Thank you so much.
Mr. Henschel, I did read your submission with great interest. I want to clear the air. I'm a member of Parliament who actually has no preconceived notion of what electoral system we should or shouldn't use. I'm blank. I'm listening to Canadians, and that's how I'm working in this.
There was a lot of information in here with hypotheses that using an STV system would address. You talk a bit about no more disappearing MPs. You talk about how magically things will be hunky-dory if we adopt STV. The reality is, when we become elected, we're no longer the Liberal member of Parliament; we're the member of Parliament. Regardless of whether someone voted for me or didn't vote for me, I'm still the member of Parliament for my riding, so when they come in the door I represent everyone equally. I don't even want to know if you voted for me, quite frankly, I just want to help you.
We sit about 140 days a year. Like you, we were sitting most of the summer. Unfortunately, we weren't there, but part of the job is to represent Canadians and be where we need to be.
Looking at it from a voter perspective, if there are multiple members of Parliament possibly from different parties working in the same riding, do you not think there's going to be severe competition? Do you honestly think that, if there is another member in the same riding I'm in, I'm not going to be withholding information about the needs of constituents, because the other member will want to make sure that they have that information for the next election. I'm just trying to think about the realities of politics and the impact on the citizens.