Craig Scott

[Business of Supply, December 3rd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate where the question is coming from.

First, it is important to clarify the premise, which is that under the system we are talking about, there would be no appointing by party leaders of the MPs. Each party would have an internal process that would have to be transparently revealed to Canadians as to how they ended up with a list of MPs from which people could go to Parliament.

Under the system we would advocate, individual voters could actually go into the list and say, “That is the order the party set, but I do not prefer that order. I prefer this person to move up in the order”.

It is very important to note that there would not be an appointment system. It would depend on how each party set up its list so voters could determine how that would influence their vote.

On the second point, absolutely, the idea that the whole question of a direct appointment by a single leader of any MP, let alone all these MPs, is anti-democratic. I would actually say that our current system does not actually have an appointment power; it has a power requirement, under the Canada Elections Act, to sign off on local nominations. It is not quite the same thing.

[Business of Supply, December 3rd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I should start by saying that I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent.

This motion is intended to put our parliamentary democracy on the right track by fixing what is an extremely unfair electoral system. Every voter counts equally, from a philosophical perspective, so every vote should count equally within our electoral system. Unfortunately, the current system does not do that.

Allow me to quote a former highly respected MP who everyone knows has the health of our parliamentary democracy at heart and first in mind:

Why not turn the theory of representative government into reality? Legislatures that reflect citizens' values, in proportion to how we vote in elections, can help make balance, moderation, diversity, inclusiveness, and maturity the refreshing new hallmarks of Canadian [parliamentary] democracy.

That was from J. Patrick Boyer, Progressive Conservative MP for Etobicoke—Lakeshore, 1984 to 1993.

Paragraph (a) in the motion says:

...the next federal election should be the last conducted under the current first-past-the-post electoral system which has repeatedly delivered a majority of seats to parties supported by a minority of voters, or under any other winner-take-all electoral system;

Paragraph (a) is designed to attract a consensus of MPs affirming that our current system, a winner-take-all system of first past the post, must go.

Many, if not most, Canadians do not actually know that our system produces huge distortions.

There are three kinds of majorities that emerge from an election in Canada: false ones, arbitrary ones, and inflated ones.

The false majority is the biggest concern. A party may receive well less than 50% of the vote but end up with well over 50% of the seats. When Canadians hear about a landslide victory or a government getting a majority government, many, if not the majority of Canadians, do not know that this means only seat count. It does not mean that the governing party received 50% of support. In 2011, the current government, not the first but probably the 20th since Confederation, came into power on these terms: it had 39.5% of the national popular vote and 54% of the seats. Another example is the Progressive Conservatives in 1988, who with 57% of the seats had only 43% of the votes. Those were the Mulroney years. The next year, the Liberals came in. They had 60% of the seats with 41% of the vote. Do members know what happened? The Progressive Conservatives went from 169 seats to two seats. They received 16% of the national vote and received less than 1% of the seats in the House of Commons.

This is not a partisan thing. NDP governments across the country in provincial governments have also benefited from our wonky system. The NDP under former premier Bob Rae received 57% of the seats with under 38% of the vote.

It can get arbitrary, as well. For example, in Quebec, in 1998, the PQ won 60% of the seats with 43% of the vote, despite the Liberals actually getting 43.5% of the vote.

Inflated majorities are common. Even in the situation where a party manages to get over 50% of the vote in a province, usually where there are only two parties, it can end with the ridiculous result that a party gets all or almost all of the seats. In 1987, under our system, 60% of the votes for the Liberals in New Brunswick produced 100% of the seats; 58 out of 58 seats for that entire period were in the hands of one party. Forty per cent of the electorate was shut out from representation in that legislature. In B.C., in 2001, 58% of the vote produced, for another Liberal Party, 77 out of 79 seats: 97%.

This is fundamentally unfair, quite obviously, not to mention, frankly, absurd. However, this unfairness is not the only consequence. Our voting system has knock-on effects, what I would call pathologies, that undermine the health of our entire democracy, from how Parliament works to citizen engagement.

I would simply like to go through a few of those problems. I will list them, because in debate, I can go into them in more detail.

Here are eight problems.

One, our system produces a false sense and exacerbation of regional differences. We almost get, for decades and decades, only Conservative MPs from Alberta. It creates the idea that somehow Alberta is monolithically a Conservative province. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Two, it diminishes the diversity of viewpoints in Parliament, especially from different areas of the country. We never hear from a rich range of voices from many provinces because of that problem of regional exacerbation.

