Reid playing role in early debate over electoral reform

Jeff Green | Jan 06, 2016

Scott Reid, MP for Lanark-Frontenac-Kingston, is stepping forward in response to a lack of clarity from the new Liberal government on the process they will use to come up with a new electoral system.

On December 8, during question period in the House of Commons, Minister of Democratic Reform Maryam Monsef reiterated a commitment made during the election campaign that last fall's election would be the last in Canada to be held using the so-called “first past the post” electoral system.

Monsef was asked if the government will hold a national referendum before instituting a new voting system, and her response was to say, “We are committed to an open and robust process of consultation and I will not prejudice the outcome of that process by committing to a referendum.”

Reid then stepped in to ask, “Is the minister really saying that the Canadian people are incapable of deciding in a referendum how they should be governed and how our elections should take place?”

Monsef responded that the “people of this country deserve to be consulted on a matter as important as democratic institutions” and added that consultation would take place from coast to coast to coast.

Monsef's refusal to commit to a referendum was followed, just after Christmas, by a statement by Government House Leader Dominic Leblanc on the CTV show Question Period, which appears to have closed the door on a referendum on electoral reform.

“Our plan is not to have a national referendum; our plan is to use parliament to consult Canadians. That’s always been our plan and I don’t have any reason to think that’s been changed,” Leblanc said.

“The response to the government's refusal to hold a referendum has been overwhelming,” said Scott Reid in an telephone interview on Tuesday. “All of the press - the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail, and others - have said the same thing: a referendum is the only way to make the process of changing something as fundamental as our electoral system legitimate.”

The process that the government has committed to is to form a special parliamentary committee, which will hold hearings across the country and will report back to Parliament in 18 months. Legislation will then have to be prepared, reviewed by a parliamentary committee at least once, passed through the house and then passed through the Senate. All this must be done with a view towards giving Elections Canada enough time to prepare for an election under a new system.

“I think they have set themselves a very difficult time line,” said Reid.

As opposition critic, Reid expects he will sit on the special committee.

He is convinced that the process being chosen flies in the face of democratic values because the system through which the Liberal government will face the electorate the next time will have been determined by the Liberal Government by virtue of their majority on the committee and in Parliament. He also thinks the committee's mandate is too broad because it includes issues such as electronic voting, which he said brings a whole series of its own technical challenges.

Reid said he would be fine with the special committee preparing a report to Parliament, but said that, “the government should produce a piece of legislation, which includes all the details about how the system will work, and then bring it to the people for a referendum before passing it through Parliament. In our system a referendum is not binding on the government, but it would have a lot of moral sway.”

The details matter, he says, because every nuance of the system will confer an advantage to one party or another in the next election.

For example, if a ranked ballot system is chosen, in which voters place a number next to each candidate indicating their 1st, 2nd , 3rd choice and so on, it matters whether the rules say that voters must place a number next to each candidate or they have the option of placing a number next to each candidate.

“A poll by Nanos research showed that 40% of Conservative voters, when asked what their second choice was, said they had no second choice,” said Reid. “If voters need to rank all the candidates in order for their votes to count at all, then the Conservative Party would lose votes, potentially a lot of votes.”

In both 2001 and 2005, Scott Reid published papers about electoral reform. At one time he argued that two referenda are required, one to establish that the electorate wanted to make a change, and one with three or four options for change that would be decided using ranked voting.

This week he said that those were policy papers and what he is concerned with now is dealing with what is on the table today.

“A groundswell of opinion says the public needs to vote on a new system to avoid the perception that the government will be serving their own interests with a system they force through. I think there is a chance that we can make the government alter their plans.”

He said that he has met, at his request, with Minister Monsef and her Chief of staff to express his views on the matter.

Reid also said that, in his view, a simple majority, 50% plus one, is sufficient to win a referendum. Historically, referendums on electoral reform in Canada have required a 60% yes vote to grant the yes side a victory.

Another aspect of the debate is precedence. In Canada there have been four referenda on electoral reform in provincial jurisdictions. No Canadian government has attempted to change the voting system simply by passing a piece of legislation.