Electoral Reform Committee on July 26th, 2016

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

Thank you.

I have to say it's an enormous honour to be in the position of being a member of Parliament at this table and putting questions to one of my heroes of academia, and of political science, Dr. Russell. It's extraordinary and I'm grateful to you for being here in person and answering questions.

I also think that it's wonderful to have someone—and no offence—but you're sort of an éminence grise in the field and there is no “grise” about you at all. You've made us laugh, you've entertained us, but you've made it really clear what you think.

In the written submission you touched on something that you didn't mention verbally and I find it intriguing. To put it to you, I take it that there is an additional risk in what you term “a false majority” when, as you point out in your paper, Canada has “the world’s most centralized parliamentary democracy” and you go on to say “in a minority parliament there is likely to be a diminution of its officials’ capacity to interfere with parliamentary activities”—by which I suspect you mean the executive of the Prime Minister's Office.

I wonder if you want to comment on whether there is a benefit in constraining excesses of power.

[Prof. Peter Russell]

We developed, really from Pierre Trudeau's time—and he really began the process—a very large and very powerful Prime Minister's Office.

Most Canadians are unaware that it's much bigger and more powerful than in London, England, than in Canberra, than in Wellington and other Westminster democracies. It became, I think, the elephant in our democratic room when unelected people, whose main purpose is the re-election of the government, have so much power over policy and even begin to interfere with cabinet government and parliamentary government, telling cabinet ministers what they can say and when they can speak, “helping”—that's a nice word for it—MPs during question time to give the right answers.

An international study of the centralization of power in parliamentary democracies done 10 years ago—it's quoted in my book and it was very carefully done—found Canada was much the most centralized. I should add, all that research was done before 2006. I mention that because some say that was just a characteristic of Mr. Harper's way of governing. But no, it had come in under the Liberals and had been carried on by Conservatives and intensified.

I say to my friend, Patrice, Canadians don't go out in the streets saying, “Damn it, let's bring down.... Let's throw stones. We've got unelected people telling cabinet ministers and MPs what to do”. We are a quiet people. We put up with awful situations.

I'll just give you one example. It almost made me weep. The book, Tragedy in the Commons, is of interviews with members of Parliament of all parties and their experience over 10 years, not quite the last 10 years but 10 years in this century. They were miserable years.

I say to Patrice, sure, we can live with that. We can still be a great country and we are a terrific country, but I just think, democratically, we can do better. We can do a lot better and we should try to do better.

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

Thank you, Professor Russell.

I want to also ask you.... You haven't touched on this question and I haven't even asked you because I think it's not really something we should waste our time talking about a great deal. However, since referendums keeps coming up, I wonder if you have a view on whether there is a constitutional requirement that we hold a referendum.

[Prof. Peter Russell]

I've written a lot about constitutional conventions and have spent a good deal of my life with them, and I certainly like the Jennings test, but as Sir Ivor Jennings would be the first to acknowledge, they're really identified in the political process. If a prime minister says, “I'm not doing that anymore”, unlike the case with a legal rule in statute or in the Constitution itself, that's the end of the convention. In other words, conventions live or die in the political arena.

My own sense of where we are with this question of having a referendum is that if this committee brings forward such a recommendation—I think it has to be a recommendation with a fair consensus behind it—the answer is yes. This is not for any sophisticated constitutional reason, but I'll predict that if you didn't do that, the issue won't be the merits of your recommendation; the issue will be Patrice's point, that you're not doing it democratically enough.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

We'll go to Ms. Romanado now.

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

Professors Dutil and Russell, thank you kindly for being here today and giving us your valuable insight.

I always like to have some direct and frank conversations.

My question is for Professor Russell.

With your suggestion of proportional representation, would you suggest that minority governments would be formed, or would a new precedent of coalition governments be the expected result?

[Prof. Peter Russell]

I think coalition has become a bad brand. It got branded “bad” in 2008 by leaders of the Conservative Party. I thought that was very misleading. I've already said that I prefer a minority government arrangement to a coalition, but it's not “bad”.