Three, it promotes majorities in the House of Commons such that, because of our system in which the Prime Minister has so much power in an executive embedded in the legislature, if the Prime Minister and the government are of a mind, the views of 60% of the electorate, having elected only 40% of the opposition MPs, do not have to be taken into account. Legislation can be rammed through if a government is so minded.

Four, there is an under-representation of women in our system.

Five, adversarialism and hyperpartisanship are emphasized over co-operation and compromise in legislative activity.

Six, the chances of poor legislation because tunnel vision and single ideologies, which do not have to grapple with other points of view on the floor of the House and in committees, also can dominate.

Seven, citizen frustration goes through the roof, and it is one of the contributions to lower voter turnout.

Eight, the role of MPs is undermined due to the fact that in our system, voters have to choose, with one vote, the local representative they would like to have representing their constituency and the party they would like to see with the most seats in the House of Commons, and quite often, they are choosing one other factor, which is which party leader they prefer.

All of these things, under a properly structured proportional representation system, would be dealt with.

What is the NDP advocating? Let me start by quoting from Tom Mulcair, the leader of the official opposition, the member for Outremont, who said a year and a half ago:

Electoral reform is an important way to reinvigorate our democracy, and in 2015 New Democrats will be seeking a mandate to introduce a proportional-representation voting system that better reflects the true political preferences of Canadians. We are committed to ensuring that 2015 is the last unfair election.

Only last week, we deepened that commitment by explaining how we would form a special all-party task force upon becoming government and then would legislate to a deadline that would produce a proportional-representation system of a mixed sort by 2019.

It is important to note that NDP conventions over the years have emphasized “that mixed-member proporational representation must be adapted to Canada”. The fact is that we have examples. New Zealand, Germany, and Scotland are three healthy democracies we will be borrowing from. The fact of the matter is that the lessons they have learned have to be applied in a way that takes into account Canadian realities.

It is important as well to note that we are intent on not reinventing the wheel. Here in Canada, much work has been done over the decades on mixed-proportional representation as the best proportional representation system for Canada. Eight out of nine commissions or citizen assemblies created by governments in the last dozen years in Canada have not only advocated getting rid of our first-past-the-post system but have advocated adopting MMP, or mixed-member-proportional representation.

What is mixed-member proportional representation? The way I like to talk about it is as three pairs that are married into a rather harmonious whole. It is much simpler than people think.

I would start by saying that two principles are merged. One is the principle that voters in each local constituency or riding should be able to elect a single MP directly accountable to them. That is our current system. The second is that voters in each constituency should also have their party preference directly count so that party representation in the House of Commons, that is the seats, the number of MPs, is proportionate to the degree of support the party actually received in the national vote.

Let me now take the voter into the voting booth. This is how voters will understand how easy this is.

These two principles are merged by giving voters two votes. Let us call it a one ballot, two votes approach. Under the first vote, on a single ballot, citizens elect a single local MP to represent their riding. With the second vote, they vote for a candidate, on a list, of the party they prefer. It is this second vote that tells us the number of seats each party should get in the House of Commons, and then from the list, MPs go to the House of Commons, join their local MPs, and voilà, we have a much-reformed system that would get rid of all of the pathologies I listed that are part of our current system.

[Business of Supply, December 3rd, 2014]

moved:

That, in the opinion of the House: (a) the next federal election should be the last conducted under the current first-past-the-post electoral system which has repeatedly delivered a majority of seats to parties supported by a minority of voters, or under any other winner-take-all electoral system; and (b) a form of mixed-member proportional representation would be the best electoral system for Canada.

[Petitions, November 25th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I am privileged to present a petition entitled “Enact a Policy to Reduce the Risk for Anaphylactic Passengers”. It follows from a May 2013 motion in this House that was unanimously supported. It talks about anaphylaxis being a serious concern for an increasing number of Canadians, indeed 2.5 million Canadians. The specific concern of the petitioners is improved transportation safety for that group of Canadians.

[Agriculture, November 24th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, my office has been inundated by petitions signed by many hundreds of my constituents in support of farmers' seed rights and against the economic strategies of many GMO corporations. These petitions are circulated by the good people at the Big Carrot Natural Food Market, located in Toronto—Danforth.

