I think the answer to that question is maybe that it's not entirely about what Canadians think about that. I think Canadians do value having a contact with local representatives and so on. As someone who always tries to use realism—and I'm a former public servant, so I haven't always sat in an office in Montreal—you also have to think about the degree to which a proposal might get through this House. That's one of the reasons that so many of the provinces and New Zealand have proposed the mixed system, because it retains a certain proportion—usually at least a majority—of the local districts, and it adds on the proportionally allocated seats.
That can be done in two ways. Let's say you've got 100 seats to be allocated proportionally. They can be allocated to bring the parties up to where they should, in a sense, be by their vote, or they can be just added on a proportional basis. So if the count for each party was 30-30-40 as far as the popular vote went, then it would be 30-30-40 for those additional seats. That's not used in as many countries because it doesn't give you as proportional a result, but it does help to correct some of the gaps in representation that we've seen over our history.
Personally I think that the mixed member model has a lot going for it because it can be structured to allow quite a bit of voter choice. The results for gender representation in the different countries are quite good under mixed systems. They are slightly better under full party lists, but it also preserves those local seats.
I think you and people who study these things have to consider, is it going to fly in the end? Is it going to achieve the principles that we believe in, and is it going to fly?