The committee's mandate already states a number of principles and values. You have to think about it and assess the various options. It really is a fundamental guide. For example, must we attribute importance to fair representation of the major political currents in our society? Are we concerned about under-representation, over-representation or lack of representation?
We must also be concerned about the stability of governments. However, how do we show that governments will not be stable if, all of a sudden, the method of voting is different and parties have to come together? The only way would be to try it and to see what is done elsewhere. Otherwise, we are just tilting at windmills. We make the point that people do not want to have elections regularly, every week. We bring up the worst examples, like Italy and Israel, and we say that they are scary. However, if we take away the examples that have no bearing on the choice to be made here, there is a lot less drama.
Tomorrow, you are going to hear from the president of Mouvement Démocratie Nouvelle, where I am a special advisor. I know the issue a little, but I learned something when we met with a number of experts last spring. In some countries, a mechanism was established in Parliament to ensure that coalitions are stable. We call it the constructive vote of confidence. The mechanism was established in West Germany, where they have the perfect compensatory model. Basically, it is 50-50. Half of the members are elected using the current system and half using a proportional system.
The mechanism there is that, if a party in a coalition wants to bring down a government, it has to be able to propose another solution, or another government leader who is able to secure a new parliamentary majority. Otherwise, they stick with the commitments that were made and the political deal that was reached in order to form the coalition.
Nothing prevents us from putting a mechanism like that in place. It is a way to do what you want as you are innovating, while making sure that there will be no unstable governments. The threshold can be 3%, but it could also be 5% or 6%. There are tools to guarantee stability, according to the principles.