The Big Carrot plays a key role in mobilizing Torontonians to support family farms, promote food safety and food security, and arrest the deepening market domination of agri-business megacorporations.

The NDP is standing with these constituents in opposing the Conservatives' omnibus bill, Bill C-18. The NDP tabled 16 amendments to improve this bill. We sought to ensure that farmers' rights to save, reuse, exchange, and sell seeds were protected to level the playing field between seed breeders and farmers, and to protect farmers from abusive litigation by GMO seed companies.

However, every amendment was rejected by the governing Conservatives. It is time for the government to start listening to concerned Canadians and to all stakeholders.

[Privilege, November 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the simple answer is that the original motion already contemplated that the expulsion would be dealt with but it was not wrapped into the words of the reference to PROC. Obviously, expulsion was going to be dealt with. What I have done with my amendment is to spell that out, along with several other things that PROC will have to look at. The change is out of respect and deference for the more detailed motion that would have been presented by the government House leader. It is to say that we listened and wanted to incorporate his more detailed language so that we would all be on the same page. There is nothing different about the motion. We just further specified what was the second part of the original motion.

[Privilege, November 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for his question.

Quite simply, expulsion is permanent. The member loses his status as an MP and becomes an ordinary citizen without the rights conferred on parliamentarians.

When suspended, the member remains an MP, but his rights are restricted. In particular, the member cannot sit in the House, cannot vote and cannot sit on a committee. Accordingly, the member's rights are restricted but he remains an MP.

Therefore, this indicates that there is a problem. The conviction, in and of itself, is sufficient to suggest that the member should be suspended, but not definitively.

[Privilege, November 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, being a member of the committee and watching everybody else working very hard, I can say that we are always very busy. We are piled with work all the time. I personally trust that we will deal with this quickly and efficiently, but that is from the perspective of trusting the chair. I very much hope that the entire committee will operate along those lines.

[Privilege, November 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, this motion is obviously very important for Canadians to be assured that there is proper accountability for elected representatives, members of Parliament, in the House.

The balance has to be struck between fairness to the member for Peterborough and the dignity of this place, frankly. The motion of my colleague from Burnaby—New Westminster is two-part. The first part basically calls for voting on the motion for an immediate suspension. The second part is for the matter to be referred the procedure and House affairs committee, where other elements will be considered. These include, for example, whether an expulsion should occur and on what conditions and timing, and how matters such as pensions should be dealt with in light of the existing statutory framework and what the committee recommends as right, as a matter of general parliamentary procedure.

The issue boils down to how the House will give effect to section 502 of the Canada Elections Act. Section 502(3) of the Canada Elections Act refers to any offence that also qualifies as “an illegal practice or a corrupt practice”. A list is also provided in section 502. It includes wilfully contravening section 443, exceeding election expenses limit. Where we have such a practice, for a period of at least five years for an illegal practice and seven years for a corrupt practice, the person convicted is no longer entitled to be elected or to sit in the House of Commons.

The question becomes that the statutory provision is there for us to take seriously, but of course we are within our own realm. Within Parliament, the Speaker has made it clear that, whatever a statute says, the House has to independently decide to act on the statute. When it does so, there is a fair bit of interpretive work that needs to be done.

One piece of interpretation is what the word “conviction” means in section 502. Does it simply mean that the effects of section 502 must be felt immediately, or as immediately as the House acts on section 502? Is it upon a trial judgment entering a conviction? Alternatively, does it mean conviction once all appeals have been exhausted? Let us call that a perfected conviction, so that there is no chance left for the person who has been convicted to be discharged or acquitted.

Quite obviously, that is something that the procedure and House affairs committee will have to deal with on this motion. What is the best interpretation, and what jibes with common sense in terms of what the best outcome is?

Another interpretive question will be what the impact is when we act on section 502. Let us just say that the decision is to remove the member from the House. Does that count as an expulsion in some formal sense, or does that count as vacating the seat? It might matter, because the Members of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act currently provides that, if a member is expelled from the House, the pension is lost. If this qualifies as some other kind of act on our part, however, even though the person would be removed by the House, it is possible that the pension would be kept.

That is a separate issue from what I will speak to at the end, about what happens if the member for Peterborough decides to resign before the House can act along the lines of removal.

