Electoral Reform Committee on July 26th, 2016

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

There may be fewer campaign slogans that concern change. That's a joke.

You say that there is government solidarity. In fact, the minority government cannot criticize the mandate. That is why I asked about how it works.

How are election speeches or election platforms created when that desire to change is present? However, it should be noted that change is often an empty election slogan. I am trying to grasp the prevalent dynamics in Ireland when a coalition government is in power.

Can you answer that?

[Michael Marsh]

What we do have is typically called a “program for government”. When there's a coalition, the coalition parties will get together and agree on a program for government. That tends to have to go back to the party conference of each party to approve going into coalition with that program from the members. In that way there is some external validation for it, but once they've gone in, that's the program they try to deliver.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Ms. May is next.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Thank you very much.

I have question on Twitter.

I note, Mr. Chair, that we're not being broadcast live today on CPAC, so that accounts for fewer questions on Twitter. For our Irish academic colleagues, we're trying to make this committee process as inclusive as possible, so we are inviting live questions. This one reflects that we didn't cover the basics here with you today. For the benefit of Canadians, the Twitter question is from Andrea Oldham. She asks, “Why did Ireland pick STV as opposed to different systems, and what lessons can we draw for Canada from that decision?”

It's a historical question, but Canadians want to know.

[Michael Gallagher]

It's quite an interesting history, and it goes back a long time, nearly 100 years.

Ireland, as you know, was part of the United Kingdom, and in the U.K. there have always been electoral reformers who wanted to move to some kind of proportional representation. The model they wanted 100 years ago was STV. One of their people came to Dublin and spread the word, and that convinced the people who became the political leaders in an independent Ireland. In fact, there was surprisingly little debate. If we now look back on it, we see there was very little debate within Ireland in the 1920s, when the country became independent, as to what system should be chosen. The choice was to go for proportional representation, and people genuinely did not not know that there were lots of different types of proportional representation out there to choose from. It was assumed that proportional representation meant the single transferable vote, so that's the one we chose and that's the way it's been for the last 94 years.

[Michael Marsh]

From an academic's point of view, one of the interesting things in Ireland is that the system is known as PR rather than PR-STV. Irish people think we have proportional representation. At the time it was adopted and for some time afterward, people didn't know that there was another form of proportional representation, so I think the lesson for you is—and I'm sure that's the one you're following—if you want to adopt a new electoral system, find out more than the Irish and British did originally about what's on offer.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

As I understand it—

[Michael Marsh]

It's easier now.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

I understand that in 1921 the British were looking at how they would be able to protect minority rights in Ireland. Is that fair?

[Michael Marsh]

Yes, that's why proportional representation was seen as important. It was to protect the Protestant minority.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

I don't know if you saw the testimony of Jean-Pierre Kingsley, who is our former chief electoral officer, but his proposal to this committee was remarkably similar to yours. It was to look at the map of Canada and maybe leave it alone for the huge remote areas, but for areas where you can cluster, try STV. I'm curious about this. Did you happen to see Jean-Pierre Kingsley's testimony, or is this just independent advice from Ireland that's rather consistent with his?

[Michael Gallagher]

We did have a chance to see it and read it, and it was very interesting.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Good. The question I wanted to ask is this: when you have a multi-member constituency, how does Ireland handle it if somebody resigns suddenly or, God forbid, dies? How do you do a by-election for one member in a multi-member riding?

[Michael Gallagher]

It simply is a by-election, so the entire riding votes to fill that one seat. That's what happens at general elections for the national parliament. We also fill seats for the European Parliament, and there it's done a bit differently. There at election times each candidate has a list of substitutes, and if they resign or die, their substitute takes over the seat.

There's probably no perfect way of doing this under PR-STV.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

There is another question I want to put to you in terms of advice for Canadians, and I know it's a hard question to ask.

