Evidence of meeting #8 for Electoral Reform in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was governments.
A video is available from Parliament.
Professor, Ryerson University, As an Individual
Oh, no. I would never say that.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
But you raised the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, if we go to a minority situation out of some sort of proportional representation. You described people as willing to die for the right to have minority parliaments and—
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
—yes, false majorities, as Professor Russell.... Yet minority parliaments are a likely outcome of proportional-type systems, would you agree?
Professor, Ryerson University, As an Individual
Yes. I just don't like proportional systems. I'm afraid that proportional systems focus—
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Please, allow me this. If the committee were to adopt a recommendation for Canada to have a proportional system, one of the outcomes...because I like this conversation, where we're talking about outcomes to the voters, to the policies that may come out of Parliament.... You like this committee.
Professor, Ryerson University, As an Individual
I like this committee a lot.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
It's interesting that this committee is made up of the voice of Canadians in the last election, mostly. The representation you see here is the outcome of the way Canadians voted in the last election.
Why we wouldn't want that to manifest in Parliament writ large is an interesting question. Minority parliaments have been far more productive over time, in terms of what Canadians want and cherish. Let me run through a quick list that I'm sure you're familiar with: public pensions, employment insurance, the flag, the Accountability Act, post-secondary funding, bilingualism, health care. These are all things that I think Canadians cherish quite a bit and are all the result of minority parliaments, which again would be much more likely out of systems that are called proportional.
Why be so opposed to an electoral system that would produce, often, governments that have, in Canadian history, produced better results for Canadians?
Professor, Ryerson University, As an Individual
The answer is simple. These were minority governments that were formed out of national parties, not out of small sectoral parties, regional parties that can somehow put together a coalition and each divide up the spoils in terms of what they want out of government policy. We have, in those minority governments—
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Hold on; allow me this.
We just saw, in the last British election, a regional party, the SNP, take virtually every seat in Scotland. We've had the experience in this country of the Bloc Québécois forming the official opposition. We've had this under first past the post. We all recognize, I think, and all of our witnesses have, that there's no perfect system out there. It's about what you prioritize and what things you think are more valuable.
We think that systems that reflect the will of the voter, as this committee does from the last election, are inherently driven towards more co-operation. We've had testimony from other esteemed witnesses from countries that have operated under these that the regionalism you talk about is actually the opposite result of more proportional systems.
I want to turn to Dr. Russell for a second. It was suggested earlier that all we need is goodwill and enlightened politics. We wish for such things all the time. The effectiveness of connecting voters geographically, so that there's local representation, so that you know who your representatives are, along with what's called fairness in the voting system....
You talked about making Parliament more relevant in people's lives, giving it more connection, under the proportional systems that you've advocated. Can you elaborate on that?
Prof. Peter Russell
Yes. I've been thinking a lot about that. In my own little odyssey, I was pretty stuck on mixed member proportional—I think this committee is getting to know all this technical talk—whereby you have lists to top up the first past the post members. As I read more and look more at other countries in the world, I'm becoming pretty interested in a multi-member constituency model, the STV model. I notice that some of the more creative Canadian political scientists—you're going to hear from them—are coming up with more STV models in which you have larger districts or constituencies, with maybe as many as five members, but you retain that geographic connection.
You haven't heard yet from Jean-Pierre Kingsley—
Prof. Peter Russell
I'm not up-to-date on what you've heard.
He combines what is a very interesting idea: having single-member constituencies in more rural parts of Canada and multi-member constituencies in the cities.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Again, back to the second piece of my question, which was—
Bloc
Luc Thériault Bloc Montcalm, QC
Good afternoon, gentlemen.
I'm going to take advantage of your conflicting views to ask two short questions.
How do you explain the emergence of voter cynicism towards politics?
What do you make of the unwritten parliamentary rule of party lines?
Bloc
Luc Thériault Bloc Montcalm, QC
How do you explain the emergence of public cynicism towards politics?
What do you make of the unwritten rule of party lines?
Prof. Peter Russell
There's a lot of it, but I don't have any data. My guess is that we're a less cynical citizenry in Canada, less cynical about democracy, than in most other countries. But I don't see excessive cynicism out there, do you, sir? Do you think a lot of people are cynical? Maybe I mix with a very optimistic group of people.
Professor, Ryerson University, As an Individual
We don't have any data on cynicism. It's important to recognize that.
As a trained historian, I tend to put things into context historically.
Having read what politicians experienced in the past, I don't have the sense that people are more cynical today than they used to be. There were times in history when prime ministers lost in their own ridings. It hasn't happened in Canada in a long time, but it occasionally happens at the provincial level, mainly in Quebec.
I don't have the sense that a particular brand of cynicism is plaguing the system. I admit that, in the 1980s, a drop in voter turnout was noted among Canadians, but keep in mind the entire western world experienced that trend. The statistics on that are very clear. Whether you're talking about France, England, Canada, Belgium, or the United States, all of them have seen a decline in voter turnout since the early 1980s, but it's starting to improve.
As Professor Russell mentioned, we may be seeing a rebound. Cynicism is less prevalent than it used to be. But that's just my impression.
Bloc
Luc Thériault Bloc Montcalm, QC
Contrary to the argument some are trying to make, there's no relationship between the voting system, in other words, the mechanism, and a high degree of cynicism that needs to be tackled. Some people are claiming that changing the voting system would inevitably influence people's cynicism and their confidence in the political system.
You are proposing two voting, or political, systems. What is your take on the issue of party lines?
Prof. Peter Russell
Part of my presentation mentioned the danger in minority parliaments, parliaments with no majority party, of a very strict discipline coming into play, because on every vote the government stands or falls and it's do or die. My suggestion is that if we had a system that more accurately represented the people of Canada, I think that would go away because you wouldn't have crises, one confidence vote after another. Parties would be less inclined to move them. The party leaders on the government side would be more inclined to make more issues free votes, and I think the constructive vote of non-confidence, which has come into play in some of the European parliamentary democracies, is well worth looking at to make for a parliament that doesn't just reel from crisis to crisis. That, you don't want. That, you do not want.
We know from comparative studies—and I hope you're talking to political scientists who know about these other countries—that they don't reel from crisis to crisis in the countries that have a proportional system.
