Evidence of meeting #5 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 question.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Jean-Pierre Kingsley  Chief Electoral Officer, 1990-2007, As an Individual

4 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia

Yes, please.

4 p.m.

Chief Electoral Officer, 1990-2007, As an Individual

Jean-Pierre Kingsley

We need to get more involved in the communities where these people live. As a system we need to do that, as political parties and as candidates. They are regrouped. They're not alone. They don't understand our system, and we could do a lot more citizenship teaching about our electoral system and our system of representation.

4 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia

Mr. Mayrand made the same point this morning—I believe you were listening—about more civics.

Monsieur Boulerice is next.

4 p.m.

NDP

Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to take the opportunity to react to the comments of my colleague Mr. Deltell. He said that the inequalities in the composition of this committee are a reflection of those that existed in the House of Commons. They were caused by our current voting system. The NDP managed to convince the Liberals to withdraw their majority and increase the number of opposition seats, but the Liberals wouldn't have had to do this if our system had reflected the votes won by the Conservative Party, the NDP, the Bloc Québécois and the Green Party.

In 1979, the Pépin-Robarts Commission recommended a mixed member proportional system. The Law Commission of Canada said the same thing in 2004. The National Assembly of Quebec also went in that direction in its work. It was suggested that two-thirds of members be elected directly and locally and that the other third of members be elected through lists.

The German model, which has been in place for decades, comes close to this with 50% of members elected directly and the other 50% through a second ballot where voting is done using a list.

Some people fear that this kind of system would create two classes of MPs and two kinds of legitimacy. In your experience internationally, in countries that use this system, how are these two groups of elected members perceived differently?

4 p.m.

Chief Electoral Officer, 1990-2007, As an Individual

Jean-Pierre Kingsley

I can answer only based on conversations I've had with members from both categories. They see a difference as to who they represent. It's crystal clear: they don't feel they play the same role. This is based on a few conversations and is not an in-depth survey. They told me that there is a difference between them and that their role is not identical.

4 p.m.

NDP

Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC

Concerning the possibility of voting for a party on a second ballot, there are many ways to proceed. There are closed lists, in which the party decides the order of its candidates, and open lists, in which it is voters who choose to vote for the Liberal Party, for example, but who put the candidates in the order that suits them.

In your opinion, in this kind of proportional system, is one way better than the other?

4 p.m.

Chief Electoral Officer, 1990-2007, As an Individual

Jean-Pierre Kingsley

In my remarks, I indicated that you were going to have to be careful with what you were going to decide because Canadians will have difficulty with closed lists, unless they are very short. As for open lists, they raise questions about competition between candidates from the same party.

However, we must not automatically refuse these systems just because of that. We need to determine the advantages and disadvantages of such a system. In fact, every system has its advantages and disadvantages.

4 p.m.

NDP

Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC

The Parliament elected last October has a fairly low representation of women. I spoke about this with Mr. Mayrand this morning. Only 26% of MPs are women, which places us 49th in the world in this area. This isn't something to be proud of. Countries less democratic than ours are doing better.

In your opinion, what voting system should we recommend to ensure better representation of men and women in our Parliament?

4 p.m.

Chief Electoral Officer, 1990-2007, As an Individual

Jean-Pierre Kingsley

In the voting system, you should alternate between male and female candidates to automatically end up with a 40-60 or 45-55 balance one way or another. Currently, the structure of parties and how local associations operate discriminate against the participation of women. It is very difficult for women to take part in political life because of all the lifestyle issues. That's how the system has evolved.

How could we remedy that? This morning, Mr. Mayrand spoke about incentives, which would help to resolve the problem, but I don't think it's the solution. It would take more than that. We need determination and an electoral system that would ensure alternation between male and female candidates. That would put an end to the problem.

4:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia

You have 20 seconds left.

4:05 p.m.

NDP

Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC

I think that's it for me, as well.

4:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia

Go ahead, Mr. Richards.

4:05 p.m.

Conservative

Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to turn to this referendum question again briefly because it seems as though we have a Liberal government that has a real aversion to the idea of asking the Canadian public what they think about the changes they want to make to our voting system. We saw it yesterday from the minister. She was clearly speaking with her personal opinion against the idea of a referendum. We're hearing it from members on the other side today, even to the point of mischaracterizing things to some degree, so I wanted to turn to it.

As I mentioned in my point of order, Mr. Chair, in the last federal referendum almost 72% of Canadian eligible voters voted. There were actually 13,725,966 eligible voters, and of that number 9,855,978 voted. Almost 10 million Canadians voted in that referendum.

What I fail to understand is how the Liberal government would suggest that there would be a way they could reach more than that number of voters through any other kind of consultation method they might be talking about. On these ideas of town halls, for example, if we were to have town hall meetings in each of the ridings in the country, to get the same number of people participating there would have to be 29,160 people showing up at each and every one of those town hall meetings. Alternatively, if you consider a more realistic number of people who might attend a town hall meeting, I think you might expect maybe 75 people. That would mean you'd have to have 131,413 town hall meetings to be able to reach the same number of people.

I would be more than happy to cede just a little bit of my time to any of the Liberal members on the other side if they could explain to me how they can potentially expect to consult with more Canadians than they would in a referendum. I'd be happy to cede my time to any of you if you'd like to answer that.

4:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia

You understand that we're here to question the witness?

4:05 p.m.

Some hon. members

Oh, oh!

4:05 p.m.

Conservative

Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB

Obviously I'll take their silence as the fact that they don't have an answer.

4:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia

No, the silence—

4:05 p.m.

Conservative

Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB

I'll also note that it's not just my question they seem to want to ignore. On this idea of the Twitter questions that we've seen today—and the Liberals have asked a few of them—I just checked a few minutes ago, and today there have been 29 distinct questions by distinct individuals. Of those 29 questions, 16 of them were asking about referendums. I noticed the Liberals asked a few questions but chose to ignore the majority of the people who were asking about referendums by not asking that question.

I hope that they're going to understand eventually at some point that Canadians are not going to take this sitting down. They're not going to just let the Liberals do whatever they want and change the voting system that all Canadians must have a buy into and try to do it without giving Canadians a say in any way through a referendum on those changes. I certainly hope they're going to think better of that and realize that Canadians will not accept that or tolerate it. They will demand to have the right to be heard and to have their vote on any changes the Liberal Party is proposing.

With that, I'll conclude, Mr. Chair.

4:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia

Thank you.

So there's no question for Mr. Kingsley here?

4:05 p.m.

Conservative

Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON

Do you want to divide your time with me?

4:05 p.m.

Conservative

Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB

Yes, sure, I'd be happy to share the rest of my time with my colleague.

4:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Reid.

4:05 p.m.

Conservative

Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON

Thank you.

The issue of voter participation in a referendum does raise a question. I am under the impression that if people find the question to be compelling, they're likely to turn out in a referendum. You had the experience of actually administering the referendum back in 1992, so I'll just.... I'm not sure this is a fair question to you as you're trying to be impartial here, but I assume that your experience was that the high voter turnout was based on the fact that people felt the issue to be a compelling one. That's actually what drove them to the polls, whether they were for or against.

4:05 p.m.

Chief Electoral Officer, 1990-2007, As an Individual

Jean-Pierre Kingsley

I answered that I thought the turnout was satisfactory for the results that were obtained. Were they optimal? I will tell you one thing: it depends on the importance of the question. I liked 93% in one referendum—

4:10 p.m.

Conservative

Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON

In 1995?