Electoral Reform committee  I am trying to be fair and objective about this. I think it was a rash promise to suggest that this could happen before 2019. The government was slow to get going with this committee, and it was slow to make a compromise to ensure that all parties—not just official parties in ter

Electoral Reform committee  It sounds contrarian almost, to be in defence of the status quo. I'm not an enthusiastic fan of first past the post. I think there are things that could be done within that system to ensure greater internal democracy within parties, including caucus democracy, and to make greater

Electoral Reform committee  If you do alternative vote, there will be a greater consensus among the electorate in 338 constituencies that the winner is really the winner, because they had to accumulate more votes. Admittedly, some of those votes were second preferences of voters whose first preference dropp

Electoral Reform committee  As I said, legitimacy is a contentious notion that has been the subject of debate among philosophers and social scientists for centuries, and I don't like it when we have shallow statements in the media that if you fail to get this approval rating on a particular project, somehow

Electoral Reform committee  I am a north end Winnipeg boy. I grew up in the north end. My mother knew Stanley Knowles's wife, so I knew Stanley Knowles. A constituent called Stanley Knowles, the great dean of Parliament, and said, “Stanley, I just bought new garbage cans. The first time the crew came by th

Electoral Reform committee  The country we're most often compared to is Australia, because we're large geographic entities, because of their federal system and cabinet parliamentary system, and because they're a former British colony, and so on. On the other hand, they have a far more homogeneous society.

Electoral Reform committee  I wouldn't start by doing it by law and regulation. I'd start by doing it by incentives to political parties to run balanced slates of candidates. Then, if they failed to respond within a certain period of time, I'd say that maybe we should follow the example of other countries a

Electoral Reform committee  Decline in turnout is a worldwide phenomenon, as is mistrust of politicians, and the causes of declining participation are both historical and contemporary—

Electoral Reform committee  Again, at the risk of repeating myself, just to go to your point, even a country like Australia, where typically 95% of the people show up to vote because there's a modest fine if you fail to vote.... Less than 1% of people who don't vote ever pay the fine. You get a letter telli

Electoral Reform committee  On the decline in voter turnout, the biggest part of the explanation for that is the decline in voting by young Canadians, 18- to 25-year-olds. Over time, this is the strongest explanation. They are disconnected from mainstream politics. It's not that they're not political. They

Electoral Reform committee  There's some evidence that it works. The countries that have adopted proportional representation were quite often already progressive in their social thinking, so you don't know what's purely cause and effect. The parties can do lots of things on their own. They can produce mor

Electoral Reform committee  I just want to offer a short intervention—I'll get right to your question—on the disability issue. I am active with a coalition of 72 groups as a volunteer, and these issues are very serious for them. I'm also on the Elections Canada advisory board, and anything I say here tonigh

Electoral Reform committee  There's a wonderful survey that comes out of Ryerson University on why people mistrust politicians. The reasons are the failure to deliver on promises—I'm speaking to retired parliamentarians on Thursday on this topic—the avoidance of accountability, refusing to apologize for mis

Electoral Reform committee  It is one.

Electoral Reform committee  I should have kept track of all those points. Let me start at the end. The idea that votes are wasted because I vote for a candidate who doesn't get elected is a misunderstanding, it seems to me, of the nature of democracy. I could vote for a lifetime in the most affluent const