The one thing to be sure about, even though there was a lot of criticism of the Liberal-NDP proposed coalition, is that there was not a convention established that to have a coalition you have to announce it before the election. That was the argument that some of the Conservative leaders made: if you're going to have a coalition, you have to say beforehand to the people that you are going to have a coalition, and then you can have one. I don't know a single country that has such a rule. Certainly we never have had one. You're free to have a coalition even though you didn't advertise it during the election.

I like the play in Parliament in minority government situations a little better than that in coalitions. New Zealand has a very interesting combination of both. It usually has minority coalitions, and the Green Party usually stays out. Because the minority coalition is a minority, there is a lot of interplay between the Greens and some others. There is now a separate Maori party, besides Maori seats. There's a lot of interplay even between parts of that coalition.

I like to see give and take in Parliament so that the outcome of parliamentary debates is not preordained. Everybody knows that, even if they talk all night, such and such is going to be the policy. I think that in a real Parliament, to be deliberative means they're really going to deliver.

I remember what I call the textbook example, Harper's first minority government. On foreign policy, we were divided about Afghanistan. We had a terrific parliamentary debate. It split the Liberals, but it created a modified Conservative policy. Then I think on the budget, the NDP negotiated some changes in child welfare policy with a Conservative government and got, at least for a while, a better policy out of it. It was the give and take in the House. I like to see that happening in the House of Commons.

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

One area that is really important to me because of my background is youth engagement. We did see an increase in youth participation in the last federal election, and I'd like your recommendations on how we can maintain that engagement both in terms of voter participation but also in engaging that next generation of folks who want to run, which I'm concerned we're not doing enough about. I'd like your suggestions on how we can increase not only youth voter participation but also their willingness or interest in running for office.

[Prof. Peter Russell]

That's a really important question. We're getting to know a lot more about youth in politics. We know the bad news that the youngest cohort of voters, aged 18 to 25, has the lowest turnout.

Nonetheless, we have some very resourceful colleagues—Paul Howe of the University of New Brunswick and Henry Milner at the Université de Montréal—who have been looking worldwide at the same phenomenon, particularly in western Europe. I suppose what they are really coming up with is improving how schools handle the teaching of politics. If you read their books, it isn't just a matter of teaching; it's the type of teaching. It should be interactive and not not just having the teacher saying, here's what Parliament does. It should be very creative and interactive, having mock parliaments and so on.

We don't do enough of that in Canada. We don't have enough push to do that. The teachers institute, which some of you know, is part of that. They bring high school students here every November, but only about 110 of them. I've helped raise money for that. It's a wonderful initiative but we have to really help the schoolteachers. Something that I found out to my horror is that Ontario, my province, is the only province in which a civics course is mandatory in high school

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much.

We'll go to Mr. Kenney now.

[Prof. Peter Russell]

That's not good news.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Professors Russell and Dutil, for your compelling testimony before us today, and in the case of Professor Russell, your lifetime of work on these and other issues in particular.

I have a couple of perhaps editorial notes to make, which you're free to respond to, Professor Russell. You mentioned the 2008 NDP-Liberal coalition. I would submit that one of the reasons polling indicated that 70% to 80% of Canadians rejected that proposed coalition was in part that it was not advertised as a possibility prior to the election and in part because it involved the Bloc Québécois. You will recall Mr. Duceppe signing that accord. Just as you have suggested there is a political requirement for a referendum in order to grant the process democratic legitimacy, I would submit that parties who prospectively will create a coalition must at least admit the possibility of that, given our long-standing history of not having formal coalitions.

More specifically, on one other point of information, I gather that Israel does have a floor in their PR system of 3.25%—so the most marginal part. That's part of the reforms that Israel made I think about 15 years ago.

I wonder if both of you could comment on the following. Professor Dutil has outlined the Jennings test as it may apply to the question of a constitutional convention for a referendum on electoral reform. He also suggested that perhaps the government may want to refer the question of whether or not there is a convention to the Supreme Court.

Would either of you care to comment on this as it relates to the Supreme Court decision on the Senate reference case two years ago, in which the Supreme Court suddenly seemed to adopt a very strict originalist jurisprudence with respect to the original intention of the founders vis-à-vis the Canadian Senate. Essentially to paraphrase it, the court said that the founders had a particular idea of what the Senate ought to be, which would be violated by elections to the Senate.

