Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I would like to thank our three witnesses for being here with us this morning for this fascinating study. In particular, I would like to thank Mr. Scott for returning to see us again. I have to say that I really wish he could be in my shoes.
Mr. Fox, you said something very interesting just now. You said that people have to understand the problem before they can talk about how to fix it. That makes perfect sense. You're right because really, who gets up in the morning thinking, “The first-past-the-post system creates distortions. Single transferable vote could be the solution, but Canadian geography would result in tensions between rural and urban areas”. People don't spend a lot of time thinking that way.
Even so, people feel that their votes are wasted. They don't always do the math, but nine million of the votes cast in last year's election are not represented in Parliament. On Vancouver Island, 21% of the people voted for the Liberal Party and 21% for the Conservative Party, but not a single MP from either of those parties was elected. In the Maritimes, NDP and Conservative supporters voted for their parties, but not a single Conservative or NDP MP was elected. I'm not even going to talk about what happened in Toronto.
On the ground, people ask us, “Why should I vote if it won't make a difference? My vote doesn't matter”.
In 2008, when I ran for the first time and was not elected, people told me, “Why should I vote for you, Alexandre? You're not going to win”. People feel that there's no way to make their vote matter in Parliament.
Mr. Fox, how do you think we should tackle this issue?