When will the Conservatives have something constructive to say on electoral reform?
The process to fulfill the promise to Make Every Vote Count in 2019 is well underway!
CPAC is broadcasting the meetings of the all party Electoral Reform Committee live,Canadians are tweeting in, experts and civil society groups are hosting symposiums, MPs are hosting town halls, the electoral reform committee will be travelling, and the government has launched a new website with information inviting Canadians to get involved. https://www.canada.ca/en/campaign/electoral-reform/learn-about-canadian-federal-electoral-reform.html
Today marked the third public meeting of the Electoral Reform Committee. The expert witnesses were current Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand and former Chief Electoral Officer Jean-Pierre Kingsley.
The purpose of the committee is to study alternatives to first-past-the-post, consult the public through a variety of means, and design a new electoral system consistent with the government's five guiding principles.
Nine out of the twelve members of the all-party committee on electoral reform seem to be more or less strenuously engaged in listening deeply to the expert witnesses and asking relevant questions.
Unfortunately, three members of the committee, the Conservatives, seem to have only one line. They utilize 98% of their time on the committee making speeches with it, and hound the witnesses with the same questions about it.
And it's already getting old.
Example discussion topics: Reaching marginalized communities, youth engagement, electoral boundaries and communities of interest, experiences around the world, unique Canadian needs, types of proportional systems and their values, etc.
Conservative response to any of the above:
"Canadians deserve a referendum."
"We need a referendum." ""Canadians are not going to take this sitting down!"
"Consensus is building for a referendum."
"Only a referendum can engage 9 million Canadians."
"Let's talk about past referendums."
"Let's talk about legislation for referendums."
"Do you or do you not agree that any change should be subject to a referendum?"
"What turnout is desirable for a referendum?"
"How many town halls would we have to have to involve the same number of people who would vote in a referendum - 128,000?"
Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
If someone asked one of them, "What's the weather like today?" the response would be "People in sunny places demand a referendum."
I'm not saying that none of the other MPs don't also have agendas - personal or partisan - beyond the five guiding principles of the committee. But they're not wasting hardly any of their allocated question time on them, let alone every minute of it.
What's going on?
To borrow a phrase from a recently departed Prime Minister, "Let's be clear."
So far, we have four parties attempting to utilize the committee proceedings as a meaningful learning process and discussion, and one party who is using the proceedings to run a campaign.
Every question to the witnesses (ten versions of the same question) seems calculated to elicit an answer that can be used later, in the service of their campaign objective.
Although all MPs have been invited to hold town halls in their ridings, the Conservatives - who are apparently so concerned with engaging Canadians that we must have a national vote - are so far refusing to do so. Instead, some MPs are sending ten percenters to their constituents that look like this:
How this kind of thing consults or educates constituents on electoral reform, I don't know. Makes you wonder what kind of flyers might be landing on doorsteps if we did have a referendum.
At the risk of sounding a bit "right", our taxes pay for this kind of "consultation." On a more serious note, by failing to make people in their ridings aware of how they can meaningfully participate in a discussion of what is important to them in a new electoral system, these MPs are doing their constituents a disservice.
If attempting to force the government to break an election promise supported by two other parties is what the real goal is, the honourable way to do it would be to invite constituents to weigh in with their concerns on electoral reform itself. They could do this by encouraging their constituents to look at the education material the government has put together, think about their own values, and have their say. If any of the materials put together by the Library of Parliament analysts are inaccurate, I'm sure those analysts - and the committee - would appreciate the feedback. With 12 committees/commissions/assemblies behind us, 90 countries using PR, and 50 years of research, there's lots of excellent research and practical experience to draw from. So far that doesn't seem to be the problem. The problem is the Conservatives want to change the channel.
We Want Conservatives Involved Constructively
As frustrated as some of us get, and as much as it can feel like an unavoidable "us against them" battle, it actually really pains many of us when the Conservative Party behaves this way.
We hope that many Conservative MPs are taking a thoughtful approach, and may distance themselves from the party strategy. Electoral reform isn't a win/lose issue, and this consultation process shouldn't be, either. It's this kind of dynamic that proportional representation seeks to fix. Our representative democracy belongs to all of us. In the 2015 federal election, 2,865,362 Conservative voters elected no-one. The basic values behind proportional representation are fairness and equality - that these voters, too, should be able to elect an MP. That voters of all parties deserve representation in proportion to their numbers. If we are not Conservative voters ourselves, we all have friends, neighbours and family who are. We don't want those people kept in the dark and excluded from a meaningful conversation. The Conservatives may not be able to stop reform and we don't want those fellow voters looking at a new ballot in 2019 and wondering why this process didn't include them. In many cases, the most natural people to reach Conservative voters on this issue - to help them understand the values and options - are other Conservatives, especially the Conservative Party MPs and leaders within the party. By failing to do so now, they're failing their own voters, and failing all Canadians. As Jean-Pierre Kingsley said today, it is the responsibility of each member of the committee to do their utmost to engage Canadians in the process this committee is tasked with. Not the process that the Conservatives would prefer. Doing the Right Thing Takes Courage Two Conservative MPs on the Electoral Reform Committee - Gérard Deltell and Jason Kenney - have supported proportional representation in the past.
In 2011, Gérard Deltell spoke as in the Quebec Assembly as the Leader of the ADQ, advocating proportional representation. He lamented the fact that the during the 18 years the PQ was in power, despite supporting PR, they failed to implement it. He lamented the fact that the governing Liberals, despite running on a platform of PR in 2003, failed to implement it. And what did Deltell feel was needed to accomplish the task? A referendum? "Courage." Perhaps some MPs need a healthy dose of that now.