Do you not think it's also possible that, following the same kind of jurisprudential line, the court would say that the founders had a particular idea that the House of Commons would be based on first past the post?

[Prof. Peter Russell]

I think an MP would run the risk there, because it produces two kinds of members of Parliament. That phrase in the Senate reference about the architecture of the constitution, you would agree with me, is not a precise phrase, and creating two kinds of members might be found to be a deviation from the architecture. However, having multi-member ridings in various versions of the STV system, I think, would be okay. We've actually had that in Canadian history. That's another reason why I've moved from MMP to STV, because I think there's less of a constitutional doubt about the latter.

[Prof. Patrice Dutil]

Depending on what is being proposed, the Supreme Court would have to make a decision and determine whether it applies or not. I think it's very hard to predict at this point what they would finally decide. I find this Supreme Court particularly difficult to decipher anyway. But I think the Jennings test does compel the government to make its case to the people, because we would be moving away from precedence and we'd be moving away from an established practice in this country that has lasted far longer than this country.

I'm not really sure I've answered your question very well.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Yesterday we had other political scientists on the panel, and when I posed the question: “Is there not a convention for referenda on electoral reform?”, they simply answered no, but they never presented any reasons. What arguments against the convention would exist? I haven't heard anybody actually offer any arguments.

[Prof. Patrice Dutil]

There is no argument against the convention. When the Supreme Court of Canada was asked in 1981, they said these conventions matter and the Government of Canada has to abide by those conventions, the government has to work to build substantial agreement among the provinces. The government, therefore, had to abide by that rule. It's not something you can simply dismiss. Conventions matter a great deal.

Let me quote Peter Hogg.

Do I have enough time to read the quote, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Not really.

[Prof. Patrice Dutil]

All right, I'll come back to it.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Can he just finish the sentence? I'll give up my next—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Okay, go ahead. But we are going over five minutes for each one.

Go ahead.

[Prof. Patrice Dutil]

Peter Hogg said, in his Constitutional Law of Canada, “there is a stronger moral obligation to follow a convention than a usage, and that departure from convention may be criticized more severely than departure from usage.”

Convention matters.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Okay, thanks.

Mr. DeCourcey.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd also like to thank the witnesses.

My question is for Professor Russell.

In the very first sentence of your brief, you talked about the goal or the value or the result of any change to the electoral system producing “a House of Commons that represents the political preferences of the people”. I wonder what weight or value you think voters place on their political preference around electing someone from a local constituency, someone they would have a link to, maintaining the value of local representation in any form of electoral system.

[Prof. Peter Russell]

We have quite a bit of data on that. Not from me. I don't do that kind of research. There are those who do psephology, which is the study of voters and why they vote one way or the other. My colleagues who do that in Canada for some time have shown that the party for most people is more important than the individual candidate in their riding, and that hasn't changed for a very long time. Often an outstanding candidate, or a really lousy candidate, can make a big difference and blow an election or win it. But the majority of Canadians are thinking in party terms when they walk into the booth.

Part of that is also the media campaign. The majority of citizens, for maybe unfortunate reasons, don't go to all-candidates meetings. I'm crazy about all-candidates meetings. I think, like the little town halls, they're exciting. I always see the same people from my neighbourhood there. Most people's experience in an election campaign is on television, and now the Internet, not even reading the papers, and they don't talk about the local candidates. In fact, they even don't talk about people who might be in the cabinet very much. They talk about party leaders and the party, and that's the conversation.

I knocked on doors in the last election and I didn't hear much about candidates. I just heard about Mr. Harper and Mr. Trudeau, Liberals and Conservatives. I tried to say a little bit about the Green Party, but they weren't very interested. So there you go.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

I guess I asked because we had presentations yesterday from professors citing citizens' assemblies and law commission work and others who cited the value expressed by citizens in those processes around fair representation, around more choice and more preference in balloting, and the need to maintain a link between elector and elected.

I guess I want to follow up on my colleague Mr. Aldag's question that Professor Dutil was able to answer. Professor Russell, do you see any means that we, as a committee, should consider to ensure that we broadly consult with people in going forward with this committee process?