Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My first question goes to Professor Cooper. It deals with the idea of creating coalitions known as “inter-parties” and “intra-parties”.
I do not have the exact quotation in front of me, but yesterday, one of the witnesses said that, in a proportional system, different parties could form a coalition in public rather than doing so at a party congress or, with even less transparency, at a caucus meeting.
I have a hard time understanding why you consider that one of the proposals you made is better that the other. You use the expression—
big tent parties
to represent something positive because the coalition would already be formed and it would not be necessary for the different parties to do it publicly. In principle, the result would be the same because nothing would be stopping a region or a group of interests within a caucus to promote a party's program. The only difference is that it would be done in public.
I would like to hear what you have to say about that.