Under heavy fire, a key Liberal voice on changing how we vote defends the government’s approach to electoral reform
Liberal MP Mark Holland. (Sean Kilpatrick/CP)
Depending on who’s talking, the Liberal government’s electoral reform push is either one of its most ambitious policy efforts, or its biggest sham. Justin Trudeau promised in last year’s election campaign to replace Canada’s traditional first-past-the-post way of electing MPs with some new system—but declined to specify an alternative. That has led to confusion and suspicion about what sort of reform, if any, the Liberals really have in mind.
Last week’s news featured Democratic Institutions Minister Maryam Monsef first insulting a special House committee that studied the issue, then apologizing. This week, Monsef launched an online consultation, which critics slammed as too vague, and perhaps skewed against proportional representation—the model favoured by the NDP and Greens, which would see a party’s number of House seats more closely reflect its share of the national vote.
To get a better sense of what the government hopes to gain from the online consultation, and what comes next, I interviewed Liberal MP Mark Holland, a key government figure on the issue as Monsef’s parliamentary secretary. This is an edited version of the interview, which you can listen to in full this Friday on our weekly Maclean’s on the Hill podcast.
A: I think they jumped to conclusions. I think they cherry-picked a question or two, and extrapolated from that. In order to test somebody’s opinion on an issue you have to ask a question from a positive frame, a negative frame, and a neutral frame. If you only take one of those questions, and hold it out as the entire survey, then I think you would get a really inaccurate perception.
The second part I think they misunderstood is that this survey wasn’t written by us. We engaged some of the most eminent political scientists in the country at arm’s length to say we need to understand the values that underpin this process and have them ask that question. I think there was a sense that somehow we were the ones offering these questions.
A: Taken in isolation, I can understand why someone might think that. The point that I was making earlier is that you need to look at it in totality. When political scientists do surveys like this … they test [ideas] in a positive, neutral and negative frame, to get a true reflection of what somebody’s opinion is and how and how strongly they hold that opinion, even when confronted with strong trade-offs.
A: There’s a natural suspicion of government, a tendency to believe that we’re up to no good. It’s why we are continuing to try to reach out to the opposition, have them see that this is really an extraordinary opportunity. This is an opportunity on a scale that’s never been done before in the country to really get at what are the values the Canadians have about their democracy and how strongly do they feel about them. And, in a way, it’s a risk for government because we have no idea what that is going to lead us to.
A: This is one of multiple pieces, and this was incredibly challenging to put together, more challenging than we recognized. We wanted to make sure that it was right and not fast, and there was a lot of science that was involved. The reality is there are other input processes that are just concluding. In January, we’re going to be able to look at that aggregated data from all of the different processes and be able to make a decision. So I don’t think the timing will interfere with our ability to move forward.
A: It’s a great question. It’s an ambitious undertaking. There’s a lot to draw on, so I remain optimistic that we can find a path. But we’ve been very clear we’re not going to move forward unless we have broad support from Canadians, and we’re ensuring we’re getting it right. We’re going to work around the clock to meet that deadline. That’s our objective and we think at this point there’s room to do that.
A: I completely agree. Canadians have to see what we’re offering. I think it’s a very fair point. And I think we’re going to have to be very clear when we outline a proposal—what does [broad support] look like and what bar are we establishing for that to be recognized? It’s certainly not going to be something that happens instantaneously. We’re going to have to release what we’re thinking and what we want to do. Then there’s going to have to be an opportunity for Canadians to respond to that, and for us to have engagement on that before we then move forward with whatever the next steps might be.