My name is Linda Schwey. I was born and brought up in Montreal and I came here today because I think these meetings and hearings are just fabulous.
I lived for many years in Denmark where there is a proportional system of voting. This is common in many European countries because they have so many parties. When I came back to Montreal in 2005, Denmark had eight political parties and a population of 5.5 million. Now it's not so terrible. Where I lived we never had an MP who lived in my district, but it didn't really matter, because Denmark is a very small country. It is two and a half times the size of Lake Ontario.
If someone who represented me didn't live in my district, the person lived not too far away. In Canada this would never do. You cannot have a person representing you who doesn't live near you at least. In Denmark there is a list of people who would be voted in as MP if they got all the votes because it's not tied to the place where they come from. I don't think the people in Joliette would like to have an MP who lives in Montreal. This wouldn't be right.
Aside from that, when you find out at the end of an election that you have 40% to achieve proportionality, you would say that the NDP, for example, should have five more MPs. Where do you get these MPs? They are from a list that the party itself makes. It does not have any input from the people themselves. The people have the list of who's going to be elected MP, but it is the party that makes these lists. Usually, the people, the voters, agree with who's on the list; however, sometimes the party gets an idea that they want to reward somebody and so they put that person's name on the list.
It's not just a matter of having your name on the list, there is also competition as to where on the list your name gets put. If you're number 10 on the list, and you're only going to end up getting five extra MPs, then you're never going to become an MP. If you're higher up on the list, you have a bigger chance.
What we're doing is throwing away a system that elects an MP who got 38% of the vote, and we're accepting a system where we get an MP who got zero votes, because the MP came from a list and was not somebody who was elected.