It is really important that we keep in mind that there are some precedents from recent times that are not direct, but relevant. We had the case dealing with the letter sent by the Chief Electoral Officer to the Speaker and what effect that should have in terms of the right to vote and sit of two members of the House, which raised a point of parliamentary privilege. There was a tussle in the House on whether the House should wait for judicial review or whether the effect should be immediate. As a result, the so-called “Fair Elections Act” has made it clear that it does not have an automatic effect until it is clear that the courts have already dealt with it.

We continue to believe that the best interpretation of the act, as it was written, was that the effect was immediate. Of course, that was only a suspension; we are not talking about expulsion. It was completely within the realm of acceptable interpretation to think that the Canada Elections Act would suspend two members as a compliance measure for co-operating with the Chief Electoral Officer.

Here, we are talking about expulsion, so it is not the case that the member for Burnaby—New Westminster has stood up and moved for an immediate expulsion. He has only moved for an immediate suspension, and that is really important to note. We already have had a degree of due process through the court process and the process leading up to the judge's decision that the member for Peterborough was guilty of the charges. It is not analogous to another case we have recently seen, which is in the Senate where three senators were summarily suspended with virtually no due process in the Senate itself, but also with no conviction in the courts. There was nothing else outside of the Senate to which to refer, to say, “this is a reason for us to suspend them; we can rely on that”. Here, we have something on which we can rely.

I submit that it makes every sense to rely on that up until such time as the faint hope occurs and a conditional or absolute discharge is the sentence instead of something more. At that point, then the suspension could be vacated. PROC can make clear that it would be the effect on this immediate suspension. We do not have to wait for it, though. The burden has already shifted because of the court process and because a judge, in full independence and neutrality, has determined that there is guilt. It is completely reasonable that the member for Burnaby—New Westminster has structured the motion so that there would be an immediate suspension. As for the rest, it would go to PROC, and that includes of course the question of expulsion.

For my part, I am not going to prejudge what we might hear from those better versed than I in parliamentary law and election law, but from my perspective, expulsion should not occur until appeal measures have been exhausted. That would be the position I would be taking, but that is expulsion. Suspension can occur immediately, without an affront to any due process values.

It is also important to note that one of the effects of a suspension is that, at that point in time, the member would not have the right to speak in the House. I would submit that this does not mean the member would not have the right to testify before PROC with respect to what should be done post-suspension. However, as for standing up in this House and, for example, as seems to be the wont of this member, attacking others for what has happened to him, that would not be permitted. That is one salutary effect of suspension.

PROC should be dealing with this forthwith. I have every confidence that is what will happen, given the importance of the matter and given how my friend, the chair of PROC, runs the show. I think it is something that will be taken very seriously.

I would like to end, before moving a motion, by saying that we have come up against an issue here according to whcih it is possible for the member to resign in order to preempt the effects of an expulsion. If he actually is expelled, and that is technically what happens to him, he does lose his pension under the Members of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act. If he resigns, however, there is a loophole and the bill that is about to come back from committee, Bill C-518, would not change it. It would not apply to the member. Despite some subamendments I moved today, it would not apply because the Canada Elections Act is not included in the list of offences covered, and because the conviction has to have occurred after the act would enter into force. For those two reasons, he would keep his pension if he resigns.

With that, I move:

That the motion be amended to add, after “Commons”, the following:

“, including:

(i) an expulsion of the Member, should a conviction under section 443 of the Canada Elections Act not be set aside by a competent authority and no further rights of appeal remain available to the Member, together with the appropriate Order, in those circumstances, for the Speaker to issue his warrant to the Chief Electoral Officer for the issue of a writ for the election of a Member to serve in the present Parliament for the electoral district of Peterborough;

(ii) the appropriate approach respecting the Member's pensions, travel status expense account, insurance and other benefits;

(iii) the appropriate approach respecting the employment of the staff, and management of the offices, of the Member; and

(iv) any other questions that arise as a result of this matter and its disposition.”

[Amendments to Standing Orders, October 31st, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, that was probably the most gracious wrapping up I have heard in ages.

First, we need to remember and take note of the context in which our colleague opposite spoke. This motion is a take it or leave it deal.

We are voting on a motion that, if adopted, will immediately amend the Standing Orders. These amendments will not be sent to committee and will not undergo a more in-depth legislative review.

