Thanks very much for coming to Winnipeg. I appreciate your coming out here.
I don't speak with a lot of evidence behind me. I'm a citizen in the west end of Winnipeg, and in the west end I have never cast a ballot that elected my candidate. The problem of wasted votes is one of the largest problems that you can help to solve, especially in the west end, where we have one of the poorest neighbourhoods. It is very disenfranchised when the people don't go out to vote. When you have a voter turnout that's less than 50%, then something wrong. It's not about having the right candidates. It's not about political malaise. It's about their vote counting, and proportional representation would be a very good answer.
Paul Thomas mentioned accountability a lot, and that really resonated with me. Combined with what Carlos Sosa was saying, in the perspective of a person with a disability, an able-bodied person cannot see the barriers that are put in front of them, but a person with a disability experiences the barriers. In this case, the accountability is the barrier. When our members of Parliament are not accountable to our citizens, that's when voter turnout goes down. Our voter turnout is our second biggest problem; we need to increase our participation. I think that accountability can greatly be solved by not putting the onus on citizens. If there's a mandatory rule to vote, the citizens shouldn't be penalized; the members of Parliament should.
If the members of Parliament can't get their voter turnout up, penalize them, kick them out of office, since they haven't done a good job to get in there in the first place. That's the perspective when you have a disability of accountability.