Electoral Reform Committee on July 26th, 2016

[Prof. Peter Russell]

It's a very important dimension of parliamentary government and you people experience it every day, particularly when you're not in Ottawa. One of the things I like about the STV system is that it retains that and broadens it. Let me give an example from my own part of Canada, the middle of Toronto. We've hardly ever had in recent years a Conservative member of Parliament. My area of downtown Toronto is full of Conservatives, and under an STV system the Conservatives would have a member of Parliament—I'm just convinced of it—and maybe even two, and not always a Liberal or an NDP.

I could reverse that in other parts of the country, in Redmonton, as I love to call it, where for a long time...it's a little bit easier now for a Liberal to get elected, not very easy, but there are a lot of Liberals in Edmonton and they have not had a member of Parliament.

I think also of aboriginal people who rarely have the numbers in any given riding, a single riding of the size of our ridings now. But under an STV system, it's likely that there could be scope and opportunity for an aboriginal candidate, much more than under our one member simple plurality system. I think it would even strengthen the ties between elections between the member of Parliament and the people.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

What system do you think allows for the most accountability for members of Parliament, to be able to hold them accountable? Not for one member, but like in a district where you would have five or so members that you were speaking of earlier, what if one member shrugs off some of their responsibilities and the other...? How do you hold them all accountable?

[Prof. Peter Russell]

If I understand your question, and I'll use the technical word, I'm a Burkean when it comes to the role of the MP. I don't see the MP as simply a representative of the people in his or her riding. You elect a member of Parliament because you think that person has good judgment on the issues of the day. The people in any constituency, any of them in Canada, are divided. They don't have a single view, and I don't believe in the accountability of the member of Parliament to the electorate in his or her riding.

I think it's important to spend lots of time in the riding and meet the people. And again, with STV there is likely to be not only one flavour of political MP in the area, but several. But I don't believe in the accountability of the member of Parliament to the people in the riding. I say that publicly.

At election time, of course, if you've done a lousy job, they may throw you out, to the extent that is an issue in the election.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

We'll start the second round now with Mr. Aldag, for five minutes.

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

Thank you.

Professor Russell, one of the things I've heard from previous witnesses is that we're going to need to narrow things down at some point. Don't consult on 18 different models, choose three or four. So as I try to understand what those three or four models might best be suited to our system, I'm looking for whatever wisdom I can get.

In your submission you indicated looking at MMP or an STV system, with a preference for STV.

If I understood your opening comments, you made some sort of reference to a possible constitutional issue. I don't know if I misunderstood that or if there is something there related to MMP.

There is a Twitter question I'll get to, but first of all I just want to know if you want to expand on why you're saying that STV is perhaps best suited to Canada, given our unique...whatever those values and attributes are. Could you take a minute on that?

[Prof. Peter Russell]

STV retains the one kind of member of Parliament. It means at the local level there are multi-party MPs to represent the distribution of political preferences in the neighbourhoods. So it's not just the plurality, there is not just the political preference that more people like than any other single preference.

In my part of Toronto we have lots on the left, we have lots on the right, we have lots of Greens, and I like the idea of a number of MPs representing districts of Toronto rather than single ridings with only one MP. I like that idea very much.

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

Okay. Actually, when you were giving that explanation I think it was in the context of having two different types of MPs that you might have alluded to that there might be some sort of issue.

[Prof. Peter Russell]

Oh, on the constitutional issue.

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

Yes, the question on that one comes on Twitter from James Crown. He says that your brief states preference for STV but he wants to know if an MMP system with regional open lists would fit the bill and avoid that constitutional issue.

[Prof. Peter Russell]

Yes. Again, we have this cloud hanging over us. The Supreme Court created a new kind of concept—Mr. Kenney alluded to it—of the architecture of the Constitution.

It's a little hard for those of us who parse every word of Supreme Court decisions to tell you, “Well, here is what ‘architecture’ means”. But my guess would be that if someone said that having two kinds of MPs changes the architecture, they might get a case up, and it would be embarrassing to have a new electoral system under a constitutional cloud.

I don't think you'd have that problem with STV, but I think there would be an argument about constitutionality with MMP. That's all, and that worries me.

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

Thank you for that.

Professor Dutil, do you have any thoughts on systems that would—and maybe others, if you would be so bold—go beyond first past the post? Are there any other systems that we could be looking at?

[Prof. Patrice Dutil]

I always see complications with the other systems. At the end of the day, I'm not sure what they bring to the table that's fundamentally different, if you have a larger riding and have three members of Parliament for it and all three of them from different affiliations, rather than one riding that has a member of Parliament for it who is directly accountable.

I believe that for many people, the MP's presence is important; I think it's one of the things Canadians hold to most dearly. They may not support you personally; they may like the fact that they voted Liberal, voted Conservative, voted NDP, or voted Green; but they like the fact that you're there.

At Ryerson I started a program a few years ago that actually puts our fourth-year students in politics in your office. You may not be a part of it, but it's offered to all members in the GTA. To answer your neighbour's question—how do we educate our students?—that's one of the ways we do it.

Anyway, I'm out of time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thanks.

