Thank you very much.
My name is Dave Hayer. Actually I'm a former MLA from the B.C. assembly from 2001-13. I was involved in three different elections, and I won all of them by more than 50%.
I can tell you I never had any issues that 100% of the voters, the constituents, supported. There are people who are happy with the government policy, people who are not happy with the government policy, and people who are neutral.
When I was an MLA, we had two referendums on electoral reform in the province of British Columbia. The first one was in 2005, and we had set a limit of a minimum voting of 60% in order to pass the referendum. The first time, 58% said yes and 42% said no. Since it was so close to 60%, the premier at that time and the assembly members decided to have a second referendum to see if people really wanted to change. So in 2009 a second referendum was held. At that time, only 39% voted yes, and 61% voted against it. At least people had the right to say why they wanted it.
The reason they wanted to have a referendum and they wanted the change was that in 2001 when we won the election with the Liberal as a majority, we won 77 of 79 seats. But to have a good democracy, my personal belief is that you must have a good opposition in order to keep everybody in check. But in the second election in 2005, the results changed, because the Liberals went down to 46 seats and the NDP to 33. Therefore, people were not so keen about changing the voting system.
I have met with many people from different parts of the world. They have different electoral systems. No one is always happy with the electoral system, including ours and other ones. All I say is, if you really want to have a change in our democratic system, please have a referendum and have the majority of the people vote for it across Canada. Otherwise, you will be changing our democracy without having a democratic system.
People are smarter than politicians. They can understand and they will vote for the right system, as long as you educate them and make sure you provide enough information.
Thank you very much.