We’re going to take a break from covering Bills today to look at a Private Member’s Motion that I think is worth knowing about.
M-86 – Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform – establishes a Citizens’ Assembly to look into electoral reform.
M-86 calls on the House to:
Recognize that:
- Representative democracy is a fundamental part of Canadian society
- In Canada’s current electoral system, the majority of voters cast ballots for a candidate who does not get elected, and many voters feel that election results do not accurately reflect their views
- A Leger poll conducted in September 2020 showed that 80% of Canadians support the idea of striking a non-partisan, independent citizens’ assembly on electoral reform
- Many Canadians are concerned with the health of Canada’s democracy, including voter distrust and disengagement, low voter turnout, and the polarization of politics
- All politicians, and all parties, are widely perceived by the public to have a vested interest in the design of the electoral system
- Citizens’ assemblies have considerable legitimacy and public trust because they are independent, non-partisan, representative bodies of citizens
- Citizens’ assemblies have been used successfully in Canada, Australia, Belgium, France, Ireland, Scotland, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom to tackle difficult issues through nuanced public deliberation
- A citizens’ assembly on electoral reform would give citizens a leadership role in building consensus on a specific model for electoral reform for Canada
And, in the opinion of the House, the government should create a Canadian citizens’ assembly on electoral reform, which would:
- Consist of citizens selected by sortition, an impartial selection process to ensure the assembly’s independence and non-partisanship
- Reflect the diversity of the Canadian population, including a representation and meaningful participation of age groups, genders, ethnicities, languages, socioeconomic backgrounds, and geographic regions including from First Nations, Inuit and Metis peoples
- Determine if electoral reform is recommended for Canada, and, if so, recommend specific measures that would foster a healthier democracy
So basically because politicians all want whatever system will give them the best odds of winning an election Lisa wants us to create a Citizens’ Assembly to decide what electoral system we should use. (She isn’t wrong with this, Trudeau’s promise of electoral reform falling through was blamed on the parties not agreeing on what system we should switch to. Giving the power to the public to decide what system we should use takes the choice away from politicians.)
This isn’t a new idea. We’ve had two assemblies like this before, one in British Columbia and one in Ontario, both looking at electoral reform. None of their recommendations got the required support in a referendum, but that would only show support for keeping the First Past the Post system we currently use.
Debate
The Liberals have some thoughts on this. First, Lisa says that low voter turnout is a sign that we need to change the system. The Liberals argue that some ridings always have around 70% turnout, so things are fine. They also argue that our country ranks pretty high on a lot of rankings, so we should stick with the system that works. “The biggest and oldest democracies in the world, like Canada, are doing well”. They do say that they’ll support M-86 though, and would like to see the requirement to pass a referendum set at more than 50% of the vote. (They call out that the British Columbia referendum got 57% support, but it needed 60% to pass.)
The Conservatives have questions about making sure everyone is properly represented on the assembly. They call out that there are only 70,000 Inuit in Canada, so making sure they have an accurate representation on the assembly it would need to have at least 500 members. (Note here: The Ontario Assembly had about 103 members and the British Columbia one had 161. Having 500 for all of Canada doesn’t seem that hard to do. British Columbia had decided to pick 2 people from each riding in the province, so that would probably do a decent job making sure everyone’s represented as well)
The Bloc Québécois say they’ll support M-86. They say they’re concerned by young people feeling like the current system is pushing them out of politics, and want to hear what can be done to fix that. (They also say they’d like to see a Citizens’ Assembly take a look at how politics in general, like the debates, are conducted and how to improve it)
Progress
M-86 went up for a vote and failed with 101 voting in favour and 220 voting against.
| Party | For | Against | Paired |
|---|---|---|---|
| Liberal | 39 | 108 | 0 |
| Conservative | 3 | 112 | 0 |
| Bloc Quebecois | 30 | 0 | 0 |
| NDP | 24 | 0 | 0 |
| Green | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| Independent | 3 | 0 | 0 |
There was a pretty decent split in the Liberal vote here, so if you’re in a Liberal riding and want to know how your MP voted just use the Vote Record link above to see which way they voted.
As for the Conservatives, Ben Lobb (Conservative, Ontario, Huron—Bruce), John Nater (Conservative, Ontario, Perth—Wellington), and Alex Ruff (Conservative, Ontario, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound) supported M-86.