Evidence of meeting #45 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 referendum.
A video is available from Parliament.
Director of Policy, General Counsel of Advocacy, Canadian Association of Retired Persons
We don't have information beyond them saying telephone and online. It's something we're not able to comment on, unfortunately.
Liberal
John Aldag Liberal Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
Okay.
Mr. Fitch, in your opening comments, I heard you say you really are a supporter of a referendum for major changes. It's always that line, about what's major and what's minor. We've heard from some witnesses that it might be too much to be going to a wholesale change, so there is the idea of incrementalism.
I'm sitting here thinking, well, what if, for 2019, we introduced an element of proportionality. We've heard from many Canadians that they want to see some sort of PR system. What if we came up with x number of seats—it could be 10 seats, or 30—to introduce Canadians to what this might look like and gain the support and the comfort with it? In your opinion, would that kind of incremental change require a referendum?
Interim leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of New Brunswick
It does cause a bit of problem in that now you're not electing everyone on an equal footing. You're going to now elect a certain portion of the MPs one way and then the others another way. So if you're staying with first past the post for 80% of the MPs, but then we're going to have this particular, if I understand you correctly, region or geographic region in the province or in the federation to do it another way—
Liberal
John Aldag Liberal Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
I don't know what it would exactly look like, but yes, it could be at a provincial level. We heard that often there are disproportionate results. We heard when we were in the Atlantic provinces that, although we like to think that everyone there is a Liberal, as we saw in the results of the vote, there are probably a couple of supporters for another party. How would we allocate some sort of proportionality in that situation to deal with some of the skewed results we do get from our current first-past-the-post system?
Interim leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of New Brunswick
I could comment on the division of votes, and maybe you could have a convert here, and that means we'd have probably four seats now in New Brunswick on a federal level.
Again, the people spoke with authority to say, “We're not pleased with the present government, and we want the seats to go a certain way”. They won it fair and square with first past the post. I wouldn't come off my position that if you delineate away from first past the post, then you should get the authority from the people through a referendum.
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
We've been in a listening mode, and now we have some heavy lifting ahead, but that will be informed and inspired by the testimony we've heard this evening and over the course of the last few weeks.
I thank the witnesses for coming here in the evening to talk about electoral reform. I thank Professor Lupia for piping in through the use of modern technology. It was very interesting. We heard interesting insights from everyone.
We hope you'll read our report when it's published, and maybe even buy it for Christmas for somebody.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
I will just mention to the members that tomorrow we have an open-mike session here on the Hill. It was supposed to start at 6:30, but because of votes it will be delayed until about 7 o'clock, if we're lucky. We'll see everybody tomorrow night for some citizen input.
Thank you. The meeting is adjourned.
