Electoral Reform Committee on July 26th, 2016

[Prof. Peter Russell]

Oh boy, you have a tough assignment. I know there's been talk that you should do a citizens' assembly, and I know that's not going to happen.

On the other hand, they're well written up. What's interesting about the B.C. citizens' assembly and the Ontario one is that they really were genuine efforts to get a cross-section of people in their respective provinces, most of whom had never even thought about electoral reform, to apply their minds to it for a month or so and to just keep on and think about it, and they came out very much for a proportional representation change: STV in B.C. and MMP in Ontario.

You haven't had one of these assemblies, but to me these are very impressive. All you can do, though, when people come before you and proclaim that this or that will happen, is to keep asking them for evidence. I think the more evidence-driven you are, the stronger evidence you'll have for a recommendation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

We now move on to Mr. Blaikie.

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

Thank you very much.

I want you to maybe speak a little more to the question of what has been one of the themes of Canadian politics over the last number of decades, the concentration of power in the PMO. I think having a system that produces what you've called “false majorities” certainly contributes to that.

What are some ways in which you could see a different electoral system help mitigate the centralization of power in the PMO?

[Prof. Peter Russell]

Well, the PMO is not going to shrivel and go away. We have—Patrice has used a useful phrase—a “political culture”. We have really as a country, of all the Westminster parliamentary countries, built it into our culture, as we have with political staffers for ministers. We've changed the political culture of our parliamentary democracy, and a lot of it has been fairly beneficial. I'm particularly supportive of political staffers helping ministers, and I think the PMO has lots of good work to do.

But there are a couple of things we can do. First of all, if the government is in a minority position, the tendency to push government members to do what, as they call them, boys—and might I say “boys and girls”—in short pants are telling them to do.... I think some of that will come off; I really do.

I'm not naive: there's still going to be a strong PMO, but I found it very distasteful. I watched some question time, and I again come back to that fine book Tragedy in the Commons and what experienced MPs told the Canadian public through it about their subservience to young people who had never run in politics. Their counsels weren't coming directly from the Prime Minister: the Prime Minister is too busy. They figured out what they thought would be the right answer at question time or the right thing for a cabinet minister to do if he were going to have a press scrum. I think there will be some relaxation of that.

The one legislative change, however, is to overcome a Supreme Court decision. The Supreme Court of Canada, in 2011 on a quiet June day when everybody was asleep, decided by eight judges to one that the Prime Minister's Office is not an institution of government and therefore is not under the Access to Information Act. Now, if ever an office was an office of government, it's the PMO. One judge, LeBel, a wonderful Quebec judge, wrote a ringing dissent.

This is a governmental institution; it should be open to access to information on such things as budget, the structure, the job descriptions of the people in it, the use of polling—what polling they do, and what is done with that polling.... We're not going to have private conversations, which must go on between the Prime Minister and his staff or her staff, but we should grow up and acknowledge, as the Supreme Court did not, that this is a public institution, and we should know as much about it as about any other institution of government. I've written much about that, but I'm afraid the rest of the country thinks that, like my idea of having a time by which Parliament must meet after an election, this is an academic idea that just goes floating away like a leaf on the river. I hope, however, that you've heard it.

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

I just wanted to ask this very quickly, Professor Dutil. Correct me if I misunderstood, but you had said that one of the principal goals of an electoral system is to produce a stable government that essentially doesn't have to worry much about being defeated in Parliament. What is the effective distinction between the legislative branch and the executive branch of government if the electoral system is really just meant to produce a legislature that is going to be uncritically, often, in the case of false majority, supporting the executive branch?

[Prof. Patrice Dutil]

What I meant was that we want a Parliament that will support a government, where the government is responsible and where it can get the support of a majority in Parliament. Whether it comes from one party or a variety of parties doesn't really matter. You want to have a system that is as stable as possible. That's all I'm saying. In theory, we elect people to Parliament so that they get together and form parties, form a unity of opinion that will in turn support an executive. They can come from one party. With time, we've created parties to facilitate that understanding, but they are very separate.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We're going to have to go to Mr. Deltell, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, professors, and welcome to your Parliament. As my colleagues pointed out earlier, it's fascinating to hear two respected academics with such opposing views debate the merits of the issue alongside one another. It's a wonderful example of democracy in action, and we are very fortunate to have you.