We see a lot of perverse results from first past the post, and you've hinted at them in terms of the minority of the popular vote creating a majority government. You're certainly familiar with it with your closest neighbour in the U.K.

When there have been these debates in Ireland on recent efforts to change your voting system to first past the post, how much are the Irish aware of the risks of what we call here “false majorities”, when a minority of the popular vote results in a majority government?

[Michael Gallagher]

I think that would be the overwhelming reason that even if there was any discussion on changing the electoral system in Ireland, no one would suggest changing to first past the post. It would be to change to some other kind of PR, although even that issue is not very live. The last referendum we had on the electoral system was in 1968, and no one has really ever proposed going to first past the post since then.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We're out of time, but I've been told by the clerk that we're not live on CPAC, but we're live on ParlVu.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

I realize that, Mr. Chair, and I'm hearing from lots of people on Twitter that they are not able to access ParlVu, not everyone. CPAC is much more accessible, so they're regretting it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Of course it is. Okay. Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Aldag.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Thank you.

I'd like to take a minute for this. We had started, through one of the other witnesses, talking about the issue of a referendum. I'd like to get into a bit of the strengths. Ireland obviously has some experience here, but I also was getting the sense from Professor Marsh that there may be some downsides from your perspective. I'd like to take a minute and just talk about the Irish experience on the question of referendum, if you could give us what you see as, perhaps, the strengths and then if there is the flip side as well, just to get some thoughts on this as a way of engaging citizens in an important issue.

[Michael Marsh]

Well, I suppose the strength is that it potentially engages the citizens and legitimizes a change in policy, a change in electoral system, or not, as the case may be. The difficulty with referendums is that quite often the thing that people are asked to vote on is not simple. Adopting a new electoral system, for instance, is not simple. Exactly what are the implications? You can find one expert to tell you one thing, and you can probably find another expert to tell you something else, so the voters have to decide between the points of view being put forward by those who say you should vote yes, and those who say you should vote no.

Some voters won't bother to sort out who they want to follow; they'll identify someone they don't like, like the government, and say, “Well, if the government says this, we won't do it”. And that's common in many referendums, and particularly those referendums that are lower in salience, that are not so important to people, and therefore they don't get to know the issue.

The referendum in Scotland on independence had a huge turnout and a very high level of engagement with the topic. I think referendums you've had in Quebec were fairly similar. We've had some referendums like that. We've also had referendums with relatively low engagement. We had two referendums on European treaties when the voters gave the wrong answer and said no, so we had the referendum again the following year with almost no change, and the voters then said yes. Turnout was higher, campaigning was more extensive, and people had time to think about it. If you do have referendums, I think you need an awful lot of resources going in to inform people. You've also had a referendum, I think, in British Columbia on adopting the single transferrable vote, which was carried overwhelmingly, but not overwhelmingly enough, so you've got that experience to look at.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Could I just get clarification of, in the case of a referendum in Ireland, who controls the messaging? You mentioned in an earlier response something about a central body. There was a comment that they sometimes are criticized for not doing it. Is there a body that does the primary engagement piece, or is it a free-for-all where whoever can spend the most money can control the message? How does that work?

[Michael Marsh]

We've changed on those things over the last several referendums. We have a referendum commission charged with mobilizing voters and occasionally with disentangling truth from fiction. It doesn't campaign and it no longer puts out a booklet telling you exactly what the referendum is about in fine detail.

There was a time when it put forward the pro argument and it put forward the anti argument, which was rather confusing. Now we leave that to parties and civil society groups, and the one control over that is that no public money is spent. So even if the government puts forward a referendum, it can't spend government money on that.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Just to conclude this, are there other thoughts you have on ways of engaging our citizens, beyond simply a referendum? Are there other best practices you could point us toward?

[Michael Gallagher]

Surely you have to look at the New Zealand experience, if you haven't already. They've had two referendums on changing to PR from first past the post, and that certainly engaged the New Zealand public and created a well-informed debate.