Thanks, Mr. Chair.
I have some questions for all of you, but I have a couple of rounds, so hopefully we'll get some opportunities.
Professor Loewen, I think I'll start with you.
In front of me here I have a few comments that you've made. For the benefit of everybody else, I'll read them—they're very brief—and then I'm going to have a question based on that.
It was actually last summer, I think before the election was even completed, that you made the comment, and I quote: “Those who wish to reform [our voting system] should do so with a clear mandate over detailed plans and with broad public approval.”
Here's another comment you made, and I quote:
Whatever one thinks of the merits of different electoral systems—and there is much to recommend a variety of different systems—it seems remarkable that this decision would be left to parliamentary committees and then a simple vote of the House.
I sense that your use of the term “remarkable” wasn't meant to have a positive connotation.
Then following the election in December, you also wrote:
In short, one cannot argue at once that we need reform to address false majorities and that this government has a mandate to change the electoral system.
I would certainly agree with your comments. There are good reasons for those comments, but I wondered if you could explain a bit further for the committee, and for the record, what your reasoning is for why the current plan of committee study, and then a vote in the House, is, as you've said, “remarkable”, and I presume in not such a positive way.