Submission to House of Commons Electoral Reform Committee

Monday, July 26, 2016: 2-4:30pm

Peter H. Russell, University of Toronto

Making Our Representative Democracy More Representative

1. In thinking about electoral reform, the first principle the priority value should be
enhancing the capacity of elections to produce a House of Commons that represents the
political preferences of the people.
2. Of course, there are other values and concerns that deserve consideration in improving
the federal electoral system, but they are subordinate in importance to enhancing the
elected chamber of Parliaments capacity to represent the political choices of Canadians.
A reform that addressed those other concerns would be a failure if it left us with a House
of Commons as politically unrepresentative of the electorate as does, the first-past-thepost, simple plurality system.
The Unrepresentative Outcome of First-Past-the Post Elections
3. As long as federal elections were contested by just two political parties, the first-pastthe-post system produced parliaments in which there was a pretty good match between
the distribution of seats in the House of Commons and the popular vote for political
parties. The majority governments that these parliaments supported on all but one
occasion were led by leaders whose party members won a majority of seats in the House
and whose candidates won over 50% of the popular vote.
4. But that situation changed in the 1921 election that was contested by three parties the
Conservatives, Liberals and Progressives. The Mackenzie King Liberals won the most
seats (but not a majority), the Progressives came second, and Arthur Meighens
Conservatives finished in third place. From that 1921 election until today, Canada has
had a multi-party political system at the federal level, with three or more political parties
competing for seats in parliamentary elections. Elections held since then have rarely
resulted in governments with both a majority of seats and a majority of the popular vote.
In fact, only 3 of the 30 elections held since 1921 have had that result Mackenzie
Kings Liberals in 1940, Diefenbakers Progressive Conservatives in 1958 and
Mulroneys PCs in 1984. A much more frequent outcome has been one-party majority
governments supported by much less than a majority of the electorate.
5. In my book, Two Cheers for Minority Government, I set out the score-card on the
governmental consequences of federal elections from 1921 to 2006 when the book was
published. We have had 3 federal elections since then. Let me add in those results and
give you the overall picture for the 30 elections from 1921 to 2016:

2
14 False Majority Governments; 13 Minority Governments; 3 True Majority
Governments.
6. By false majority governments, I mean governments led by parties with 50% or
more of the seats in the House of Commons but supported by less than 50% of the
popular vote. I would not call these majority governments false if their leaders did not
claim that they had a mandate from the people. That, these majority governments do not
have. Indeed, since 1988, 43% of the popular vote is the highest a majority government
has garnered. In fact, 40% of the popular vote has become virtually the gold standard for
majority governments. The last two Harpers and Justin Trudeaus did not even win
that level of popular support.
7. As a parliamentary democracy Canada surely can do better than being, most often,
governed by politicians who were not the first choice of 60% of the people but that have
the power to control parliament. Electoral reform should above all be directed towards
correcting that situation.

The Frequency and Effectiveness of Minority Parliaments

8. A more proportionate electoral system is almost bound to produce minority or
hung parliaments that is parliaments in which no political party has a majority of
seats in the House of Commons. In conversations with friends and neighbours about
electoral reform, when I ask why they would not want an electoral system that results in
an elected chamber that comes close to reflecting the will of the people, the answer I
often get is that they want a clear, decisive result on election day. These folks fear that
governments accountable to hung parliaments, lacking a majority, will be indecisive
and ineffectual.
9. So it is important to look at the record of governments accountable to hung
parliaments, both abroad and here in Canada. When I did this myself, I was interested to
find that in nearly all of the worlds roughly (some countries are hybrids) 48
parliamentary democracies, minority parliaments are the norm, one-party majority
governments are the exception. The reason for this is clear: the great majority of
parliamentary democracies use some form of proportional representation, and since no
single party is very popular, elections rarely give any party a majority in the elected
chamber.
10. That most of the worlds parliamentary democracies use some form of proportional
representation and that their elections normally give no party a majority of seats are
important facts. Many of my friends who are frightened of pr, suffer from the I and I
syndrome: they fear that a proportional electoral system will plunge Canada into the
difficult politics of Italy and Israel. They do not realize that dozens of parliamentary
democracies, including Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand,
Norway, Sweden, and most of the Commonwealth countries use pr electoral systems and
seldom have one party majority governments.

