The 2016 House of Commons Special Committee on Electoral Reform (nicknamed ERRE) was issued terms of reference in its investigation of electoral reform.
They are useful as guidance for any Citizens Assembly established in the future. For one thing it would be self-damaging for a Liberal government to refute the finds as the Liberal government they wrote the specifications itself.
They were:
1) Effectiveness and legitimacy: that the proposed measure would increase public confidence among Canadians that their democratic will, as expressed by their votes, will be fairly translated and that the proposed measure reduces distortion and strengthens the link between voter intention and the election of representatives; 2) Engagement: that the proposed measure would encourage voting and participation in the democratic process, foster greater civility and collaboration in politics, enhance social cohesion and offer opportunities for inclusion of underrepresented groups in the political process; 3) Accessibility and inclusiveness: that the proposed measure would avoid undue complexity in the voting process, while respecting the other principles, and that it would support access by all eligible voters regardless of physical or social condition; 4) Integrity: that the proposed measure can be implemented while safeguarding public trust in the election process, by ensuring reliable and verifiable results obtained through an effective and objective process that is secure and preserves vote secrecy for individual Canadians; 5) Local representation: that the proposed measure would ensure accountability and recognize the value that Canadians attach to community, to Members of Parliament understanding local conditions and advancing local needs at the national level, and to having access to Members of Parliament to facilitate resolution of their concerns and participation in the democratic process.
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The first and a couple others of the clauses strongly favour Proportional Representation, for how can a electoral system reflect voters sentiment if the elected representation is not proportional?
The terms of reference might be clearer in the idea of the election of district representatives that have broad public support. Elections are not just matter of choosing A or B or C, but rather in the graduated ranking of candidates/parties. Sometimes it is matter of being generally satisfied with either A or B but not by the election of C. That is one reason why transferable ballots in the AV or STV systems produce general satisfaction while plurality winner-take-all elections do not.
Alternative Voting guarantees the election of a district representative that has majority support, as opposed to a one elected with perhaps only 40 percent support or even less within the district. And STV guarantees that the multiple members elected in a district will represent a vast majority of the district voters - perhaps 80 to 90 percent. And any system using Single Voting in multi-member districts produces a high percentage of representation.
A friend wrote me: "BC Citizens’ Assembly was given the opportunity to decide for themselves what values they wanted to use to evaluate electoral systems by. Proportionality was one of them. The other two were local accountability and choice." More on that below.
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As to the term "local," I think we need to think what that means. Does it mean that each current riding that right now provides "local representation" has to be used in a future system? I think not.
One proposal for the expectations recommended for a future Citizens Assembly is as simple as this:
"Design a system that makes votes equal or nearly so, effective or nearly so, with local representation."
We should consider what is meant by local. A multi-member district covering a whole city should be considered as capable of producing local representation.
I think city-wide would be local. In music, a Toronto band is local to Toronto.
But probably no multi-member district would encompass all of Toronto, but a third or half the city would be workable for election of MLAs or MPs.
Other cities, even ones electing up to ten representatives, could be encompassed in just one district.
And what is thought of as local at one level today is thought of as not local at another level but that does not make sense. In areas outside major cities, we are saying that the present federal ridings and that the smaller provincial districts provide local representation. Realistically it should be alright to take an area the size of a federal riding as the size of a provincial multi-member district, electing two or three MLAs. If nowadays one MP is elected to provide "local representation," why not (in other elections) electing two or three MLAs to provide just as much "local representation" in the same area.
so I say, word the CA specs like this:
"Design a system that makes votes equal or nearly so, effective or nearly so, with local or regional representation, using single-member and/or multi-member districts, aligned with existing cities, counties, provinces or other existing political entities as desired and where possible."
Any system that provides proportionality must use multi-member districts of one sort or another. Regional top-up members are part of MMP -- the region-level election elects multiple members (one top-up in a region would do little good). STV at the district level can be part of MMP. etc.
Such specs clearly indicate Canada is not willing to accept a system where all voters and candidates across Canada are in one district. Although far-fetched, that was Hare's original proposal for STV in UK.
As well, a system where each voter casts only one vote in a multi-member district means that if enough people in a specific corner of a county or a city want, they have the ability to elect a representative just for them. That ensures very-local local representation if enough voters think that is very important.
A city-wide district does not have to mean (and should not mean) that only the views of one of the groups in the city would take all the district's seats but that all substantial groups in that district would have their due share of the district seats.
I would hope that the Citizens Assembly would propose a federal system where
*multi-member and single-member districts are used,
- cities are used to create multi-member districts electing 4 to 10 MPs
- portions of metropolises are used to create multi-member districts electing 4 to 10 MPs
- entire small provinces or portions of provinces are used to create multi-member districts electing 4 to 10 MPs.
and the most sparsely-settled parts of Canada would still use single-member districts (perhaps using Alternative Voting to ensure majority representation in the district),
and
*where each voter casts only one vote (preferably transferable).
Such a system at the district level would produce mixed roughly-proportional representation.
It also answers the goals of the BC Citizens’ Assembly: proportionality, local accountability and choice. In multi-member districts, voters are given a broad range of choices -- multiple parties and multiple candidates of each large party run in each district.
Perhaps top-up members could be added to fine-tune the proportionality at the regional level (provincial or sub-provincial)
or country-wide.
One simple national-level top-up would be this:
50 seats could be set aside and, looking at party totals country-wide, allocated seat by seat to each party that received at least 2 percent of the vote. Largest remainder system could be used to create the fairest result.
Such a top-up would be easy to apply and easy to explain to votes. A party getting 8 percent of the vote gets 4 of these seats; a party getting 32 percent would get 8 seats.
Although not as targeted as other forms of top-up, it would provide a modicum of representation to small parties spread across the country that might be under-represented in district-based systems or even in regional-based (sub-provincial or provincial) systems while still straining out parties (or independent candidates) with less than two percent support across the country.
The composition of the 50 top-up seats would also show in stark numbers the comparative strength of the parties country-wide and encourage votes to vote, as any increase of two percent of the vote (or perhaps a fraction thereof) would increase a party's representation in the House of Commons.
The top-up seats could be allocated to the most popular candidates of each party who had run in the district elections but had not been elected. I think this is something of the system used in Finland. An open-list top-up system. Party brass do not decide who takes the seats. But perhaps the party leader if not already elected could take a seat even if not run in the election, if a party so desired.
The 50 top-up would be allocated just based on overall party vote tallies, with no consideration of the election of MPs elected through district elections.
The 50 top-up seats could be added to the House of Commons, making a new total of 388 seats, or, perhaps half and half. A slight increase in the size of ridings could reduce the number of district MPs to say 310 and then the 50 top-up seat would add only 22 seats to the HofC. With districts restructured to accommodate multi-member districts, ridings in many cases would need re-drawing so both changes - reduction in number of seats and creation of multi-member districts) could happen at one time.
As well, know that having multi-member districts gives flexibility. This first change and future changes could be accommodated by simply adjusting the number of seats in affected districts with little or no redrawing of riding boundaries required.
So that is my idea of how to instruct a Citizens' Assembly and an example of a simple, effective and fair system that such a group of citizens so instructed could endorse.
Thanks for reading.
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