Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Witnesses, let me apologize for having to come in and out. I was very keen on hearing your testimony, but circumstances have intervened, and we're awaiting a potentially difficult government decision on something else.
A promise was made to...and this is the frame, I think, in which this conversation needs to operate for us. We're changing the electoral system. The question is to what and how. There are questions of how we make that legitimate and through what process.
I'm going to concern myself solely from the perspective of Canadian voters, what they hope to get, and what we hope to offer at the other end.
In terms of the assumed benefit of moving to a proportional system as you advised here in B.C.—and has been advised by every major citizens' assembly and study that's ever been conducted in this country—what's in it for the voter? What is the known benefit—I don't want to say “assumed”— for moving from the centuries-old first-past-the-post system to something different and something proportional?