3
11. Most of the worlds parliamentary democracies usually have minority parliaments
and most of these countries have reasonably effective governments. Whether they are
governed by one-party minority governments or multi-party coalitions, these countries
get things done. Their record of dealing with fiscal crises, global warming, and
contentious social and foreign policy issues is at least as good as Canadas and the UKs
where, because of first-past-the-post, one-party majority governments are much more
frequent.
12. Similarly in Canada, the record of governments accountable to minority parliaments
is mostly good. Indeed, some of the most productive governments in Canadian history
have been minority governments. I think particularly of Mackenzie Kings first and third,
Diefenbakers first, both of Pearsons, Pierre Trudeaus, and at the provincial level, Bill
Daviss six years of minority government in Ontario.
13. The greatest weakness of minority parliaments is their tendency to be relatively shortlived.This is essentially a problem of political culture. So long as one-party majority
government is a real possibility as it surely is under first-past-the-post minority
government will be unsatisfactory for Conservatives and Liberals, the only two parties
that have ever formed majority governments at the federal level in Canadian history.
Winning majority government is the gold standard for these parties and the measure of
success for their leaders. Most minority governments are relatively short lived, not
because of a failure to maintain the confidence of parliament, but because the party in
power smells a chance of calling an election and winning a majority. That explains the
short lives of those productive Diefenbaker, Pearson and Trudeau minority governments
and Harpers first minority government. An electoral system that makes one-party
majority government most unlikely would, I believe, change the political culture and
lessen the impulse to call snap elections.

The Benefits of Minority Parliaments

14. Minority parliaments are not only capable of supporting strong and effective
governments, but they also improve the quality of parliamentary life. When no party has
a majority in the House, the mathematics of survival, require parties to reach out and
adopt positions that can accommodate the views of other parties. This makes for a more
inclusive kind of policy-making. In democracies in which no political party is very
popular and that covers pretty well all of the worlds democratic countries today,
including Canada a policy-making and legislative process that must embrace more than
the views of the least unpopular minority party makes government more democratic. That
is the key finding of political scientist Kaare Stroms classic study of Minority
Government and Majority Rule.
15.When no party has a majority in the House of Commons, parliamentary life is likely
to be much more meaningful between elections, the outcome of debates less predetermined, and House committees less vulnerable to governing party control. The Prime
Ministers office which, as research published by the International Political Science has

4
shown, has made Canada the worlds most centralized parliamentary democracy, will not
go away when no party has a majority. However, in a minority parliament there is likely
to be a diminution of its officials capacity to interfere with parliamentary activities.

Minority Governments vs Coalition Governments

15. These benefits of minority parliaments are more likely to be realized under
minority governments than under coalition governments. Minority governments, in order
to survive, are continuously forced to find opposition party support in the House. This
makes for a lively, deliberative House of Commons, where legislation and policy are
seriously debated. With coalition governments that have a majority of seats, much of the
policy debate takes place before parliament meets in the party leaders negotiations on
the terms on which the two (or more) parties will govern together. Once in place, a
majority coalition government has little room for manoeuvre, and debates in the House
may become quite sterile. In the UK, during the five years of the Conservative/LibDem
coalition government, my impression was that the liveliest and most interesting
parliamentary debates occurred in the House of Lords.
16. At the federal level in Canada, minority governments are certainly the norm.
The only coalition government we have had was Robert Bordens, formed during World
War I when the Liberals split and most of their English-speaking MPs joined the
Conservatives to form a Unionist Government. On several occasions since then, second
or third parties have spurned invitations to form a coalition with a majority or plurality
party. As you all know, in December, 2008, the Liberals and NDP agreed to combine to
defeat the Harper Conservative government on a confidence vote and then form a
minority coalition government, and govern with Bloc Qubcois support. And you all
know the outcome of that plan. In the brouhaha that arose on that occasion, Conservative
party leaders claimed that it was unconstitutional for political parties to form a coalition
government if they had not disclosed this as their plan during the election campaign.
That claim did not establish what would amount to a new constitutional convention.
Nonetheless, I think it is clear that sharing cabinet positions with other parties in a
government coalition (majority or minority) is not likely to be the first choice of most
parties in a hung parliament.
18. Minority governments can take the form of a formal legislative alliance between a
governing party and an opposition party that agrees not to support a non-confidence vote
if the government proceeds with an agreed upon legislative program, including budget
policy. The leading example was the Peterson/Rae agreement in Ontario from 1985 to
1987. Though the agreement somewhat muted NDP debate in the Assembly, the
Conservatives, who were the plurality party, ensured lively proceedings in the Assembly.
.
19. Minority governments have survived most often by finding a fairly reliable
legislative partner. That was certainly the case with Liberal minority governments
supported by the NDP. Conservative minority governments have had to be more ad hoc
and pragmatic in finding opposition support in the House. A textbook example of how

