When we were doing this report, we had several conferences on women's issues and “how come women aren't elected", and the range of issues that were identified included the nature of politics, the lack of access to finances, and having to displace a guy in the nomination. The NMP, or the idea of the list, was a way of reaching out to people in a different way and expanding
the political class.
It was a way of expanding the number of people who would access political life, get experience, get visibility, and so on. That's the first part.
The second part—and I agree, because that was one of the comments I received that you'll see in my paper—is that the 19th century vision of strong leadership is to say, “Get it done, get elected, get it done”, as opposed to consensus building. There was a sense in which the nature...and I'm not sure that it's only gender studies that note this. I'm just saying that there is a way in which the vision of what good governance means in the 21st century may not be the same as it was in the 19th century in a colonial power that said, “Okay, we're here to get things done.” You may want to say it's better to delay a little and speak to more people before you move forward.
The other aspect of the 19th century vision that's embedded in first past the post is the idea that your identity is solely based on where you are. You only have one identity, and you vote in that riding. I am solely defined as an elector from Ottawa East, as opposed to the ability that's created in an MMP system where you can express yourself in two ways, both as to who is the best person to represent Ottawa East, but also with which party I want. That seemed to reflect the more complex way in which people defined identities. People move more than they moved in the 19th century and have a broader range of issues, and so on.
I'm talking about the way in which people explained it to us. In the consultation, when people were playing with this, why were they expressing a preference for that system?