Leduc Affidavit (FINAL)
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Court File No.: CV-19-00628 883 0000 ONTARIO SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE B E T W E E N: FAIR VOTING BC and SPRINGTIDE COLLECTIVE FOR DEMOCRACY SOCIETY Applicants - and - ATTORNEY GENERAL OF CANADA Respondent AFFIDAVIT OF LAWRENCE LEDUC I, Lawrence LeDuc, of the City of Toronto, in the Province of Ontario, AFFIRM AS FOLLOWS: My qualifications and acknowledgment of my duty as an expert 1. I am Professor Emeritus of Political Science in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto. I hold a PhD in Political Science from the University of Michigan. 1 2. I have taught Political Science at the University of Toronto since 1986. My areas of specialization are Comparative Politics (including Electoral Systems), Political Behaviour (including Political Participation and Voting Behaviour), and Research Methods. 3. In 2015, I received the Mildred A. Schwartz lifetime achievement award from the Canadian politics section of the American Political Science Association. 4. From 2000 to 2003, I was asked by Elections: Canada to participate, together with Professor Jon Pammett of Carleton University, in several studies of the decline in voter turnout seen in the 2000 federal election. The first of these was an analysis of existing survey data and literature. Our report on this work (Jon H. Pammett, Lawrence LeDuc, Erin Thiessen and Antoine Bilodeau, Canadian Voting Turnout in Comparative Perspective) was delivered to Elections Canada in 2001. A subsequent report (Administrative Factors in Nonvoting in the 2000 Federal Election) was also provided to Elections: Canada in connection with that work. Based on this research, Elections: Canada commissioned a new survey of non-voters, which we designed, in April 2002. The field work for that survey was conducted by Decima Research. Our analysis of these data was delivered to Elections: Canada in several workshops and in our final report, which they published (Jon H. Pammett, and Lawrence LeDuc, Explaining the Turnout Decline in Canadian Federal Elections: A New Survey of Non-Voters (Ottawa, Elections Canada, 2003)). 5. From 2004 to 2010, I was a member of two Expert Groups (on Political Participation and Direct Democracy) convened by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) in Stockholm. I was a co-author and co-editor of Direct Democracy: The International IDEA Handbook (Stockholm, International IDEA, 2008). 2 6. In 2006-07, I served as a member of the Academic Advisory Committee for the Ontario Citizens’ Assembly, which was created by the Ontario government to consider proposals for electoral reform in Ontario. 7. In 2016, I testified as an expert witness at the hearings of the House of Commons Special Committee on Electoral Reform. 8. In 2017, I taught a special topics course at the University of Toronto on electoral reform in Canada. That course drew heavily on materials assembled by the Special Committee (including its Report to the House of Commons) and on previous investigations into the Canadian electoral system such as that of the Law Commission, whose report (Voting Counts: Electoral Reform in Canada, published in 2004) was used as one of the texts in that course. 9. I have written a number of books and articles dealing with elections, voting, and related topics, both in Canada and other countries. Among my recent works that might be considered relevant to this topic are: ● Absent Mandate: Strategies and Choices in Canadian Elections (University of Toronto Press, 2019) (with Harold D Clarke, Jane Jenson and Jon H. Pammett); ● Dynasties and Interludes: Past and Present in Canadian Electoral Politics, 2nd edition (Toronto, Dundurn Press, 2016) (with Jon H. Pammett and André Turcotte); ● Comparing Democracies 4: Elections and Voting in a Changing World (London, Sage, 2014) (with Richard G. Niemi and Pippa Norris) ● “Attitudes toward Democratic Norms and Practices: Canada in Comparative Perspective,” in Elisabeth Gidengil and Heather Bastedo, Canadian Democracy From the Ground Up (Vancouver, UBC Press, 2014) (with Jon H. Pammett) ● “Electoral Reform and Direct Democracy in Canada: When Citizens Become Involved,” West European Politics vol. 34 (2011), pp. 551-567; ● “Voter Turnout,” in Heather MacIvor, Election (Toronto, Emond Montgomery, 2010), pp. 251-67 (with Jon H. Pammett); 3 ● “The Failure of Electoral Reform Proposals in Canada”, Political Science vol. 61 (2009), pp. 41-62; ● “Coalition Government: When It Happens, How It Works”, in Peter H. Russell and Lorne Sossin (eds.), Parliamentary Democracy in Crisis (University of Toronto Press, 2009), pp. 123-135; ● “Voter Turnout in 2006: More Than Just the Weather” in Jon H. Pammett & Christopher Dornan (eds.), The Canadian Federal Election of 2006 (Toronto, Dundurn, 2006), pp. 318-342 (with Jon H. Pammett); ● “Making Votes Count: How Well Did Our Electoral System Perform?”, Electoral Insight, vol. 7 (January 2005), pp. 37-41; ● “Something Old, Something New: Electoral Reform in Japan”, in Henry Milner (ed.), Steps Toward Making Every Vote Count: Canada and Its Provinces in Comparative Context (Toronto, Broadview, 2004), pp. 175-90; ● Political Choice in Canada, (Toronto, McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1979). Abridged edition (Toronto, McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1980) (with Harold D. Clarke, Jane Jenson, and Jon H. Pammett). 