OTTAWA — Canada’s democracy would benefit best under an electoral system of proportional representation, a leading authority on voting systems told parliamentarians Monday.

But no matter what Parliament finally decides, it should avoid a referendum on the question and the danger of a vote based on voter confusion and misinformation, Arend Lijphart told a special committee on electoral reform.

“The outcomes of referenda are often highly volatile and unpredictable, often involve a lot of emotionalism and outright lies,” he warned. “The recent Brexit referendum shows how much damage a referendum can do. It’s been a disaster for the whole world.”

Lijphart, research professor emeritus of political science at the University of California, said proportional representation (PR) and the coalition governments the system typically produces, “work better because there is more negotiations, there is more compromise, therefore it builds stronger consensus.”

Years of extensive research, he said, show the most beneficial, statistically significant outcomes that correlates with PR is the quality of the democracies it produces.

“Proportional representations (was) not only slightly better, but a whole lot better, there was simply no comparison between PR and FTTP (first-past-the-post),” the system Canada has always used.

PR systems and consensus democracies also have better records for effective policy-making, he said, though FTTP is often mistakenly considered the best system to represent democratic, majority rule.

But “if you’re a majority government, one-party government, it is based on just between 30 and 40 per cent of the voters. This (type of) government actually struggles constantly with the fact of being a kind of illegitimate majority government,” he told the all-party committee of MPs.

FTTP governments really only represent a large minority

“It may seem ironic or paradoxical that, in fact, you have in PR better majority rule than with so-called majoritarian governments. FTTP governments really only represent a large minority.”

Lijphart acknowledged a legitimate complaint about PR is that parties’ election platforms and promises can be compromised or lost in the negotiations to form a coalition government . Still, in mature multi-party systems, such as in Germany’s, it is often clear prior to an election which parties (and policies) are going to work together in government, he said.

PR models have been adopted by many nations and, with a few exceptions, without holding referendums. Lijphart warned the MPs against doing so in Canada.

“If one can avoid a referendum, please avoid a referendum,” he urged. While changing the electoral system is an important decision, the problem with referenda is that other issues can come to fore, too, “including people just expressing a general dissatisfaction with the government.”

The Conservative party has argued that there may be no better way to test “broad-based support” for a new system than some kind of referendum. Democratic Institutions Minister Maryam Monsef has expressed apprehensions.

Lijphart’s criticism of referenda was countered by committee witness Benoit Pelletier, a University of Ottawa constitutional expert on electoral reform and former Liberal Quebec cabinet minister in the Jean Charest government.

“If we want to do a reform of our voting system, it’s normally for the population itself, so that the population has greater faith in its democratic institutions,” he said. “I would have a hard time seeing how we could do a significant electoral reform without calling on Canadians and asking them for their opinion.”

“When you change the electoral system significantly, you change the political culture of a country. It is not just an issue of modalities, it is not a technical issue, it is also a cultural issue, an issue of values. The electoral system is choosing the values that we as a country want to emphasize.”