Mr. Reid.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to return to the question of political conventions and their strength in directing or mandating a prime minister who has indicated a willingness to override them. To do this, I want to state what I believe the greatest danger to be, first of all, and then I'll turn to Albert Venn Dicey, who discusses a particularly interesting parallel.

As you know, in the 2015 election the Liberal party won 39% of the vote but 54% of the seats, which gave it 100% of the power. Specifically, it won 184 seats.

A calculation done based on that data and upon exit poll information as to the second and third and fourth preferences of voters indicates that, had they used a preferential ballot in single-member districts, Liberals would have won 224 seats. That means, of course, that they would have had 70% of the seats.

But you can play this the other way. The question is how low their percentage of the vote could drop and still allow them to get more than 50% of the seats and 100% of the power, given that this particular system predictably causes the party of the centre to do best. That's the fundamental, underlying issue, if that is the direction in which the Prime Minister steers, and he has indicated that so far that is the direction in which he plans to steer.

Turning to conventions, Albert Venn Dicey writes in the Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution about the Septennial Act. This was an act passed in 1716 by the British Parliament, which at that time was elected for three-year terms. The law changed the term of Parliament so that it could now continue to govern for an additional four years—it passed this when it had a year left to go—and there was no court remedy against that act. Some members of the House of Lords protested and wrote or said at the time:

...the House of Commons must be chosen by the people, and when so chosen, they are truly the representatives of the people, which they cannot be so properly said to be, when continued for a longer time than that for which they were chosen; for after that time they are chosen by the Parliament, and not the people, who are thereby deprived of the only remedy which they have against those ...[members of Parliament]

You can see what I'm getting at. Effectively, Parliament rewrote the terms of its own contract unilaterally, gave itself extra power, and the people had no remedy. Likewise, if Mr. Trudeau rewrites the election law so that the next election is conducted under rules under which he can lose a significant number of votes, then the classic test of a convention, which is whether it will cost you the next election, is subverted.

I thus submit that question to you: what do we do with a situation in which the issues of legitimacy are so clearly separated from the direction in which a government is trying to go?

[Prof. Patrice Dutil]

I'll say this about what would likely happen in that kind of scenario. If the government unilaterally changes the rules by which Canadians elect their Parliament, and if this is accepted, you are going to be setting a precedent whereby the next government can change the rules also—it's as simple as that—and we're going to wind up in a situation in which potentially any government that is not happy with the result may roll the dice, change the system again, and may win big or may win less big.

I'd be concerned about that kind of situation. Again, in terms of providing what Canadians want—good, stable government that is flexible and that can be turfed out—this would raise cynicism. To come back to Mr. Thériault's question, it would raise cynicism a great deal more than anything else. That would be my worry.

[Prof. Peter Russell]

I think it's a matter of legitimacy. Looking for a convention may sound very erudite and intellectual. I just think it would be a bad idea to change the electoral system and not have a referendum. It could go down very badly with the Canadian people.

But I think what you have to think about—and I'm sure you have—is the referendum legislation. The Referendum Act we have now will not work. It was designed for the Constitution; it didn't apply to Quebec.

You have to look very carefully at spending rules. You should look at the New Zealand referendum of 1993. Spending rules are absolutely crucial—and whether you're going to have yes and no teams.

A lot of thought has to go into the referendum. If you look at the 1993 referendum in New Zealand—the second one they had, after the 1992 referendum—corporate New Zealand poured millions of dollars into hair-raising ads saying that it would be the end of civilization as you know it, if MMP went through. In the earlier election, the popularity of MMP was 86%, and it fell to 53% with unlimited spending by corporate New Zealand.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We'll have to go to Mr. Cullen now, for five minutes, please.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to talk about the role of women in politics.

There was a dramatic change in the last election in Canada, but no dramatic change in terms of women's representation in Parliament. The Parliament only changed, in fact, by 1% of the total, net. I'm looking through the list of countries in the world at women's representation in the legislature, and Canada sits at 62nd. I suppose we congratulate ourselves by not being 96th, as the United States is, but 62nd is nothing to brag about.

I look through even the top 10, and there is one country that doesn't have a proportional representation system that is in the top 10 for women's representation, but that's Cuba. I'm not sure we're going to cite that example.

There's a question about women's participation in proportional systems. The vast majority of countries that do well in terms of women participating are elected through proportional systems.

You asked for evidence earlier, so I'm trying to use it in this discussion today.

Mr. Dutil, do you have any comment on that?

[Prof. Patrice Dutil]

Yes. There's absolutely nothing that prevents you in this system from running more women as candidates.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

There seems to be, because even—

[Prof. Patrice Dutil]

There isn't; it's a choice you've made.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Certainly within the parties, the NDP is coming through with 42%, but we have seen a barrier to women being successful in politics. Is that not fair? Unless you agree that 26% representation is a good result, obviously the system is failing us to this point. The political parties.... You can blame whoever you'd like. Blame the voters, if you will—

[Prof. Patrice Dutil]

No, I'm going to blame the parties.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

—but to suggest that the DNA, the actual mechanism by which people run as candidates and by which they are elected to office, is not a factor would be false, isn't that correct?

[Prof. Patrice Dutil]

I think it's actually wrong to blame the system for political failures.