Evidence of meeting #25 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 40th Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was limit.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections BC
No. We did get lots of questions about it, such as, “Didn't we already vote on this?”
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
All right. I can see that. Wait until they run for public office, or make a decision that their spouse disagrees with, for that matter. Are we in camera?
On the question of the dual majority, we had a similar process for the referendum in Ontario on multi-member proportional, and there was a requirement that a 60% majority be achieved. I can't remember if there was a majority-of-seats requirement. It didn't matter in practice, because fewer than 40% voted in favour of the referendum.
What's the general feeling out there, if there is a general feeling out there in British Columbia, on the merits of having two protections, two hurdles that had to be met in addition to an overall provincial majority? Is it now seen as being a good idea or a bad idea, all things considered?
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections BC
The whole discussion about electoral reform is extremely quiet. I haven't heard this debated in the media or elsewhere.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
It's more after the first referendum, because at that point hurdle number one, a majority, had been achieved. So had hurdle number two, a majority of ridings, but not hurdle number three, the 60%. I assume there was a discussion at that point. Presumably there was enough of a discussion that the government felt it had to do a second referendum.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections BC
Yes. It very much was the major discussion point in the summer of 2005. In the throne speech of September 12, 2005, there was the announcement that there was going to be another referendum on the question. The majority of voters had selected BC-STV as their choice. It hadn't met the dual threshold. There was only one threshold that had been surpassed.
What led to the decision was the discussion over the summer, that it had been significant support. The decision at the time was to have it in conjunction with local government elections in November 2008 and decide it then. As a result of some concerns about the costs, that was delayed until 2009, in conjunction with the provincial elections.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
Wasn't there also a concern that you could wind up getting a majority in favour of it that meets the hurdles despite the fact that you'd actually get a lower number of people voting for it, because of lower overall turnout in the municipal elections?
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections BC
That was part of the debate as well, that this was a really significant question, that local government election turnouts are less than half of what they normally are provincially, and it was too important a decision to have such low participation levels decide.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
With regard to the results in the referendum, in the first referendum, I think I'm right in saying that support was relatively evenly spread across ridings. I think there were very few ridings in which it was not approved, and they tended to mirror each other much more than one might have expected.
What about the second referendum? Was there more geographic distinction? The second referendum would have been in the context of people then knowing whether they were in a riding that was going to have just a couple of MLAs or one of these larger ridings that would have a larger number of MLAs.
I'm just trying to find out if that kind of thing had any impact on the riding-by-riding results. Was it more widely supported in rural areas than urban areas, or the reverse? I'm just throwing these out.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections BC
From my recollection, the ridings that did not support BC-STV in majority in 2005 were sort of mixed urban-rural in the central interior, whereas the eight ridings that supported it in majority in the 2009 referendum were primarily dense urban.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Thank you, Mr. Reid.
I have on my list quick questions from Mr. Lauzon and Mr. Calandra. I'll give you each a quick one.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
Very briefly, one of the challenges we have nationally—I'm sure you have it provincially—is the participation rate in general elections, and it seems to be going in the wrong direction. First of all, what was your participation rate in the last provincial election?
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
Of that 51%—that's even worse than the national turnout—what percentage actually exercised or gave their opinion on the referendum?
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections BC
It was interesting. In the 2005 referendum, voters had a choice of declining one ballot or the other, which led to incredible problems in balancing the ballots at the end of the night. The decision taken for 2009 was that everybody was getting both ballots if they showed up to vote. They were told that if they didn't want to vote in one or the other, they could leave the ballot blank, and then it was rejected.
The number of rejected ballots—and I don't have it at the tip of my tongue—was higher in the referendum than it was in the election. There was certainly a phenomenon of people leaving their ballots blank. It was 2% or 3%.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
Okay. I thought it might have been more significant. So roughly 48% voted in the referendum.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections BC
That's right.
No, I'm sorry. I apologize. You are correct. The 51% is, of eligible voters, how many cast votes, not necessarily votes that were counted.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
Forty-eight per cent cast votes on the referendum.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
I'll entertain anyone else who would like to ask a short question. Great.
Thank you very much for your help today, Mr. Neufeld. You see that we are starting on this road. It's going to be a long one. I think you've promised us you'll give us the coordinates of anyone at your universities who's doing the study on your referendum. It would be great if we could get that.
We thank you for your attendance today.
Is there anything else from any other committee member?
Seeing nothing, I declare the meeting adjourned.