Drama on the Hill over electoral reform

MONSEF TRASHES REPORT CALLING FOR REFERENDUM

OTTAWA • Liberal minister Maryam Monsef accused a special committee studying electoral reform of not doing its job Thursday, even as committee members called their 333-page report an unprecedented show in cross-partisanship — and accused Monsef of either lying or not understanding the process.

During a raucous question period, the minister of Democratic Institutions reiterated that there’s “no consensus” on reform, drawing ire and mockery from the opposition. One MP said, incredulously, “people aren’t stupid.”

In what became a sticking point, Monsef said the committee was asked to “recommend a specific system,” and “it did not do that.” But as opposition members pointed out Thursday afternoon, the committee’s mandate was to study various options — not to recommend a single alternative.

What the committee did recommend, in a report released Thursday morning, was a referendum on changing Canada’s voting system to proportional representation, where the share of seats more closely reflects the percentage of the popular vote each political party gets — the type of system a big majority of committee witnesses and public participants wanted.

That’s opposed to the current first-past-the-post system, in which candidates who win the most votes in a riding are elected. It is often accused of being disproportionate, since parties can win majorities with fewer than 40 per cent of the popular vote, as in the past two elections.

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Liberals campaigned on 2015’s election being the last to use first-past-the-post.

It’s a win for the Tories, who’ve been gunning for a referendum from the beginning, though they haven’t stated a preferred system. It’s also a win for the NDP and Greens, who advocate for proportional representation.

But not all MPs on the committee were in harmony.

In a supplementary report, the Liberals on the committee said they don’t believe Canadians are engaged enough, and committee recommendations are “rushed,” “too radical” and “racing toward a predetermined deadline” — a deadline the government itself had set.

Another supplementary report from the NDP and Green Party stated both have “serious concerns” about a referendum, though it remains “an option.” It also offered two specific systems — mixed-member or urbanrural — the government could consider, both of which score well on the Gallagher Index, a tool developed to rate how proportional electoral systems are.

In the Commons on Thursday, holding up a piece of paper with a large equation printed on it, Monsef called that tool “an incomprehensible formula” and said in presenting it, the committee “did not complete the hard work we had expected it to.”

She stated the committee was asking the government to “choose your own adventure” and said the opposition was asking for “a referendum on the following: Would Canadians like to take the square root of the sum of the squares of the difference between the percentage of the seats for each party and the percentage of the votes passed?”

“What happened in question period today was an absolute disgrace,” Conservative leader Rona Ambrose said. “What Minister Monsef did today was just dismiss all of (the committee’s) hard work and insult Canadians. … She also lied in the House.”

In misrepresenting the committee mandate, “she was either lying or she doesn’t understand what the committee was doing,” Cullen said.

Green leader Elizabeth May said Monsef should apologize for “the most insulting treatment imaginable” of a parliamentary committee. “If she meant what she said, it’s appalling.”

Liberals are launching an online consultation that will be advertised with postcards sent to 15 million households, one way they hope to find “broad consensus.” If it focuses on “values,” as Monsef implied, Cullen says it risks being akin to a “teen magazine” or “dating service” survey.

Still, no one was ready to throw in the towel. As Monsef said, the government remains “committed to the commitment that we made.”