I came here today not expecting to speak in front of you all, but I'm glad that I am.
I want to say in response to the speaker previously, yes, I agree that there are winners and losers, but that is meant to be kept to sports where the results are meant to change from event to event, and not our political system where an entire country must be represented, and this means for a much longer period of time.
I seldom get involved in political movements, but the issue of electoral reform is important to me. I have lived in many areas over the last 12 years and have watched partisanship come to the forefront of our political system. Unfortunately, in the last election, I had to get involved because I couldn't stand to see where one party could win complete control, but guess what? Again, one party won complete control.
As our world and country have become even more connected thanks to modern methods of telecommunication, citizens should no longer be required to elect one person through an antiquated system that only supports the majority rule.
I believe that elections are better able to represent the people, all the people, and that should be the direction of my Canada of the future.
I want to bring up to you a few of the reasons that I believe electoral reform is important in this day and age.
The first is that everyone talks about the apathy of young people. This is where some sort of change to the system would be most useful. It would get people to care about the political system and in a much greater number.
The second reason that changing our first-past-the-post system would be beneficial is that it would favour the formation of minority governments. While this would be more difficult for a single party to pass their motions in the House, parties would have to work together, and I stress together, and compromise to generate motions that would be able to reflect the beliefs of more Canadians as a whole.
Thank you.