I'm grateful to speak to you directly on this issue. It's one that's been troubling me for a long time.
I studied political science at university many years ago, and I am also a refugee from Alberta. I spent many elections in Alberta being frustrated because no matter which party I seemed to vote for, I always seemed to vote for the wrong one. I have voted for pretty much every party. I vote for a member, not the party so much, so to me it's really important.
Proportional representation, to me, is our opportunity to actually make people feel like their voices are going to be heard in Parliament. As much as you can say that if I were a Conservative and there was a Conservative government in Ottawa, but I didn't have representation here, that doesn't make me feel any better because my issues here are very different from what they were when I was in Alberta. Therefore, regional representation to me is extremely important. We need to have a voice at the regional level for people of many different parties, not just one.
That's the reason I want proportional representation, and despite what Ms. Lukens says, I'm not convinced that people necessarily want a referendum, but I would be prepared to go for a referendum after the fact. Give it a chance for two or three elections and then ask the people whether they're content with the situation as it is. If you ask them blind and say you want to change the system for something else, if they don't really understand it, they're going to run back to what they know. I think that would be very discouraging.
Thank you very much.