Hi, I'm here from Barrie, Ontario.
I came for three reasons. First, I'm here to listen to the committee and see how this process works. Second, I want to convey to you the results of a town hall that we held in Barrie. I've handed these notes to someone who promised me they are going to get translated and given to you as a group, so watch for “Non-partisan ER Town Hall Discussion”. That's the title. Third, I'm here to speak for myself as an individual.
You'll be able to see the notes of the results of our town hall, so I just want to summarize. We invited people from about five different ridings, and those who attended the meeting came from three federal ridings that included people affiliated with the NDP, the Conservatives, the Liberals, the Greens, and the Marxist-Leninists. We had members representing seven community groups including Barrie Pride, the Simcoe County Elementary Teachers' Federation, the Ontario Secondary Schoolteachers' Federation, Canadian Federation of University Women, the Canadian Association for Retired Persons, Fair Vote Canada, Fair Vote Simcoe County, and Environmental Action Barrie/Living Green. While we didn't have a lot of people at our meeting—we had 24—we sure packed a punch when it came to a broad spectrum of points of view.
What happened was that only one individual in the room spoke in favour of first past the post. Everyone else wanted some electoral reform and primarily some sort of proportional representation. I'm not going into all the reasons why people didn't want first past the post. I want to say, though, that once your committee decides on what we're going to do, people have to be educated. The media certainly aren't going to do it. There is no media representation here today. Elections Canada under the Fair Elections Act is not, as far as I understand, allowed to teach adults about our electoral system, so I'm not sure who's going to teach Canadians.
Thank you.