Canada’s Chief Electoral Officer says no party, no matter how big a majority it has in the House of Commons, should be allowed to unilaterally change how Canadians vote.
Marc Mayrand, whose term as head of Elections Canada is coming to an end this year, spoke with reporters on Wednesday morning in Ottawa about a series of recommendations he is making following last fall’s marathon 78-day federal campaign.
Chief among them is a recommendation that Parliament reach “a broad consensus” before the voting system can be changed.
“The important point, in my mind, is that not a single government, whatever the majority is, should be able to unilaterally change the rules of an election,” Mayrand said.
“We used to have that tradition in Canada … we seem to have lost that tradition at the beginning of the century.”
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Mayrand said there have been “repeated efforts to change the law without broad consensus” on “too many occasions.” He was asked if the former Conservative government’s Fair Elections Act is one example of this, but Mayrand would only say that there were several examples.
The Chief Electoral Officer would not say what proportion of support in the House should constitute “enough” to make sweeping changes. In New Zealand, the bar was set at 75 per cent when that country changed its electoral laws.
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If the House of Commons can’t reach the “broadest consensus possible,” Mayrand said, then there are two options: One would be to take the question straight to Canadians through a referendum, which the opposition Conservatives have been calling for since last winter.
“It’s one mechanism, or (the plan) could stop there,” Mayrand said. “If Parliament cannot agree, it stops there. That’s the other option.”
The Liberal government is in the process of consulting Canadians on how they vote, but has already promised that 2015 will be the last election conducted under first-past-the-post. A special Parliamentary committee is also examining the various options and is set to table a report in December.
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Mayrand said he won’t speculate if it’s realistic at this point to change the entire voting system before the next federal election in 2019.
“I don’t know if anybody has a sense at this point in time, I think (the committee is) still very much in the exploratory phase of their work … I’m looking forward to their report in December, honestly,” he said.
“(But) I don’t doubt for a second the commitment to do it in time for the next election.”
Mayrand reiterated, however, that Elections Canada will definitely need two full years to make the changes if and when legislation passes.
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