Good afternoon.
My name is Nicolas Saucier, and I am from Quebec City. I'm a former student of Mr. Derriennic's, and I was employed by the House of Commons through three Parliaments. So I am pretty knowledgeable on these issues.
I was always told that I had been born in a democratic country, but my life experience shows me that this is not the case, as no government has been elected with 50% of the votes since I have had the right to vote. Since I could vote, 1988 was when the elected government had the largest percentage of votes, with 43%. So 57% of people had voted against that government. The worst year was 2006, with 34.5% of the votes, meaning that 65.5%, or two-thirds of the population, had not voted for the elected government. Since my birth, only once, in 1984, did the elected government garner the majority of the votes, with 50.03%, by the skin of its teeth. Before that, in 1958, the figure was 53.6%. So 26 years passed between those two elections where the government was elected with over 50% of votes, and the gap will be 35 years if we assume that the next government will be elected with more than 50% of the votes in the next election.
That's not so democratic. My concern is that the two main parties have been very content with this non-democratic system for a long time. I am worried. I applaud the Liberal Party's effort in proposing this change. I am very worried to see that the Conservative Party has its foot on the brake and is riding almost on the shoulder in order to slow things down.
I have been hearing the nirvana argument a lot. I am a communications professor at the university. In argumentation courses, we hear fallacious arguments, such as the nirvana one. According to that argument, if the proposed solution is not perfect, it must be rejected. That's easy. You find a flaw in a proposed solution and you eliminate it because it is flawed. That's like seeing the mote in your eye when you have a beam in there, and I would even say on your forehead.
We have a system that has not been democratic for years, and people are splitting hairs by saying that all this may not be ideal. Any of the proposed solutions would be preferable to the status quo or the current system.
In closing, I wonder whether any of the members around this table were elected by more than 50% of the voters in their riding.