That is quite important, because my hon. colleague across the way has already pointed out a couple of problematic parts of the motion that are not mere technicalities, as I think the sponsor might suggest they are. Rather, they are mistakes in the drafting of the bill, which suggests there may be others that we have not yet found.

The motion seeks to increase the independence of members who belong to a recognized party in the House and the rights of independent members. These are principles worthy of our support.

However, this motion does not give sufficient consideration to the legitimate and critical role that parties play in the Westminster system and tradition. It therefore does not establish a fair balance between the rights of members as individuals and the effective operation of the parties and thus of the House of Commons and this Parliament.

The motion does not make it possible to strike a fair balance between promoting the independence of members and maintaining the legitimate role of parties in our British-style parliamentary system, which is party-oriented. This is particularly true when it comes to the changes proposed to the methods used for selecting committee members.

I would like to point out that the NDP has been proposing democratic reform initiatives for years, the most recent of which sought to give the Speaker more authority. We are working on more practical and balanced reforms that will increase the independence of members while still allowing this Parliament to operate.

This includes defending the rights of independent members, as we did when the government wanted to restrict the right to propose amendments at report stage and when we supported the amendments to Bill C-23 proposed by the hon. member for Edmonton—St. Albert, which would have allowed independent members to form riding associations and raise money between elections.

The NDP continues to work on other balanced reforms in order to increase the independence of members, including during question period and in the work in committees, and to make Parliament work. We will present those in due course.

Let us now talk about fairness. The lotteries form the basis for the proposal by the hon. member for Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia for forming committees. The lotteries are purely formal exercises of fairness, because they leave no room for a conscious effort to promote real equality. It would be impossible for a party like the NDP to ensure that both sexes are equally represented in committee with the hon. member's proposed reform.

The whip and the House leader pay attention to these criteria when they designate members for the committees. We would not be able to be as proactive when it comes to other considerations regarding diversity, including regional representation, and the ability to communicate in both official languages.

We can also consider things that have an impact on the effectiveness of Parliament. In our system the opposition—especially the official opposition—must be in a position to resolutely hold the government accountable for its actions. In many ways, the domination of the executive, primarily as a result of the combined powers of the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister's Office, has so compromised the role of the House of Commons during times of majority government that we need to protect the remaining tools the opposition has to remain effective. We need to ensure that the most informed opposition members sit on the committees that study the issues they are knowledgeable about or that are related to their role as critics. We also need to ensure that the role of oral question period is not compromised by a weakening of the coordinated strategies that the opposition parties sometimes use during this period to ensure that the questions being asked of the government—sometimes over a period of several days or weeks—are consistent and persistent.

One recent example was Bill C-23, the so-called Fair Elections Act. Members of the NDP asked questions every day for weeks. The government ended up making concessions in some areas, which is very important.

My colleague's motion would hurt the opposition's ability to hold the government accountable during question period by making this period less organized and less effective.

I would finish by returning to the point made by my colleague across the way. There is a drafting problem in the motion, which basically says the lists for composing committees are taken from the list for the consideration of private members' business. The member's draft then says that ministers, as well as Speakers and Deputy Speakers, shall be removed from the list.

In fact, ministers would not be on that list in the first place, because it is the list for private member's bills. Also, parliamentary secretaries now appear not to be part of the list draw because they would not be part of private members' business, but it was clearly not the intention of the member to exclude them. Therefore, my worry is that there are other drafting problems, and that is certainly one of them.

I would end by saying that probably the most important reform, apart from reforms that we will be bringing forward on question period and on the composition of committees, has to be how we structure the House of Commons in the first place.

In the NDP we believe strongly that our electoral system is broken and is unfair. We believe that if we had a proportional representation system, the way in which the House is elected would profoundly change the way the House works. That would include how question period would work. It would create a rebalancing of the power of MPs within parties and it would create a more collegial environment that would be more open to compromise.

At some level, the member's motion has to be lauded, because the underlying concern is real. He is concerned about Independents who are not part of a recognized party in the House, and he is obviously also concerned about the independence of members who are in a party but who at any given time may feel they are not getting the roles they would like, either in question period or at committee.

These are real concerns and they do have to be addressed, but I firmly believe that the way that the motion has been drafted and the fact it would be immediately implemented if we voted for it mean that we have to wait for reforms that will accomplish some of what the member is trying to do with a differently drafted reform.