Electoral Reform Committee on Oct. 20th, 2016

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

To me, that speaks to the importance of a process of validation, of education, and of bringing people along with the change and allowing them to find some level of comfort as things progress. That, to me, is good testimony to hear as a committee.

Could you speak to the notion of possible incremental change and how we may best be able to come to some form of consensus to deliver to Parliament and to government a change that could be palatable for Canadians in a digestible way, which they could then understand and/or become part of a process of understanding.

[Prof. William Cross]

Again, I would point to the New Zealand experience. It had two referendums, so that the first time, New Zealanders were not making the definitive choice. I contrast that with the Ontario or P.E.I. experiences, or even the experience in British Columbia.

Voters showing up in Ontario to a provincial election thinking they were just going to be voting for their MPP suddenly were also asked this other question that there hadn't been a lot of discussion about. They hadn't been informed much about it, so it was not surprising then to get a “no to change” answer.

I think a process that has more time...and I understand that this may not be the case here. You may be working under constraints. I think that makes it more difficult if you expect to have a change in place for the next election. That brings me back to my testimony that this doesn't leave time for parties to adjust either or to change their infrastructures.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Right. I forgot that is another part of the ecosystem. Given the list of checks and balances, and actors in the political sphere, is it fair to say that the simplistic argument that a majority government has 100% of the power is categorically false?

[Prof. William Cross]

I think so. I think that is false. I'm sure every Prime Minister wishes that he or she had 100% of the power but can point to a lot of examples where that's not the case. I think you see that in the way your caucuses and your committees work. This is where I get a bit uncomfortable with the notion of wasted votes. They might not count as much as they should, and there might be questions of equity in our system, but I've voted for lots of people who didn't end up as MPs and I never felt my vote was wasted, because I expressed my sentiment and that was counted.

The government acts differently if it has 52% of the popular vote, I suspect, than if it has 39%.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Democratic modernization and reform is still an important issue that we should be working at.

[Prof. William Cross]

Absolutely.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much, Mr. DeCourcey.

I have just one question for Messrs. Bozinoff and Schatten. We've heard a lot of public opinion polling results, but I haven't heard any public opinion poll on the issue of whether Canadians like minority governments or whether they're ready for coalition governments. I think that is important. It's a very central question to our deliberations here because some systems will give rise to that. Maybe Canadians are very comfortable with both ideas, but we have no public opinion polling that I've seen or can remember that speaks to how Canadians feel about that. How would you respond?

[Lorne Bozinoff]

I don't think we've asked about that, but we could easily rectify that.

[William Schatten]

In our current system, we know from previous examples where there's been talk of developing coalition governments that it hasn't been received favourably. They have been fairly unpopular. At the federal level, most recently, when Mr. Dion was trying to put together a coalition government there was a lot of public backlash to that, so maybe in the current system it is not viewed as favourably. It would be tough to try to assess how that would work in a different type of system.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I just suggest that it would be good to know for our committee because it's a central question.

Thank you to all the witnesses. We're at meeting number 43 and we thought we'd heard it all, but it's not the case. We're getting original insightful testimony every day, and today was no exception.

Thank you very much.

I will remind committee members that our next meeting is this evening.

The meeting is adjourned.