Hi, my name is Dustin Su. I live and work as a professional engineer in Willowdale. I'd just like to share some highlights with you of a coffee dialogue that my wife and I hosted 10 days ago with seven of our friends. We really feel the core issue we're trying to address here is the distortion of the federal election outcomes due to the first past the post voting.
We believe it's unacceptable for a party that wins less than 50% of the popular vote to form a majority government and implement long-term agendas that don't represent the values of the majority of the electorate. In a new system, we want election results where the proportion of seats a political party earns is in close proportion to the percentage of votes cast for that party; where the ballot and method of counting seats are easy to understand; and where local representation is maintained, where MPs are accountable to voters who elect them.
I guess the other major concern from our dialogue is with regard to public engagement, as the previous gentleman said.
I'll just bring up an Ipsos poll that was released on August 31. Only 3% of all polled—and I think about 1,000 people were polled—were actually closely following this public engagement, 3%. Only one in five were actually aware that the public consultation was happening. So 20% actually are aware of it.
We believe that the government could be doing more to promote awareness of the national engagement process, as education is critical for the new system to be truly legitimate in the eyes of the electorate. We recommend that, once the committee decides upon a new system, the government should invest heavily in public awareness and education and promote further discourse so the electorate fully understands the system.
I will say I disagree with the last gentleman. I believe Canadians are smart enough to actually be able to use a system that you propose. I also suggest utilizing the CBC as a centrepiece for political discourse—assign a media personality to be a champion of public engagement, and create a dedicated time and space on television and radio and online for public engagement, discourse, and education.
Thank you for your time, for allowing me to speak, and for studying this very important issue.