Good evening. It's my pleasure to be here and to address members of the committee.
My father immigrated to Canada. He came from a place where there were no elections. He came here because he loved democracy.
I learned a lot about that when I was growing up. I have voted in every election. My kids are in Labrador and Ontario, and they vote. I'm a Canadian citizen first, and a member of any particular part of the country second.
In our first-past-the-post system, about nine million votes in the last election didn't count. Our Prime Minister has said it's broken and promised to change the system. Who wouldn't be in favour of a better system that, for instance, provided effective government, accountable government, provided an effective opposition, valued votes where every vote counts, gave regional balance, and engaged in inclusive decision-making? These are values that formed the basis of the Law Commission report in 2004.
There has been a lot of time since 2004, and maybe we could debate what has been learned since then, but I think many of the comments I've heard today suggest that the population needs to be educated, and there needs to be a common base of knowledge as we engage in this discussion.
Some form of proportional representation is in use in 85% of OECD countries. It has been proven to work. It identifies, and you can read this in the Law Commission report, that participation of voters has increased. The responsiveness of politicians to the citizenry has increased. These are values that I think are really important for Canada.
Many young people don't vote. My kids vote, but they tell me about their friends who don't vote because, “Why would I vote? It doesn't matter”. I have voted in many elections and most of the time I think, “Okay, this is my first choice, but wait a second, I'd better vote some other way because I'm more concerned about who the two leading candidates are, and I need to vote in such a way that the worst outcome doesn't happen.”