.

[John Gagnon]

On a point of privilege, you made reference to mixed proportional representation when I was talking about—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Was I wrong?

[John Gagnon]

Yes. My presentation was not on mixed; it was on proportional representation. What I was referring to was the open list—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Oh, the open list.

[John Gagnon]

—which is consistent with proportional representation. I want to make sure that you're clear on that, and to clarify that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Okay, but you didn't want to have some kind of attachment to local ridings.

[John Gagnon]

No. There's nothing wrong with mixed proportional representation, but our preference is true proportional representation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

True proportional representation. Okay.

[John Gagnon]

I don't have a problem with the other one either.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thanks for clarifying that. I appreciate it.

Thank you for all your thoughtful comments and for sharing your experiences of the electoral system and our democracy.

We're going to break now. We're running a bit late, which is fine, but we'll break until about 6:30 and we'll resume then.

Thank you again.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

This opens the third segment of our day of hearings in Fredericton.

This is our last panel of witnesses for the day. Joining us now, as individuals, are James Wilson; Paul Howe, a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of New Brunswick; and John Filliter. Also with us this evening is the president of the Fédération des jeunes francophones du Nouveau-Brunswick, Sue Duguay.

Thank you all for making yourselves available to meet with us and to share your views on the issue of electoral reform.

I'm not sure whether you were here this afternoon, but I will again point out that each witness has five minutes. Following the presentations, we'll have a round of questions, during which, members will each have five minutes to engage with you.

For those of you who are in the audience, interpretation is available.

Without further ado, we will start with Mr. James Wilson, please, for five minutes.

[James Wilson, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and a thank you to the committee, as well, for allowing me to speak to you this evening.

I would like to spend my allotted time outlining the features of the single member proportional vote system specifically, and to discuss more generally the merits of a Parliament using weighted votes.

What is single-member proportional vote? Simply put, it is a method for making first past the post a proportional system, with minimal changes.

This idea is predicated on the idea that using first past the post is essentially sound and that the minor issues that have developed can be fixed without changing to a new system.

Single-member proportional vote would retain all of the elements of first past the post. Voters would still have a single vote to cast at election time. Each riding would still send a single MP to Parliament. The party with the greatest number of seats would still be expected to form the government.

It is only when it comes time to vote on legislation that MPs would notice a difference. That is because, rather than each MP having a single equal vote to cast, each MP would have a vote that is stronger or weaker, based on how much of the popular vote that party received.

For instance, a party that received more seats than the popular vote indicated they deserve would have MPs with weaker individual votes. Likewise, a party that received fewer seats than the popular vote indicated they deserve would have MPs with stronger individual votes to compensate, the end result being that the total votes for each party would closely mirror its popular vote total. In this way, Parliament would add an aspect of proportionality when it comes to the passing of legislation.

This is, admittedly, a very modest reform, but from this small change we gain a host of benefits. I would like to point out three of them.

First, since this reform does not change how elections are carried out, Elections Canada likely will not need two years to prepare, as it has stated it would if the electoral system were changed. This would allow time for a referendum, if that is this committee's desire. If the committee wanted to recommend that Parliament start using weighted votes immediately on a trial basis, it could do so as the popular vote for the 2015 election is a known factor.

Second, while the electoral system is kept simple and easy to use, almost all votes cast during an election will have an effect on the results. If you vote for a candidate you want, or conversely, against a candidate you don't, your vote will end up affecting how much legislative power the parties have in Parliament, regardless of whether your specific candidate wins. This will, in turn, go a long way toward reducing strategic voting.

Third, single member proportional vote retains first past the post's tendency to produce majority governments, which allows stable administration. But these majority governments no longer have 100% of the power to pass legislation in Parliament. This is important, as the event that most triggers complaints over our electoral system is a governing party with a false majority, which is most of them, being able to unilaterally pass controversial legislation.

Professor Jon Breslaw has already spoken to this committee on a similar reform idea. Both ideas aim to use weighted vote to bring the power possessed by parties in Parliament more in line with how much popular support those parties actually have. They differ primarily in the extent to which weighted votes would be used.

My proposal limits the use of weighed votes to legislation while exempting the Speech from the Throne and the budget votes in order to allow stable majority governments to form. Professor Breslaw's idea uses weighted votes for all votes.

After Professor Breslaw's presentation, we compared notes, and I would like to address some of the concerns raised about Professor Breslaw's idea that are also applicable to my system.

A question Professor Breslaw received was, if weighted voting is such a good system, why has no Parliament adopted it?

I imagine such a question has been raised in opposition to every electoral system at one point or another, so I guess my system is in good company. Since first past the post is the only system that we have used at the federal level, I could raise the same point about all the other systems this committee has been tasked with examining.

It is also not true that there are no deliberative bodies that have used weighted voting. The Council of the European Union uses a combination of unanimous decision-making and weighted voting based on population. It should also be noted that stockholders in companies have votes weighted by the number of stocks they own.

I believe the reason we have not seen more weighted voting systems stems from certain historical circumstances. Several pre-1918 countries in Europe, notably Sweden and the Kingdom of Prussia, used systems that weighted votes cast in an election based on wealth. To such countries, the idea of having weighted votes in Parliament would not have seemed a solution to democratic deficiencies even if they were based on popular vote totals. The idea was tainted within their political cultures, and indeed, both countries opted to adopt proportional systems.

