Interesting. Because constituents are important we're trying to figure out, depending on which system we use, how large would you grow the riding and would the constituency MP be able to serve their members appropriately? It seems like the larger rural ridings don't have that same demand, anyway, so that's interesting.
I'd say that my riding keeps me very busy and on my toes all the time. I've met with a few different political science professors, and they said that ridings with huge minority populations tend to really rely on local representation and their MP perhaps disproportionately relative to other MPs in non-minority-heavy ridings.
In some things I've been reading I've also found that the current system has created smaller ridings, and that has allowed for minorities to actually do well with the sizes of those ridings, and get to elected because there are densely concentrated minority populations. That has given them an advantage, under the current system, to get the number of seats that we have currently. I found that interesting.
In moving to one of these other systems—and I would hope that parties are all moving in that direction, anyway, even if we ballooned the size of the riding, perhaps we would lose those minority representatives to actually win constituency seats, but maybe through the list representation it's my hope that we would put them back in.
You made an interesting statement about list MPs tending to support certain causes, certain other interests, and not necessarily those attached to a riding. That fascinates me a little bit, too, because I'm finding that this balance of being an MP, being able to maybe have something you want to achieve in Parliament but at the same time having a balance with the interests of your constituents, is really important and keeps you in a balanced perspective. You not only want to achieve your goals, but you want to make sure that everyone's voice is heard. I think those are good things that come out of our system, and those are things we wouldn't want to lose.