I call the meeting to order.
Good morning, colleagues. Good morning to the witnesses today.
We have three witnesses: Professor Eric Maskin, Professor Peter John Loewen, and Jean-Sébastien Dufresne.
If I may, I will take a few moments to tell you a bit about each of them, starting with Mr. Dufresne.
Jean-Sébastien Dufresne is the president of the Mouvement Démocratie Nouvelle, a non-partisan organization working toward the adoption of proportional representation in Quebec through public education initiatives.
Mr. Dufresne holds an MBA in community economic development and was recently named one of the top 30 under 30 by the Journal de Montréal for his impact on the business world.
Welcome, Mr. Dufresne.
Professor Eric Maskin is an economist and a professor at Harvard University. In 2007 Dr. Maskin received the 2007 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for laying the foundation for a mechanism design theory. He has also made considerable contributions to the fields of game theory, contract theory, social choice theory, and political economy, as well as other areas of economics.
As a former student of economics, I am familiar with some of these terms. We look forward to hearing a bit more about them during testimony.
Previously Dr. Maskin was a post-doctoral fellow at Cambridge University as well as a faculty member at MIT and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.
Welcome, and thank you for being present here in Ottawa.
Peter John Loewen is an associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto. Dr. Loewen wrote his dissertation on political behaviour at the Université de Montréal. He recently co-authored a book entitled The Behavioural Foundations of Partisanship, Participation, and Political Preferences in the Anglo-American Democracies. He is a frequent recipient of Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council grants and awards focusing on political behaviour.
Some of his professional affiliations include being an associate member at McGill University's Centre for the Study of Democratic Citizenship, an associate member at Simon Fraser University's Centre for Public Opinion and Political Representation, an assistant editor of the Canadian Journal of Political Science, and a member of Experiments in Governance and Politics, otherwise known as EGAP.
To provide a bit of an outline for how we proceed, each witness will present for 10 minutes. Then we will have two rounds of questions. In each round each member will get to engage with the witnesses for five minutes. That means the five minutes will cover questions and answers.
If, for some reason, there's a question asked at the four-minute, 30-second mark, and there's no opportunity to answer—and this happens quite frequently—it doesn't mean you can't answer at a later time when you have the floor. We're very flexible about that. If you want to finish your thought as you're answering a question at another time, please go ahead.
We will start with Mr. Dufresne.
You have the floor and you have ten minutes.