Here I am.
My name is Ben Trister. I have had the pleasure of appearing before committees of the House of Commons and the Senate on behalf of Canadian Bar Association, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, and the Coalition for Secure and Trade-Efficient Borders, but it's my first time here as a retiree, and I thank you for the opportunity.
Electoral reform is, in my view, the most important issue facing Parliament today, because the results of our elections shape our policies on critically important and even existential issues, such as climate change. Our electoral system, of course, is the very foundation of our democracy. I've looked at the various systems in use in other countries and I've found them too problematic for our purposes.
One of the issues with the electoral reform movement in Canada is that the proponents of reform have not been able to come together behind a preferred system because there are too many problems with them and they keep fighting among themselves as to which should be put in place. If our so-called democracy geeks can't agree to support a single system, how can we expect Canadians to do so?
Being a concerned citizen, as well as a retiree with too much time on my hands, I decided to see if I could create a made-in-Canada electoral system for your consideration. After more than a year of work and with the help of my brilliant daughter Rachel, I filed my brief and my proposal with your committee this afternoon. Our electoral system has to be as easy as possible to understand and has to produce accurate representation. Complicated systems, though they may have some merit, offer too much opportunity for misunderstanding and misleading anti-reform campaigns. If Canadians are not presented with a simple system, they may reject it and think things are better with the devil they know, and we will have squandered a historic opportunity.
I call my system ordered proportional representation. Under OPR, votes are cast, just like they are now, one vote in their own riding. What would change is how the votes are used to determine the seat winners. All the votes would be counted across the country, and seats would be awarded to the parties based on their share of the popular vote. After the votes are counted, Elections Canada would create lists for each party, ranking their candidates based on the share of the popular vote in their respective ridings. The candidate with the highest share of the popular vote goes to the top of their party list and the lowest goes to the bottom. Say the House of Commons had 100 seats and a party won 50% of the seats. It would obviously get 50 seats and those seats would be won by the top 50 candidates on that party's list.
Under the current system, the distortion in seat allocation for the House is 21.5%. Under OPR, the distortion is reduced to 0.3%. OPR complies fully with the mandate of the committee and the five principles contained in the motion that established the committee. There are other benefits, including, but not limited to, seats that are more broadly distributed geographically within each of the national parties. The percentage of women elected would increase, the House of Commons would be made up of people who earned more votes on average than is the case under the current system, and Elections Canada could easily implement a new system. As you'll see from my brief, the entire process takes half a page to describe in detail.
I'd be grateful if you would carefully consider the proposal. You have it. I'd be pleased to provide you with any underlying data you might want.
Thank you.