Evidence of meeting #26 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 referendum.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Harold Albrecht Conservative Kitchener—Conestoga, ON
Okay. That brings up another question that I hadn't planned to raise, but help me understand the difference between the terms “referendum” and “plebiscite”, or is it simply semantics?
Professor, Department of Political Science, Laval University, As an Individual
Let me put it this way. The classic distinction in the English language is this: a referendum is binding; a plebiscite is not.
To make things difficult, in French it is not the case at all. Indeed, I have a recollection that Mr. Patrick Boyer, an authority on referenda, wanted in 1992 to put this distinction into the legislation. He wanted what is now known as the Referendum Act to be called the plebiscite act. I understand his motion was rejected.
Clearly I think the best way to avoid the problem is to ban the word “plebiscite”—which, to make it worse, has very negative connotations in French—and to say this is a “binding referendum” or “non-binding consultative referendum”.
Conservative
Harold Albrecht Conservative Kitchener—Conestoga, ON
But the act, the way it is currently worded, is non-binding.
Professor, Department of Political Science, Laval University, As an Individual
Absolutely.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
We will be having Mr. Boyer here, so you can ask him yourself.
Monsieur Laframboise, I believe you are next.
Bloc
Mario Laframboise Bloc Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Massicotte, I understand that we are analyzing the Referendum Act at the federal level, but earlier my colleague raised a very important question about money and spending. Certainly you can think that money has no influence, but nonetheless the whole tale of the sponsorship scandal proved to us that there was overspending during the referendum campaign in Quebec. How can we combat this overspending?
Professor, Department of Political Science, Laval University, As an Individual
In fact, do you know there was a tribunal in 1980? When the government of Quebec enacted the Referendum Act in 1978, it very clearly wanted the two camps to be able to spend. But we now know that it knew what I am going to tell you. It knew perfectly well that as Canadian law now stands, that prohibition was purely hypothetical. We discovered that in 1980 with the Mediacom decision, a decision of a Quebec tribunal, the Conseil du référendum.
You will probably recall that the federal government spent fairly significant amounts at that time, estimated first at $2 million, then $5 million. Someone has even suggested that it spent $17.5 million. I haven't checked, but whatever it was, it was a lot more than the amount that was supposed to be spent. Myself, I don't have the impression that this is what won the day for it. Everyone has their own opinion about this.
The director of political party financing in Quebec, that being how the law was enforced at the time, said it was illegal. He took the case to the Superior Court to get an injunction, but he was told that he had got the wrong tribunal, as was the case. He then applied to the right tribunal, the Conseil du référendum, and he was told he did not know the law. Under a provision of federal interpretation legislation, no statute affects the rights of the Crown unless the Crown expressly consents. In fact, this Crown privilege also exists at the provincial level. Fortunately it doesn't happen, but if a provincial government wanted to get involved and play the same game, it could do that. That is not entirely desirable, but that is the situation we are in.
As a result, the was more or less a legislative paper tiger in 1980, in the sense that it was circumvented, even though, in my humble opinion, that may not be what made the difference. What I want to say, essentially, is that there is no way to enforce that kind of watertight provision. In my opinion, the weight of public opinion is the best way to avoid the overspending you allude to. If the public thinks it is completely indecent and appalling to do it, public opinion will be apparent. Governments have to take it into account because, after all, it is our money being used to influence an outcome.
Bloc
Mario Laframboise Bloc Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
Could there not be a reciprocity procedure in each statute, in a Canadian statute and in the provincial statutes, to compel it?…Would that be too difficult in legal terms?
Professor, Department of Political Science, Laval University, As an Individual
If you are able to get the two governments to agree on the rules for a vote that might require one of them to stay out of Quebec, so much the better.
The solution I was thinking of myself was a constitutional amendment. Given the situation that was created in 1992 in Charlottetown in particular, we both know that saying that legislation calls for a constitutional amendment is another way of saying it will never happen.
Bloc
Mario Laframboise Bloc Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
So in reality we can't prevent overspending, other than by the public opinion route.
Professor, Department of Political Science, Laval University, As an Individual
That is kind of what I think.
Bloc
Mario Laframboise Bloc Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
In a lot of cases we learn about the facts after they have occurred.
Professor, Department of Political Science, Laval University, As an Individual
Ordinarily, though, if the money is spent, it will be noticed in one way or another. Leading up to the 1995 referendum, we knew perfectly well that the travel by people who came to Montreal represented expenses. But we did not know what the total cost was.
In that case too, I talked about that. When I was in Montreal, I had the privilege of being surrounded by better experts in voter behaviour. There was never any conclusive evidence that the rally benefited the "no" camp. In fact, a lot of people thought the opposite, that it had a backlash effect, that it was seen in such a bad light by the public that if it influenced people, it was in fact in the opposite direction.