I believe the two of you bring the tally of academics who have appeared before the committee to eight. I would like everyone to carefully consider hearing from the academic who said, and I quote, “Precedent makes holding a referendum necessary in Canada: changing the voting system would require popular support.” That great scholar is none other than the Honourable Stéphane Dion. I encourage all of my fellow members to seriously consider that possibility.

Before going any further, I'd like to pick up on what my NDP colleague Mr. Cullen said a few moments ago about the makeup of this committee reflecting the will of voters during the last election. From a numbers standpoint, I don't agree with that statement.

The Green Party received 600,000 votes, corresponding to one committee member. The NDP has two. Does that mean the NDP garnered 1.2 million votes? No. It received 3.6 million votes, six times as many as the Green Party. Now, in our case, it was nine times as many. We have three members on the committee, and they have one. The committee's makeup is indeed different from that of the House of Commons, but it does not at all reflect the will of Canadians in the last election.

I have many questions for you.

First of all, I will start with you, Mr. Russell. You said earlier that it's very tough times, if we listen to you, that during the last 150 years, and especially in the last 100 years, only three times did we have majority governments. Two of them were Conservative—Diefenbaker and Mulroney, the good old days.

[Prof. Peter Russell]

That's since 1921.

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

Mr. Russell, what I want to say to you is that, sure, it's not perfect; it's not crystal clear; there are no perfect systems.

[Prof. Peter Russell]

I agree.

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

Don't you recognize that at least the majority of the vote belonged to the government, except under Joe Clark's government in 1979 when we got fewer votes than Mr. Trudeau? All the time, in the last 100 years, at least, the majority of the people were in power.

[Prof. Peter Russell]

You mean you had a plurality of the vote.

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

Yes, I'm talking about the majority.

[Prof. Peter Russell]

Yes, but that's only a plurality, around 40%. I just don't think government should be controlled tightly by an administration that only 40% of the people think is what they want.

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

What was the wrong result of that for the Canadian economy and for Canadian democracy? What went wrong in the last 100 years with this system?

[Prof. Peter Russell]

Well, there are several things. You'd have to go back to the false majority times. We just had a false majority before this government, and I think we're seeing that Canadians, for instance, supported parties that take global warming very seriously. Yet, they were under a government that did not seem to do that. The students I interact with—I'm still teaching at the University of Toronto—and even my neighbours in Rosedale were alarmed that our government was not reflecting their concerns about that issue. I think the majority of Canadians were alarmed.

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

Sir, we're talking about policies now.

[Prof. Peter Russell]

I give that as one example.

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

If you want to go in that field, I can go in that field, too. It's not the case here. It's not the place for that.

What I'm asking you is, what went wrong in this country for the last 100 years because of this political system? What were the decisions with terrific effects on our democracy because of the system that we had in the last 100 years?

[Prof. Peter Russell]

I think my colleague would like to answer that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We have 30 seconds to go through the history.

[Prof. Patrice Dutil]

Mr. Deltell, I'll give you a single example: the riding creation, in 1917, and the electoral system distortions at the hands of the Conservative government and the Unionist government. Otherwise, in most cases, there is justification for the policies that were chosen by governments and supported.

When people grew angry with the Conservative government—that's the example Mr. Russell would like to use—it had chosen to ignore Canadians' wishes regarding the environment, and the government partly suffered the consequences.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

Ms. Sahota, you may go ahead.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Thank you.

Professor Russell, you were speaking about elections earlier, that we don't vote or place emphasis on the candidate but, rather, the party when we are electing our members of Parliament. I would agree to that to some extent. I saw that in my election as well. But I also feel that post-election the emphasis is different. Post-election, people tend to place a lot of emphasis on their members of Parliament and they want to hold somebody accountable and they want to be able to have a connection with somebody and they want to be able to go and see somebody.

It's self-proclaimed, but I think my constituency office is probably one of the busiest constituency offices in the country. I know that my constituents think it's very important to be able to reach out to me. They definitely point out, “We voted for you, not necessarily the Prime Minister but for you, so we hold you accountable to hear us out, whether it's on Canada Post or the environment or whatever it may be.” What are your thoughts on that, having that local connection to a member of Parliament?