First of all, thank you very much to the committee for coming to Yukon.
I'm all for proportional representation, and I'm sure that in the end we will get a system that reflects the values of Canada and will be fairer than first past the post, but proportional representation is not a panacea.
I'll look at two different countries, Germany and Guatemala. Germany has proportional representation and they have a very strong democracy. Guatemala has proportional representation with a very good formula. They have national lists and they have representatives of different ridings. But if you look at those two, Germany has a strong democracy and Guatemala is a basket case. The big difference between the two is that Germany is quite an egalitarian country, whereas Guatemala is really a plutocracy. One big difference between these two is that Germany has public funding of political parties, like we had here in Canada for a very short time. It is the best element to equalize the playing field.
Now I'd like to address some of the comments that were made earlier in terms of the pan-northern aspect of proportional representation. I was the vice-president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada for the north for fifteen years representing Yukon, NWT, and Nunavut. I travelled those three territories. I also had to be in Ottawa on a monthly basis. I know the north, and I know that there are differences between the three territories, but I think they're not insurmountable. Keeping the three representatives we have now and having one person to represent the north as a whole is not a bad idea.