That being said, I am the first to agree that no scientific opinion on a subject like that is absolute and final. We can't conduct experiments in a laboratory.
Bloc
Mario Laframboise Bloc Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
But we did see afterward that all the media propaganda had been interrupted along the highways. We discovered a lot of things.
You Liberals paid the price and you're still paying it. There's no problem in that respect.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm just so pleased that you're speaking both official languages now.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
And you're getting better all the time.
I was actually in Australia in 1999. I'm not sure I agree with you on the comment about mandatory voting being the decisive factor, unless the assumption is that you would have had voter participation that was perhaps half of what it was actually. Every state in Australia rejected the constitutional option except the Australian capital territory. Anyway, that's completely irrelevant to what I was going to ask you, and I just wanted to put that in for no particular reason.
What I did want to ask you about is this. When you hold a referendum at the same time as an election, there are times when I can see it being an effective thing to do. In Australia, for example, the referendums are always on whether some amendment should be made to the constitution. The referendum is the final step. So the amendment occurs, assuming you get a positive vote, automatically, regardless of what happens to government.
But there is another example of a referendum in Australia that was held at the same time as an election where the election effectively obviated the result of the referendum, and there have been examples in Canada as well. I'm thinking of the case in Australia when western Australia voted in either 1934 or 1935 to secede from Australia, but the government that had proposed the motion was defeated at the same time as the referendum was adopted. Even though it had a two-thirds vote in favour of secession from Australia, the consequence was that the new Labor government followed through without much enthusiasm and basically ensured the defeat of that proposal.
Similarly, in the early 1980s the Conservative government in Saskatchewan put forward a referendum or a plebiscite on public funding for abortions, I believe. The public voted against public funding but elected a New Democratic government, which then set aside the results.
I see that kind of problem, and I'm not sure I see how to overcome that in our environment, where it actually is very difficult to have a genuinely binding referendum wherein the referendum itself is the final step, and the law simply takes over and starts operating as a result of the vote. Am I correct in my surmise in that regard?
Professor, Department of Political Science, Laval University, As an Individual
Ours is basically a representative democracy, and the idea that the people could... Usually when you throw an issue to a referendum, it is because it is a hot potato that you don't know what to do with--prohibition and conscription were exactly that--or you need the support of the people of your own province in your dealings with another level of government, as I think is the case of our Quebec referendums.
I wasn't aware that the election in 1933 in western Australia had been held simultaneously with a referendum. I understand indeed that secessionists, who had a whopping 66% of support, had a very bad surprise when they arrived in London to show their petition. They were told by the British lords that the Commonwealth was an indissoluble union and therefore that the petition could not be dealt with. That was a major factor. I understand that some federal money that was given to the state thereafter helped to reignite Australian fervour among the people of western Australia.
Look, the issue of whether we should have binding referendums or non-binding referendums is basically a political issue on which I do not pretend to be very informed. It seems to me the instinct of most parliamentarians is to have flexibility in this area and to assume that referendums are non-binding.
I would also add that the distinction is fine in theory, but when it comes to political practice, think of it. Can you imagine, for example, Mr. Mulroney having swallowed the outcome of the 1992 referendum, brushing it aside, saying, this is the verdict of the taverns of Moose Jaw and the brasseries of Roberval. It isn't the considered view of the Canadian electorate, and we decide to pass Charlottetown nevertheless. It's very difficult to conceive, anyway.
So it means that although I acknowledge the distinction is there and that there are examples indeed, as you suggest, that politicians can ignore some referendum verdicts... The last time was 1999 in New Zealand when 79% of the people voted for a reduction of the number of members in the assembly, in the House of Representatives, but the number of assembly seats has remained exactly the same. So some outcomes can be brushed aside, but my view is that when referendums are held on an important issue, and when, obviously, the outcome reflects what people really feel, any politician who dared to ignore this outcome would be very imprudent indeed.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
Do I have any time left, or are we out?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
You're done, I'm sorry. I was intrigued by the conversation. I let you go an extra minute.
Conservative
November 19th, 2009 / 12:40 p.m.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
Thank you.
Mr. Massicotte, in your presentation, you mentioned that in the case of a referendum, if we banned companies from giving money to either camp, the government would have to supply the money. Can you explain a little more about what you mean?
Professor, Department of Political Science, Laval University, As an Individual
It's quite simple. I will give you an example. In 2003, when Parliament decided to eliminate the ability of companies and unions to give money to political parties, more than half the parties' funding came from those sources. When you take away such significant revenue sources from political parties, the tap has to be turned on somewhere, because there is no word from on high saying that individuals are going to make contributions to fill the void created by the ban on corporate contributions.
What happened at the federal level in 2003 was that a very large subsidy was created—I don't know how much per voter—that was paid to the political parties, with the result, and it was Mr. Kingsley, the former Chief Electoral Officer, who told me, that nearly 80% of the funding the parties relied on came from government subsidies.