House of Commons CANADA Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs PROC Ï NUMBER 017 Ï 1st SESSION Ï 38th PARLIAMENT EVIDENCE Tuesday, February 1, 2005 Chair The Honourable Don Boudria All parliamentary publications are available on the ``Parliamentary Internet Parlementaire´´ at the following address: http://www.parl.gc.ca 1 Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs Tuesday, February 1, 2005 Ï (1110) [Translation] [English] Mr. Bernard Colas (Acting President, Law Commission of The Chair (Hon. Don Boudria (Glengarry—Prescott—Rus- Canada): Yes, Mr. Chairman, I'll make a brief statement of five to sell, Lib.)): Order please, colleagues. eight minutes. [Translation] The Chair: Perfect; go ahead. To start with, allow me to offer everyone my best wishes for the new year, since this is our first meeting of the year. Mr. Bernard Colas: I'll make this presentation first in English, [English] then in French, and, lastly, in English again. We've filed written versions of our presentation. As you know, we had briefly started on our mandate of electoral reform just prior to the adjournment at Christmas. At that time we First I would like to thank you very much for inviting the Law had decided that the minute we came back we wanted to hear from a Commission to appear before you today. particular group of witnesses, namely the Law Commission of Canada, and of course as well from Dr. Nathalie Des Rosiers because As you know, in March 2004 the Law Commission tabled in she of course at the time was leading the group. Now they're in Parliament its final report on electoral reform. Today we have different places, but they're both here together again. basically two messages to express to the committee. First, the Law [Translation] Commission went through extensive consultation with Canadians in order to come up with a made-in-Canada constitution-proof solution. This morning I'm pleased to welcome the following witnesses: We are here also to express our possible cooperation with the Nathalie Des Rosiers, Dean of the Faculty of Civil Law of the committee in order to give the committee access to this wealth of University of Ottawa; Bernard Colas, Acting President of the Law information. Second, the Law Commission's recommendation to add Commission of Canada; and Steven Bittle, Senior Research Officer an element of proportionality to Canada's electoral system could act of that same organization. as a vital starting point for examining this important issue. In [English] particular, we would encourage the committee, in order to accelerate the process, to consider our recommendation to prepare draft Perhaps I could start with Madame Des Rosiers. I wonder if you legislation based on the Law Commission's proposed system. A or Mr. Colas would have a brief statement to make to us. Then after parliamentary committee could use this draft legislation to initiate a that colleagues no doubt will be very interested in asking a number broad-based and inclusive public consultation process on electoral of questions. system reform. I want to remind colleagues that we must end our deliberations at 12:30 so that we can have a meeting about agenda. There are agenda Let me say a few words on the Law Commission and the genesis items that we have to deal with today, in particular in regard to the of its project on electoral reform. plan of the committee and the study we're going to undertake in this regard. The Law Commission is a body that is very precious for Canadian democracy. It is an independent federal law reform agency that If we don't do it today, we're not going to be able to go to some of advises Parliament on how to improve and modernize Canada's laws. the places we want to go because there won't be airline tickets left. In brief, it is the law reform voice of Canadians to Parliament. The We have to do it today. So at 12:30 I'll have to interrupt the meeting. work we undertake stems from the important insights gained by [Translation] engaging Canadians on issues of law and justice. We'll now hear from our witnesses. In 2000, as part of the Law Commission's work on governance Do you want to make a brief statement before taking questions issues, we heard from many Canadians that they were increasingly from my colleagues? disenchanted with our system of democratic governance. Committee [English] members will be familiar with the terms that have been used by some critics to characterize a growing concern, including democratic Mr. Colas. deficit and democratic malaise. 2 PROC-17 February 1, 2005 Although we recognized at that time that there is no magic bullet reform principles. The process can also enable Canadians to speak that will address all concerns regarding Canada's system of out on other elements that could be reformed in order to improve our governance, there was a growing consensus that electoral reform parliamentary democracy. would be a good starting point for energizing and strengthening Canadian democracy. Many Canadians we spoke with stated that it [English] was time to examine whether the existing electoral system continues to meet the democratic goals and aspirations of Canadians. In brief, the Law Commission of Canada believes that adding an element of proportionality to the electoral system would allow In addition to noting the distortion between the votes received and Parliament to more completely represent our society and to lower the seats in the House of Commons—a party could get 40% of the votes barriers to greater diversity among our representatives, including and 60% of the seats—many citizens expressed concern with the women, certain minority group members, and aboriginal people. It under-representation of women and certain minority group members would promote fairness and encourage the entry of new voices in the and aboriginal peoples in our system of democratic governance. This legislature, which would in turn invigorate this country's parliamen- was the genesis of the Law Commission's electoral reform project. tary democracy. Our position reflects the sentiments of a growing Ï (1115) number of Canadian citizens and provincial governments, who believe it is time to seriously examine and reform the electoral Allow me now to move on to the two central points of our system. All of these initiatives underscore the importance of the message, that is to say the public engagement process used by the committee's work here today. Law Commission of Canada and the implementation strategy that we propose. In conclusion, I would encourage you to consider the insight that The important thing for the Commission was to determine the the Law Commission has gained throughout the course of our views of the largest possible number of Canadians and to permit the electoral reform project, particularly the strategies we employed to expression of various interests. First we conducted preliminary engage citizens on this important issue. In addition, we believe that research. Then we asked Canadians questions through a discussion our work could act as an important basis for this committee's work paper. As a result of that discussion paper, we were able to obtain the on electoral system reform. opinions of a number of citizens and citizens groups. We took part in various events and consultations. Once again, thank you very much for allowing us to appear here today. A full list of activities and seminars in which we took part in order to meet Canadians appears on page 188 of the English version of the My colleague Steve Bittle, who is the senior researcher, which paper and page 207 of the French version. means that he made sure this would come to an end and be to the This consultation enabled us to prepare the recommendations satisfaction of the Canadian people, as well as my colleague Nathalie contained in this report. In preparing them, we developed 10 criteria Des Rosiers, who was president at that time and who made sure that on the basis of which we could analyze the present system and other Steve worked correctly and also that all commission members could existing models around the world. Those criteria are relatively useful agree on a text that would help Canadian democracy, and I will be and are outlined in Chapter 3: representation of parties, demographic very happy to answer any questions you may have. representation, diversity of ideas, geographic representation, effec- tive government, accountable government, effective opposition, Thank you. valuing votes and regional balance. Ï (1120) Using these various criteria, we were able to design the system we recommend. In fact the idea is to add an element of proportionality to [Translation] the present system. Two-thirds of members would be elected under the current system, and one-third would be elected from lists The Chair: Thank you very much. established by parties. Those lists would be provincial or territorial. We also ensured that the recommendations contained in this paper Professor Des Rosiers, do you have a statement? were consistent with the Constitution of Canada. So there would be no need for any constitutional change. In our view, we've managed a Ms. Nathalie Des Rosiers (Dean, Faculty of Civil Law, real coup in finding a solution suited to Canada as a whole. University of Ottawa): I only want to say two things. I was president when the project was conceived. I had been vice-president The second point concerns action that the committee should take of the Commission since 1997. Since the inception of the new immediately. Our report was drafted without any political after- organization that was the Law Commission of Canada at the time, thought.