Electoral Reform Committee on July 26th, 2016

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

In terms of participation rates for youth, what is the current participation rate for general elections in Ireland?

[Michael Marsh]

Let's say voters under 24, something like that, it would probably be less than 40%.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Okay. Are there any outreach efforts on behalf of the government to increase this? I know you mentioned educational systems, but are there any initiatives you're taking to not only increase votership, but also increase interest in youth to actually run for office? I'd like to know if you have made any initiatives in that regard.

[Michael Marsh]

No, no initiatives, although several of the parties put forward relatively young candidates. At the end of the day, for all those young voters out there that nobody's mobilizing, you would expect parties to go out and start mobilizing. That's one of the things that Sinn Fein actually do, and they get far more support from the youngest group of voters than any other party. In a sense, there's a free market. There are votes out there. It's up to the parties to go and mobilize them, not up to the government.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Switching gears, in terms of recommendations you would have for Canada, we know there is no perfect voting system. We've heard that from multiple witnesses. If we had to ask you for your expert opinion on what Canada should be looking at, what would your recommendation be?

[Michael Gallagher]

I don't think we would dare make a recommendation. I think we would respect the sovereignty of the Canadian people on that.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Sorry to put you on the spot. When we have great witnesses in front of us, we like to be able to leverage that competency.

Do you have any final suggestions for us?

[Michael Marsh]

From a professional point of view, I'd love to see the single transferable vote work in some other system. A friend and colleague of mine in British Columbia devoted a great deal of time and effort trying to get the single transferable vote in Canada. I'd love to see him get it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much.

We'll move on to Mr. Blaikie.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

I want to follow up on the question of regionalism in Canadian politics and the voting system. In your presentation, you say that one of the positives of proportional representation is that parliamentary groups and main parties would have MPs from right across the country. I'm wondering if you could speak to the difference, if you think there is one, between what an STV-type system might mean for regionally based parties and regionally based politics within a country as large as Canada versus a different model of proportional representation, like a mixed member model.

[Michael Gallagher]

Well, probably nearly every kind of proportional representation would bring that about. The parliamentary groups would have members from nearly—

I apologize for the building work that's going on here, incidentally. I don't know whether it's audible to you. Ireland is building, and it's a hive of activity here.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I thought you might be coming in from Montreal this morning.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Michael Gallagher]

We notice, for example, that typically.... I think this time in Newfoundland and Labrador, the Liberal Party won all the seats there, so when the parliamentary groups of the Conservative Party and the New Democrats meet, there is no voice from Newfoundland and Labrador. Quite often another party will sweep all the seats in another province, whereas with more or less any kind of PR, whether it's PR-STV or any of the other methods, the parties will have representation from right across the country.

We see that in Britain as well where, as I mentioned earlier, the Scottish National Party won almost all the seats in Scotland, so when the Conservative parliamentary party meets in Britain, they have just one MP from Scotland. It is likewise for Labour and likewise for the Lib-Dems. The voice of Scotland really is just unrepresented within the parliamentary groups, and hence within the current government.

That's one consequence of PR, and I don't think it would matter that much which particular kind of PR was chosen.

[Michael Marsh]

The difference is that if you have the mixed member system, you might find that all the members elected for a constituency would be from the same party and all the rest would be from other parties, so all the people who might be called on to do the work would be from the same party and those who got elected from the list would be from all the other parties.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

In light of the experience in Scotland with the SNP and in some elections with the Bloc Québécois here in Canada, how facetious do you think it is to suggest that somehow a PR system is going to be more advantageous for certain small regionally based or single-issue parties than a first past the post system, when we have seen that those kinds of smaller parties can monopolize the seats in a particular area under the first past the post system?

[Michael Marsh]

I guess the argument is that democracy is not just about majorities; it's about minorities. It's about blending minorities to make political decisions, and that's quite difficult if the minorities are not represented.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Can we just return, for the last little bit of time that I have, to the question of online voting?

We talked earlier about electronic voting and how you can have a hybrid model of electronic voting with a paper validation system, but how do you see that translating to online voting, which is different from electronic voting in person? Do you think it's possible to have some form of paper validation for an online voting process, or do you have to accept electronic voting and electronic counting whole hog, if you will, if you go to an online voting system?

[Michael Gallagher]

It's hard to envisage an online voting system that has a paper component to it. One concern about online voting here and in a lot of countries would be the secrecy of the ballot, which means in this country not just that you don't have to show anyone else how you voted, but you can't prove to anyone else how you voted even if you want to. The fear, then, is that if there were online voting, how do we know there isn't someone sitting and looking over your shoulder, making you vote in a particular way or bribing you to vote in a particular way? If there were a paper record of how you voted, then clearly the problems would be even greater, so there is really no demand here for online voting.

I realize that is one of the terms of reference of the committee, but it's not something that Ireland could really throw much light on.

[Michael Marsh]

Yes, I think that's it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We'll have to move on to Mr. Deltell.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I would like to continue along the lines of my colleague's comments by asking you a question about electronic voting. I completely understand your position. When people vote from home, we don't know whether the vote is being cast by them or someone else, or whether they are being influenced by a third party.

Why not give people access to a paper ballot, but one that would go through a machine that would immediately tally the vote? That way, after the polls close, when the votes are being tallied, all the results could be known within 10 seconds. Has that procedure been tested? What do you think about it?

[Michael Marsh]

That's used in Scotland and in parts of New Zealand with their electoral system, but it wasn't known when we had our experience of electronic voting. I think such was that experience that no Irish government is going to explore the effectiveness or otherwise of the Scottish system.

In many ways it's a good way to do it because it's quick and you can carry out a rather more sophisticated count that's perfectly accurate, which is not possible when you are counting 30,000 or 40,000 ballots by hand. The big downside is that in this country, election count day is a day on which people engage with politics, and you'd reduce that from 24 hours to 15 seconds, which I don't think would go down so well. I don't think people want the count to be quick here.

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

People appreciate the big show on TV. I'm a former TV journalist, so I know what I'm talking about. In Quebec City, in the municipal election 10 or 15 years ago, we had that kind of experiment: people having to vote on the paper but the paper going directly into the machine. It was a real mess. So, that is just for your knowledge.

I would like to get back to the philosophical aspect of the debate that we have now, talking about referenda. We know that you have a lot of experience in Ireland, more than we have in Quebec and Canada. But on the other hand, it's an obligation for you if you want to make any change in your constitution, If you want to change the electoral system, you shall pass by your referendum. As an academic, what do you think of the value of a referendum when you want to know the will of the people?

[Michael Marsh]

The problem with our referendums is that we have a referendum on any change in the constitution, however marginal. Some of those changes are not very interesting to the general public, so when we wanted to be able to cut judges' pay as part of dealing with the economic crisis, that had to go to a referendum because the government has no control over judges' pay in the former constitution, and people signed up to that. Well, there were two items up for referendum. Turnout was high, but that's because we had an election at the same time. We've had other referendums saying, for example, that bail might not always be given, and the turnout, I think, in that one was extremely low. We had a referendum on changing the rules for constituting our upper chamber, and again, turnout was extremely low. Sometimes it's up around 70%, and sometimes it's down around 20%. But in either case it's supposed to reflect the will of the people.