Sadly, Canadians do not have a lot of political bloggers with the depth of some of the leading American political bloggers. The fruitsandvotes.com political blog has a Canadian section that shows more insight and authority than the Canadian political blogs.

1) To begin we give the 3 territories (0,1% each) one seat each – as in the existing senate? So they are almost 10 times overrepresented, but we can’t give them less…
2) Then we give Ontario (39%) and Quebec (24%) an equal amount of seats. Although it’s the 2nd province, it’s important that Quebec is guaranteed a fixed part of the seats. On the other hand, the biggest province, Ontario, shouldn’t get less seats than any other province.
Giving Quebec and Ontario a quater each – almost as in the existing senate – is a small overrepresentation for Quebec (%seats/%pop.=1,06) and a major underrepresentation of Ontario (%seats/%pop.=0,64)
3) Then we give the 3rd and 4th province, British Columbia (13%) and Alberta (10%), the seats they deserve on a proportional basis: 13 and 10 seats.
4) The rest of the seats (24) are divides between the 6 smallest provinces (14%).
In this category (i) a smaller province should be more overrepresented than a bigger one but (ii) a bigger province should not get less seats than a smaller one.
In a 100-seat senate: Manitoba, Saskathewan and Nova Scotia (3,6% + 3,1% + 2,9%) get 5 seats each (%seats/%pop.=1,37 + 1,62 + 1,72), New Brusnwick (2,3%) gets 4 seats (%seats/%pop.=1,72), Newfoundland and Labrador (1,6%) gets 3 seats (%seats/%pop.=1,88) and Prince Edward Island (0,4%) gets 2 seats. Compared tot the other provinces Prince Edward Island is almost 5 times overrepresented, but a secound seat seems reasonable to make the difference with the one-seat-territories.

In sum the four western provinces have 33 seats with 30% of the population and the four maritime provinces have 14 seats with 7% of the population.
The only underrepresented province is Ontario (25 seats with 39% of the population): if we give smaller provinces more seats than they deserve on a proportional basis, at least one other province must give in, and it is logically the biggest one.

When the proposed rule is compared with the existing senate, the major changes would be as follows:
- The four maritime provinces would lose part of their overrepresentation. Every maritime province is smaller than every western province, but in the existing senate Nova Scotia and New Brunswick have 10 seats each and a western provinces only gets 6 seats. This anomaly disappeares with the proposed rule.
- British Columbia and Alberta wouldn’t be underrrepresented any more.

I do not give any suggestion about how these seats should be filled. Apparently no-one likes the way they are now (appointed by the federal government), but I have no idea which system would suit Canada best:
1. appointment by the provincial legislature or government, or
2. direct elections:
a. in single-seat-constituencies or by PR in province-wide constituencies?
b. in all provinces at the same time or province by province?
i. If in all provinces at the same time: simultaneously with the House of Commons elections or not?
ii. If province by province: when there are provincial elections over there or not?

In a recent comment to the earlier thread on Canada’s dysfunctional electoral system, Wilf Day notes that Prime Minister Stephen Harper has promised that reforms to the Senate will be in place before the next general election. Included in Harper’s plans is a move to an elected Senate.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has promised to put in place Senate reforms in time for the next election that will see candidates for the upper chamber elected. An announcement is expected soon.

But Canada’s Senate has, on paper, powers almost equal to the House of Commons. It never tries to override the Commons since it has no democratic mandate. Will future governments of Canada need a double majority in order to function?

Harper is a great fan of Australian Prime Minister John Howard. He will know all about their system of double dissolution: in case of deadlock between their two Houses, the Governor-General may dissolve the Senate and the House of Representatives simultaneously, and a rare (for Australia) double election will result. The last time this happened was in 1987, but that double dissolution produced a continued Senate deadlock.

Does any other country have such a double dissolution provision? For that matter, does any other country have a lower house elected by First Past The Post and an upper house elected by proportional representation? Is Australia doubly unique?

And how will Canada handle such deadlocks? Perhaps it doesn’t matter: if big government is the problem, is a deadlock a good thing?

Some notes:

In order that list MNAs not become immune to being thrown out, they recommend a limit of two consecutive terms as a list MNA. They do want to permit double-candidacy (list and district), however.

Apparently Quebec law already provides parties with election financing dependent on the number of votes received last election–with a bonus if a certain percentage of candidates are women. The proposal wishes to increase the bonus, increase the required percentage, and make it apply to elected members rather than candidates. There should also be a separate bonus which applies to minorities. Moreover, if this measure does not result in significantly increased representation of women within two elections, then parties should instead be required to alternate between men and women on the lists. (Note that apparently English-speakers and those of minority religions are not considered “minorities”–not that I’m bitter or anything.)

After public hearings that began Nov. 1, 2005, and continued for 25 days across Québec, public reaction has borne its first fruit: the Citizens’ Committee has reported. Nine Members of Québec’s National Assembly, and eight citizens selected by a structured random process from interested volunteers, have consulted the general public and particular experts on the government’s draft bill for an MMP system.

The first shoe has dropped (what kind of fruit is a shoe?), but it has no legal weight. The eight citizens sat at the same table as the nine MNAs and had the same right to ask questions, but have no vote on the Report of the Special Committee (the nine MNAs.) The thud, if any, will come from their report.

Six Citizens have written a masterful 59-page report with no technical assistance. (One more wrote his own, while the eighth signed nothing.) It calls for an improved MMP model with province-wide proportionality, with 40% compensatory seats assigned to regions and filled from regional lists with a 5% threshold using a two-vote model. To the surprise of those who thought citizens would always want an open-list model, they want closed lists in each of Québec’s 17 administrative regions, ranging from a few little three-seat regions to Montréal’s 30 seats (18 local, 12 regional list.)

It also calls for fixed election dates. Uniquely for a citizen panel, it calls for rules to maintain stable government: for example, that a government cannot be defeated in the House except by the formation of a new coalition government holding a majority of seats. (They did not attempt to define exceptional circumstances permitting an early election.)

Will the government pay any attention to the Citizens’ recommendations? The Minister says he too had some reservations about the draft bill, and will take the committee’s recommendations as a starting point for presenting a new version of the reform in coming months. We’ll see.

As a PR wonk, what interested me is the Citizens’ formula for assigning the 50 compensatory seats to the 17 regions. All they said is “start by giving Party A a seat in the region where it is most under-represented” — presumably by highest average, as the draft bill uses — “and continue compensating parties under-represented in regions so long as the region has seats available” until the party’s seats are all assigned. Unlike Germany, the regions have a fixed number of seats, making the assignment process far trickier than in Germany.

Suppose a fourth party won 7 seats. Would parties go turn-about? Then all seven of their seats would be among the first 28 assigned by this process, leaving the large parties to take the left-overs. Or would they go in order of which party has the highest average (is most under-represented) in any region? If so, the fourth party’s 7 seats will mostly be assigned at the end of the process, and some will go to regions which have a seat left over but where the fourth party had little support.

Here the citizens’ talents hit a wall. They ask the Special Committee staff to do simulations of how this would work and attach them to the Citizens’ Report (not attached). Once again, as in BC, we find citizens needing experts to help them write their MMP model, and no experts assigned to that task.

[MSS: Thanks, Vasi, for the correction! Let's see, 124-10, yep, I should have gotten to 114!!]