5
this can be done was the first year of Stephen Harpers first minority government when
the Conservatives found support on different policy issues from the Liberals, NDP and
the Bloc. The Harper Conservatives managed to implement four of the key planks in
their election platform, while taking positions on other issues that could attract the
support of at least one opposition party. A textbook example of how not to manage
House relations was Joe Clarks short-lived Conservative minority government.
Stabilizing Minority Parliaments
20. The downside to minority parliaments is the danger of too many votes in the House of
Commons becoming confidence votes creating an atmosphere in which government reels
from crisis to crisis. This kind of atmosphere can certainly stiffen party discipline. Under
a proportional electoral system, parties may be less inclined to defeat the government and
force an election in which the likely outcome is another hung parliament. In other
words, a proportional electoral system might change the political culture, especially for
larger parties that can no longer realistically believe that by forcing an election they can
win a majority. Minority governments can reduce confidence crises by having more free
votes and carefully rationing the issues on which the governments position must prevail.
21. Some parliaments Germany, Spain and Sweden are examples permit only
constructive non-confidence votes. A constructive non-confidence vote is one that names
an alternative prime minister. When a constructive non-confidence vote passes, it both
defeats the incumbent government and indicates how a new, viable minority government
can be formed without calling an election. This practice underlines the principle that in a
parliamentary democracy the people elect a parliament (more precisely the confidence
chamber of parliament) not a government. In Canada, regulating confidence votes is a
matter that falls into the informal part of our constitutional system under the control of
the House of Commons. I urge your committee in its research and travel to look carefully
at how parliaments function under a system that requires confidence votes to be
constructive.
22. The fixed-date legislation that Parliament put in place in 2007 should be a stabilizing
factor for minority parliaments, and would work well with the adoption of constructive
non-confidence votes. But, as I have pointed out, it is not confidence votes that are likely
to defeat minority governments but prime ministers tempted to call a snap election when
they think there is a good opportunity of winning a parliamentary majority. That was the
story in 2008 when Prime Minister Harper, who had championed the fixed-date-election
law in order to level the political playing field and remove the incumbent governments
control of the timing of elections, advised the Governor General to dissolve the 39th
Parliament and call an election two years before the date scheduled by legislation. Mr.
Harper got the election but not a majority of seats. Under a proportional electoral system,
minority government prime ministers are less likely to be seduced by the prospect of a
snap election giving them a majority. And opposition parties may be more prepared to
show the Governor General how they could form a government with majority support in
the existing House of Commons, so that the GG might not accede to a prime ministers
request for a snap election.

Newly Elected Parliaments Must Be Summoned Soon After an Election

23. Canada is virtually alone among parliamentary democracies in not having a rule
requiring that after an election only a short time can elapse before the newly elected
parliament meets. After an election, if no party has won a majority of seats, there must be
time for party leaders to work out who has the best chance of forming a government with
majority support, for a new prime minister (if there is one) to be sworn in, and for the
prime minister to form a cabinet and prepare a throne speech, before the Governor
General summons the new parliament. In Canada, other than the constitutional
requirement that there be a sitting of Parliament every twelve months, there is no rule or
established practice about the maximum time allowed before a new Parliament hold its
first meeting. This produces unnecessary uncertainty and worry about implementing the
results of the election. When no party has a majority in the new House of Commons, it
delays the test of whether a new government has the confidence of the House and
therefore has the right to govern.
24. Australia has a rule that the Commonwealth Parliament must meet 30 days after an
election. New Zealand has what amounts to an eight week rule. That should be the
outside limit. Most European parliaments have shorter periods. The rule should take the
form of an amendment to section 38 of the Constitution Act, 1867. Such an amendment
can be made by an Act of Parliament. Please, please Electoral Reform Committee
members make this part of your work. Surely if your work results in new electoral
system, you do not want an incumbent prime minister to control the timing of when the
results of your reform can be implemented.
MMP vs STV
25. Although I have done no original research on alternative voting systems, I have
studied the work of political science colleagues who have done important research in that
field. My reading of this literature convinces me that my priority and I hope yours - in
electoral reform, is elections that come close to producing politically representative
parliaments. That priority can be served only by an MMP system or an STV system. I
rule out a Ranked Ballot on its own because evidence and logic show that it will not
eliminate the risk of some parties being significantly over represented and others being
seriously under represented in the House of Commons.
26. I lean towards STV with its multi-member constituencies, in which candidates could
be preferentially ranked. Although I also think the Finnish system, with multi-member
voting districts but in which voters cast just one vote for the candidate they most prefer,
should be considered. A further advantage of the multi-member constituency type of
reform is that it would not require a formal constitutional amendment. That is less clear in
the case of the MMP system that tops up first-past-the-post constituency MPs with MPs
from party lists.