Thank you, first and foremost, for having us here, and my thanks to the government and the committee for this consultation process. That's great.
My name's Erin Harrison. I'm the Canadian Labour Congress's regional director in Ontario. Today I want to speak about the Canadian Labour Congress's position. We represent 3.3 million members across this country. Our position has been democratically voted on, similar to what happens in Parliament. All of our positions have to be passed through our decision-making structures within the labour movement. I don't think it would be news to anyone at this table that, for a variety of reasons, we are not in support of the first past the post system.
Here's why: in the 2015 election, there were nine million votes that did not count towards electing a member of Parliament, who is supposed to express the voters' political opinion. Many people in the room today, I think, were saying similar things. Far too often a party is able to achieve a majority under this system, even though they don't get more than 40% of the vote.
Our current system also generates tensions in the House of Commons and causes people to vote for things they don't necessarily favour. It thus creates some form of strategic voting at times within political parties. In consequence, people in our country don't necessarily wind up voting for what they really want.
What we're asking for is that the new system have three principles attached to it. First of all, no party should be able to win a majority of seats in the House of Commons without winning a majority of the vote. Second, any reform should ensure that the number of seats the party receives is proportionate to its share of the popular vote. Third, reform should also take into account the importance of local representation.
I want to mention specifically that we are asking for a model of mixed member proportional representation.