Hello. There's been a lot of talk about whether we should have a referendum on whether to change our system and which system to have.
In referendums, the government that phrases the question can do a lot to shape the result. The government can also shape the result by either educating or not educating the voters. If the voters don't have an informed choice, then they have no choice at all. Huge budgets need to be set aside for Canadians to learn about proportional representation before we even vote on it. With that kind of power, the government must be legitimate.
In my eyes, the only legitimate government is one that has been elected with a system based on voter equality. You see where I'm going with this. There's a catch-22. The current government is not elected with a system based on voter equality, and they do not have legitimacy to establish a referendum to find out whether the results of that referendum will be legitimate.
The Conservative Party has said, “okay, we need a referendum to legitimize the results of that referendum“, but if the government that phrases the question of the referendum is not legitimate, then we have a catch-22 situation, and we go in a circle.
Here's my solution. You, as a committee, make a recommendation that we switch to a system based on voter equality. We have one election with that system in place. After that one election, then that government, which is based on voter equality, will phrase the question of the referendum. You can have your referendum and carry on like that.