Event Summary:
Summary by
Sean
Thursday, 18 February, 2010
McMillan LLP, Brookfield Place
181 Bay Street, Suite 4400
Moderator:
Sujit Choudhry, Scholl Chair, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto
Panelists:
Matthew Mendelson, Founding Director, Mowat Centre for Policy Innovation, School of Public Policy and Governance, University of Toronto
Larry Gordon, Executive Director, Fair Vote Canada
Don Newman, Broadcaster and Journalist
On February 18th, 2010 the CIC hosted a panel of Canada's top minds to talk about our the public's faltering faith in Canadian democracy. The discussion was moderated by Sujit Choudhry of UofT's Faculty of Law. The panellists were Matthew Mendelsohn of the Mowat Centre for Policy Innovation, Larry Gordon of Fair Vote Canada, and veteran CBC broadcaster Don Newman.
The solutions offered by each panellist varied considerably but all were unanimous on one point: our federal institutions need fixing.
Matthew Mendelsohn was the first to address the intimate crowd. He noted that it is wrong to point to low voter turnout as the problem. The last federal election produced the lowest turnout in Canadian history but Mendelsohn said that citizens are not to blame. He said that citizens are just as engaged as ever but no longer see traditional party politics as the best option for political involvement. Our society has evolved but political institutions aren't keeping up and are failing to provide the debate and dialogue necessary to engage the citizen. Parliament has become dysfunctional, the federal bureaucracy is disheartened, and citizens have lost touch with democratic institutions. Mendelsohn pointed to candidate nomination as a way to reconnect citizens with party politics. Candidate selection is often seen as a series of backroom deals where parties can appoint whomever they like to the House of Commons. Mendelsohn proposed that Elections Canada should be charged with regulating nomination battles to make the process more transparent.
The regional dimension of Canada's parties has brought an end to the era of big brokerage politics and Mendelsohn said our institutions should also reflect such changes. Our current institution were designed for two parties but the party structure we have now would be better suited by proportional representation. Mendelsohn concluded by saying that although we still have a functioning democratic society in general, the failure of our democratic institutions will have a corrosive effect on the quality of life we enjoy.
Larry Gordon of Fair Vote Canada then elaborated on why proportional representation is a necessary next step for Canada. He noted that in the last election he cast a ballot in his local riding but received no representation in the House of Commons.
Gordon blamed Canada's current parliamentary dysfunction on the fact that both citizens and politicians have become victims of our first-past-the-post system. Citizens often consider majority governments to have a mandate from the people but Gordon pointed out that since World War One the country has only had four governments that actually received a majority of the popular vote. Gordon said that federal politics is seen as a horse race between the parties so politicians secure their voting base with wedge issues rather than relevant policy debate.
Gordon looked at the results from the last federal election to point out how different the House of Commons would be under a system of proportional representation. Most notably, he said, the Green Party would have about two dozen seats. Gordon said that our Parliament is in the midst of a series of unstable minority governments and that proportional representation would force leaders to work with each other
CBC broadcaster Don Newman was the final panellist to speak. Upon taking the podium he used some topical humour to tell the audience he didn't agree with the previous two speakers.
"I think that the idea of proportional representation is the most oversold idea since the commercials telling you to buy a Toyota," Newman said.
For Newman, who has been reporting from the Hill for almost thirty years, the solution isn't so simple. He said that even if proportional representation were to become a reality, the parties' inability to cooperate would become even more problematic --with more voices in the House, even less would get done.
Newman agreed that the string of minority governments has been problematic but instead proposed a basic change in Parliamentary rules. The political jockeying that happens on the Hill is largely the result of parties playing by the polls. Newman said that parties don't even consider the substance of a confidence vote because their only concern is how they would perform in an election.
"We're always in the pre-election period," Newman said proposing that the Governor General should play a more active role in maintaining governance between elections.
Newman's solution pointed to a precedent set by Lester Pearson. On a quiet night in 1968 the House sat half empty. The Liberals were defeated on a confidence vote and technically the government should have fallen. In the following days, Pearson arranged for a second vote --based on confidence alone-- and avoided an unwanted election.
Newman said that the rules of Parliament can easily be made to accommodate such changes and adding a second confidence vote would allow parties to cooperate on policy without worrying about the polls.
Following the speeches from each panellist there was a lively debate over the merits of proportional representation. The room seemed to be overwhelmingly in support of the idea but Newman maintained his stance against the alternate voting system.
"You can't change one part of the system and say that the rest would just stay the same."
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