Thank you.
Finally, Mr. Kinsey Schurm.
Evidence of meeting #27 for Electoral Reform in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was women.
Evidence of meeting #27 for Electoral Reform in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was women.
9 p.m.
Kinsey Schurm As an Individual
Evening, everyone. I hope everyone is having a wonderful time here. It's pretty nice. It's a good crowd. It's well-organized.
My issue is the fact that I see lots of empty chairs here. I did come in late, so I'm sure they were kind of filled up, and it's the end of the day. That's an issue to me.
I think when you're changing how people are going to be voting for their federal MPs, the people who represent them and Canada on the international stage, you can't get the opinion of the 3% of the people you're going to be talking to over the course of these town halls and then come to a decision through a committee.
I think, at the end of the day, we need a referendum. My family comes from the eastern bloc, and stuff like this.... When you have a committee more or less telling you how we're going to end up voting, we don't know what you're going to do. You know what you're writing down. If you want to walk away with it and say that this benefits us, so we're going to this, the Canadian people said this, this town hall said that, we would get blind-sided.
At the end of day, we need to talk to every single Canadian and have them vote, or anyone who is interested in this. I come from a family of five, and four of my family can't be here. My father is working, and my mother is taking care of my brothers. That's unfair, right? How many other people are in similar straits who can't make this town hall, whether because it was only announced today or they only got the invitation today because of whatever, poor coordination or whatever, or they're working, they're busy, they're trying to keep food in people's mouths, trying to keep the power on. Ontario is terrible for hydro rates. It's pretty miserable.
That's why I think we need to have a referendum. Thank you very much.
9:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Thank you very much. That brings us to the end of our day in Toronto. We had a similar segment late this afternoon, a public input session. In total today, we heard from 88 people here in Toronto. So, thank you. All the comments were great, very informative and influential in terms of the committee's thinking. Thank you again for coming.
Tomorrow we're off to Quebec City.
This meeting is adjourned.