Good afternoon.
I live in Vancouver East. The first response I got to the request of my MP, Jenny Kwan, to be kept informed of the progress of this special committee, was to be told about the NDP proposal for electoral reform.
Please, stop lying to us about who you represent after the election. It's the parties not the constituents.
I think there are four problems of varying degrees with the work you're doing.
First, the Liberal position, that alternative vote is their preferred choice, is so bad that it has the possibility with some voter demographics of being worse than first past the post. Brilliant. That's a fine example of why not to trust Liberal politicians.
Next is the NDP proposal for MMP. I don't discount MMP completely, but most models are problematic, and that is certainly the case with the NDP concept.
If I had to choose between these two ideas in a referendum, I would almost certainly remain a proud non-voter, which brings me to point number three, a potential referendum. It is a bad idea. It would heavily rely not only on easily misinformed people who are unaware of how voting systems and governments function, but also large groups of people who support the electoral option that favours their party of choice.
The only idea worse than a referendum would be problem number four, leaving it in the hands of the 12 biased individuals with conflict of interest written all over their work to make a non-binding recommendation to a group where the power to make law undemocratically stems from less than 30% of registered voters and less than the number of people who, like myself, are so fed up with your processes that we opt out rather than condone your system.
Instead, what should be done? Simply impose a working system. Nothing is perfect, but it must contain three elements: use a ranked ballot, apply the Condorcet criteria, and ensure a large degree of proportional representation.
The Liberal and NDP proposals fail on two out of those three concepts, and the pathetic Conservative strategy to aid retention of the status quo fails on all three. Thank you.