Thank you for the opportunity to speak.
I first want to say thanks to all of you for being here. It's pretty late and you guys are still paying attention, so that's really good. I have a lot of respect for what you guys do. I'm going to dive right in.
The electoral reform committee has been given less than six months to provide recommendations to change our electoral system, the one we've been using for well over a century, for 150 years, I think.
While I'm deeply concerned about the pace we're going at and also about how many Canadians can be consulted in this time without having a referendum, I'd like to highlight a few other issues.
First, by focusing on these replacement voting systems right from the start of the process, we're breaking down the question to Canadians in terms of what electoral system best benefits the party they support, really, instead of first trying to establish what Canadian values are and what we want in an electoral system. When the primary question of the committee becomes so politicized because of its mandate, the legitimacy of its recommendations obviously comes into question. That's going to cause a lot of Canadians to feel even more disenfranchised with the system they have. If the reason we're doing this is to engage voters more, let's be clear: this is undermining that goal.
Second, while some of the proposed reforms will have the desired effect of better representing voters' intentions on a macro scale, there is a negative effect associated with those options. I really don't think they address the greater cause of voter dissatisfaction, which is that people's views don't really match the policies of any one political party. Voters are forced to whittle down to a single decision their opinions on hundreds of issues and on the candidates. I know that most of my friends plug their noses when they go to vote because they don't really like any of the parties, strategic voting aside. Even political leaders and party leaders have trouble agreeing with every one of the policy decisions of their parties.
I don't think any of the proposed solutions really address this fundamental flaw in our system. I'm afraid that without letting voters express that type of viewpoint with the ballot, disenfranchisement is going to continue to be a problem.
To conclude, I'd encourage the committee to really review its timetable. Even though the deadline to implement changes for the next election is coming very close, we still have three more years in the current term to actually pass a law. Please take the time to broadly consult Canadians and come to a conclusion.
Thank you.