Electoral Reform Committee on July 26th, 2016

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you.

The other point with this PR-STV system is about the party line. I think it's quite important, because when we talk to people about the political system, they say that what they don't like about MPs is that when they are elected, they follow the party line instead of listening to the people. In your presentation, you said that in the electoral system the solidarity of the parliamentarian bloc is very high, but on the other hand, you talk about the fact the constituents would like to see their MP defending their own interests.

At times in the four-year mandate—not on all issues, but once or twice—we will have some difficulties because personal or local issues do not conform well with party lines. Sometimes we have to make choices. No one is elected with 100% agreement on what they propose to do. It's impossible; we are human.

How do you reconcile the fact that there is a lot of solidarity in the party line—with parliamentarians in a political bloc—with the fact that MPs should represent the will of their own constituents?

[Michael Gallagher]

Certainly it is true that MPs nearly always do vote the party line. MPs respond to constituents' wishes in terms of making constituency representations, obtaining more resources for the constituency, taking up individual grievances of their constituents, but they don't take their votes in Parliament from constituents' wishes.

The previous government we had between 2011-2016 was in a time of great economic difficulty. There were increases in taxes and cuts in public spending. MPs knew perfectly well that their constituents didn't like those things, but the government felt it was necessary to do that to get the economy back on track, and the MPs went along with it. Many MPs would have said, “Well, if I do what my constituents want, I'll always be voting for lower taxes and higher spending”, and for that reason they do stick with the party line. Constituents don't really expect their MPs to follow their views on policy stances; they expect their MPs, really, to be pretty loyal to the party line in government.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much.

To wrap up the question period, I give the floor to Mr. DeCourcey.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you both, professors, for being here and presenting this morning.

One of the principles that we've been asked to consider is how to engage Canadians more in the electoral process. We had three eminent scholars in yesterday who spoke about various citizen-led processes. Other research identified enhanced voter preference as a value that a lot of Canadians see as important in their electoral system. I wonder if vote preference is a value that you see as fundamental to the Irish system.

[Michael Marsh]

The nature of the single transferable vote is that the citizens' preference for an individual candidate is paramount and they're not forced to vote for a party. When they're asked if they would vote for that candidate even if the candidate stood for a different party, quite often they say they would. It's the candidate that attracts them. It is the nature of the single transferable vote that it can allow this.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

To me, that would indicate the importance of the link between the elector and the elected and how that resonates in Ireland. It also seems that the electoral system is one of a number of factors that lead to an engaged electorate in Ireland. Is that more accurate than to say that the electoral system has no relevance in the way people engage in elections?

[Michael Marsh]

One can see it as a factor combining and interacting with a number of other factors. It's quite possible that if we had a different electoral system, if we had first past the post, turnout would be even lower. In my opinion, the electoral system is not responsible for a huge amount of turnout one way or another.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Do you have any evidence to demonstrate how much preference or choice voters exercise when they go to the ballot? Do they fill out the whole ballot? Do they rank one, two, three? Is there any impetus for candidates to suggest to voters to vote just for them and leave the rest blank?

[Michael Marsh]

About one voter in 10 fills the whole ballot in. It's a relatively small number. The typical number of preferences is about four. People usually vote for candidates of two parties. That's the average.

[Michael Gallagher]

For individual candidates, there's no incentive to say, “Vote number one for me and then stop”, because a lower preference can only count if they don't need it anymore. Usually candidates would have some preference about where their voters give their lower preference.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

I read with interest your take on how Atlantic Canada could be divided up under a PR-STV system. As a representative from Atlantic Canada, I was interested to know if there was any science or research that went into that, or if it was just based on looking at the map and drawing a line.

[Michael Gallagher]

It's a beautiful part of the world. Prince Edward Island would be a natural unit, and New Brunswick, which I believe is your own part of the world, divides neatly into ten ridings. That would fall neatly into two five-seat ridings.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

I would love to entertain you in New Brunswick to see where we might draw that line should we go this route.

[Michael Gallagher]

We're delighted to be here, but we'd be even more delighted had you flown us over to Canada to do this.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Perhaps next time.

[Michael Marsh]

We would have been so much better.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Thanks very much for your humour.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Go ahead, Ms. Sahota.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

I'd like to start with a Twitter question that's been posed. It's a question I'm interested in as well.

Nathaniel from the University of Saskatchewan asked how proportional the results are in Ireland under the PR-STV system. Are there still wasted votes? How does this work compared with single-vote PR, where there's no transferable vote?

[Michael Gallagher]

There are still wasted votes. In a five-seat constituency, for example, all the votes for the runner-up in effect are wasted, but that's roughly one in every six votes in a five-seat constituency, whereas in a single-seat constituency, as under first past the post, half the votes could be wasted. It might even be more than half if the winner has fewer than 50% of the votes. The number of wasted votes under any kind of PR is much lower than it is under first past the post.

In answer to the first part of the question about how proportional the results are, they're fairly proportional. They're as proportional as the European norm. They're not super-proportional as in South Africa, but they are much more proportional than they were in your current election or, say, a British election.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

We talked somewhat about the strengths of your system, and that's why we're quite interested in it, but what do you find are the weaknesses and what has been the debate in Ireland? Has there been any recent discourse about changes that your population would like to see in the electoral system?

[Michael Marsh]

I think there's very little evidence that the population wants to see any changes, but there are a lot of commentators in the media who would like to see changes. There are commentators in the media who think all the ills of politics in Ireland can be put at the foot of the electoral system and that this dreadful interest in constituents that TDs have shown could be got rid of with a first past the post system, not knowing that MPs in Britain are very interested in their constituents.

[A voice]

And Canada.

[Michael Marsh]

They feel that there must be a quick fix somewhere, and the electoral system is a quick fix, but the voters themselves would resist strongly any change, particularly if it was a change to remove them somewhat from their MPs.

If you had a list system of proportional representation, a fixed list that the voters couldn't alter, that would be very different from what we have at the moment. However, there's absolutely no chance at all that a majority of voters in a referendum would agree to that, because they'd be losing power and influence over the composition of parliament, and that's what they want.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Any comments, Mr. Gallagher?