10. Attached to this affidavit and marked as Exhibit “A” is a true copy of my curriculum vitae. 11. Attached to this affidavit and marked as Exhibit “B” is a true copy of my signed acknowledgement of expert’s duty in this case. 12. On 9 July 2020, the applicants in this matter retained me to draft an affidavit. I was asked to provide a fair, objective, and impartial opinion on the following four questions: (i) Can you explain the impact of Canada’s current First-Past-the-Post voting system on the distribution of parliamentary seats? What would change under other voting system? (ii) Can you explain the impact of Canada’s current First-Past-the-Post voting system on the representation of Canadian voters (including women, minorities, and ideologies)? What would change under other voting systems? (iii) Can you explain the impact of Canada’s current First-Past-the-Post voting system on the participation of Canadian voters in the electoral process? What would change under other voting systems? (iv) Can you provide an opinion on the previous use of Proportional 4 Representation systems in a Canadian context as well as broadly review previous efforts to transform voting systems in Canada? Attached to this affidavit and marked as Exhibit “C” is a true copy of the email sent by counsel for the applicant, retaining me as an independent expert. Summary of answers (1) The most important function of an electoral system is to produce a parliament that reflects accurately the choices of voters. Our first past the post electoral system (FPTP), which we inherited from Britain, has repeatedly failed that test in a number of significant ways over our history. As an alternative, a more proportional system would more accurately reflect the choices made by Canadian voters in elections. (2) FPTP produces parliaments that consistently under-represent women, many ethnic minorities, and political views other than those of the majority. Research in the field shows that more proportional electoral systems do a much better job of producing legislative bodies with more women and better representation of the diversity of the societies within which they operate. (3) Voter turnout, which has been a concern in Canada in recent years, is also higher under more proportional systems than under FPTP. This is because voters are more likely to feel that their votes “count” under more proportional models. In List PR systems, citizens also exhibit greater satisfaction with the operation of democratic political institutions more generally. (4) Since 1921, there have been a number of attempts to reform our electoral systems, both at the federal and provincial levels. For many reasons, including the complexity of the various reform proposals put forward as well as, principally, partisanship and 5 entrenched interests, none of these has been successful to date. Such efforts continue to be active because election outcomes in Canada continue to expose the deficiencies of FPTP and to highlight the need for greater proportionality in our legislative institutions. 1. Can you explain the impact of Canada’s current First-Past-the-Post voting system on the distribution of parliamentary seats? What would change under other voting system? 13. My colleague, Professor Peter Russell, who also testified before the House of Commons Special Committee on Electoral Reform, stated in that testimony that the most important function of an electoral system is to represent accurately the choices made by voters. I agree. However, our First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) electoral system regularly fails that test, both at the level of the individual voter and at the aggregate level. 14. While all Members of Parliament in Canada are expected to provide constituents with certain basic services such as assistance with citizenship issues or help in applying for government programs, FPTP at the individual level fails to provide any political representation at the constituency level to all those who voted for any candidate other than that of the winning party in their constituency. It thus generates millions of votes that do not translate into legislative seats (which some refer to as “wasted votes”), a characteristic of FPTP systems that has long been a central focus of the criticism of this system in the academic literature (Milner, 1999). The policy and legislative preferences of these voters are typically neither voiced by their MPs, who have in Canada increasingly voted along partisan lines (Library of Parliament, 2018), nor reflected in committee deliberations or in votes in Parliament. These voters therefore have significantly reduced voices in government compared to voters who voted for an elected 6 MP. Under a proportional representation (PR) system, on the other hand, the vast majority of voters see their votes counted toward the election of legislative representatives.