There was also a concern raised that retaining first past the post in any form does not fit within this committee's mandate. A couple of weeks ago, I had the chance to talk to the Minister of Democratic Institutions at the consultation meeting in Moncton. I asked her whether, if first past the post were made proportional, it would be an acceptable alternative. She replied that such a system would be worth considering.

In conclusion, I feel that a single-member proportional vote, or some other form of weighted voting for Parliament has the potential to improve Canadian democracy with the least number of changes. This in turn would be consistent with Canada's long-held preference for evolution over revolution.

This concludes my prepared remarks. Let me thank the committee again for allowing me to present my idea.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much, Mr. Wilson.

We'll go to Mr. Howe now.

[Prof. Paul Howe, Professor, Department of Political Science, University of New Brunswick, As an Individual]

Thank you for the invitation to speak this evening.

I'd like to start by briefly addressing issues pertaining to the electoral system itself. Like many others, I am critical of the current first-past-the-post system, for several basic reasons. These include concerns about disproportionality between votes and seats, concerns about the way the system distorts and exaggerates regional differences in the country, and its relatively poor record in providing fair representation for all groups in society, including women and minority groups. Moving to a system based on proportional representation would effectively address these issues. In my view, the best alternative for Canada, from among the various PR systems in use around the world, is the mixed member proportional system.

In thinking about the merits of different electoral systems, I would also add some skepticism about a supposed virtue of our current FPTP system, the notion that it is easily understood and used by voters compared to other systems. This idea is undermined by recent developments that have seen citizens and citizen groups engaging in various schemes to try to make their votes more effective under the first-past-the-post system. These include the so-called “vote-swapping” schemes, as well as the extensive polling carried out during the 2015 federal election campaign by the advocacy group Leadnow, which was designed to help voters cast a strategic ballot in a number of close ridings.

First past the post is a simple system only in the superficial sense that ticking off a single name on the ballot is a straightforward procedure. For citizens trying to figure out how to use the ballot to make their vote carry some weight, voting under first past the post can actually be an onerous and complex procedure.

I'd also like to offer my views on the question of how electoral reform should come about. Some believe we must hold a national referendum on the issue. While I agree that this is what we would do in the ideal world, in the real world there is reason to be wary of handing the decision over to a referendum vote. For a variety of reasons, we have arrived at a stage where many Canadians pay little attention to political issues, and it would be difficult to draw them into a meaningful public debate on the many issues surrounding electoral reform.

One sign of this problem is the low levels of knowledge about politics found in surveys of the general Canadian population. In a poll carried out for Elections Canada just after the 2015 federal election, for example, 30% of respondents could not name the premier of their own province. For respondents under age 35, the number was 44%. Believe it or not, this survey, like most surveys, actually overrepresents the more engaged sections of the population.

I would also point out that the results from this 2015 poll reflected significant deterioration over time. In a similar nationwide survey in 1984, only 10% of respondents were unable to name the premier of their province, and for those under age 35, it was just 15%. There has been a steady erosion that we have seen over time.

This is just one small piece of evidence. There is a fair bit of research to back up the idea that there has been an erosion over time in attention to political affairs on the part of the average Canadian. Given this reality, it would be very challenging to reach the electorate at large on the issue of electoral reform, even with an intensive and extended information campaign designed to educate Canadians.

If a referendum were to be held, what would happen? If it's a stand-alone referendum, voter turnout would be low. In the stand-alone P.E.I. referendum in 2005, the turnout was 33%. In the U.K. referendum on a new electoral system in May 2011, which actually coincided with local elections and regional assembly elections, the turnout was 42%. I believe that in a stand-alone Canadian referendum, we would see a turnout below 50%, probably well below 50%, and that's a participation rate that could well raise questions about the democratic legitimacy of the whole exercise.

If, instead, a referendum were held in conjunction with a federal election, more would participate, of course, but many of those voting would be individuals without a well-formed opinion on electoral reform or much knowledge about alternative electoral systems, in other words, the kind of people who would likely stay home in a stand-alone referendum. This, too, is a less than ideal scenario for lending democratic legitimacy to the outcome.

For all these reasons, I believe that a referendum to move forward on this file is neither necessary nor advisable. Instead of a referendum, it would be legitimate to change the electoral system based on debate and deliberation led by political representatives from across the political spectrum, with substantial input both from experts and interested citizens in different venues.

Furthermore, I would suggest that such a process has been unfolding in Canada for quite some time now, not just since the special committee began its work in early 2016, but for roughly the past 15 years. Much of that debate has been happening at the provincial level, in the form of appointed commissions, citizens' assemblies, legislative deliberations, public hearings, etc. This should not be seen as a separate process from what is now taking place at the federal level.

The arguments for and against electoral reform are largely one and the same at the two levels, as are the models under consideration, and the consistent result, in my reading of this extensive 15-year public deliberation, has been significant support for various forms of proportional representation.

Finally, what I'd like to comment on briefly are two other matters before the committee: mandatory voting and Internet voting. Each of these ideas has some appeal as a way to increase voter turnout, but they also raise some important concerns, which I believe have probably been outlined in prior testimony.

My main point on this topic would simply be this: there are many other ideas about ways to encourage voter participation that are not being considered by the committee, ones that also might be quite effective—would be quite effective, I believe—and could avoid some of the problems of mandatory voting and Internet voting. While I would certainly support initiatives to encourage voter participation, this is a subject that deserves more extensive investigation to identify the most viable and effective reform proposals.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you, Professor Howe.

We'll go to Mr. John Filliter.