Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. I want to mention that I feel particularly represented on this committee with Ruby Sahota, one of our MPs from Brampton.
I want to start with my bottom line. Canadians need and expect equal and effective votes, and only a proportional voting system will provide this. We look to you, our MPs, to provide the leadership to get this job done. Canadians have many concerns: job security, providing for their families, the environment, health care, and so on. However, we cannot move forward on those urgent needs until we fix the foundation of our governance. We must have a government that's working for us and not against us.
I have to come to show you what one of the privileged 3% who follow electoral reform look like. I don't know if I'm typical or not, but I hear a lot about us.
I'm a retired tax accountant. Until I went on sick leave, my days were occupied with work and taking care of my three children as a single parent. I voted against PR in the Ontario referendum because that's what I gleaned from the media that I perused over my lunch hours. Now I have plenty of time to wonder why my children will not have the same opportunities that I had. I wonder why there's still so much poverty in our wealthy country, why the gulf between rich and poor is increasing, why climate change remains such a threat, why precarious employment and disappearing pensions have become acceptable, why corporations choose to park billions offshore instead of supporting their communities with their tax dollars.
Working in a Big Four accounting firm, I learned something about the culture of large institutions. In my experience, two things matter: the foundation and the leadership. We cannot have good governance based on a foundation that divides Canadians into winners and losers, that was intended to preserve a master-serf relationship, that frustrates our natural inclination for collaboration and compromise, attributes that have served Canadians so well in the past.
Proportional representation is a small change that can change the culture of our governance, that can make it truly representative of and accountable to Canadians. PR makes other badly needed changes possible. PR is a basic civic right that we expect. Canadians need PR now because we have so many other urgent needs and concerns that must be addressed.