Here's another measure.
We rank 64th in the world in terms of women in our Parliament right now. We know, through evidence, that proportional systems give us far greater representation of women, far better policies on issues like social justice, climate change. This is research that this committee has heard.
As a country, we have not done a good job in terms of the determinants of health, social justice issues, and the gap between those who have and have not, nor have we done a good job to this point on issues that are longer term, like climate change. There has been an implicit connection—more than anecdotal—an empirical connection, between voters having greater power and votes being equally represented by the vote in terms of the seats that are elected.
I want to speak to the distortion factor. It is that 39%, or less in some cases, gives you 100% of the power under our current system. One of the reasons people suggest that they lose faith is that they don't feel their vote is a voice, that it has no power. We should keep that regional connection that you talked about by the way. I think that's important, but why not give every vote the power to effect change, rather than the current system in which in the last election more than nine million, more than half of the votes cast, went toward anyone actually becoming elected?