Good evening, everybody.
I will start on a personal note. I'm a Canadian Israeli who first got to vote in the past election. We voted, had dinner, and by dessert time, there was a winner. In my country, in seven years, this has never happened, and, by the way, the threshold has been going up and up and up, and by now it's about 5%. My point is no system is perfect, but boy, this is risky business. I'm just leading in to what I have to say.
The electoral system of the nation has far-reaching impacts on the democratic rights and representations of its citizens, but to an even larger extent casts an everlasting effect on the culture, values, and stability of a nation. It just does. If it is important enough for us Canadians to elect our leaders every four years within our existing election framework, it doesn't seem reasonable that altering the framework itself, a much bigger, long-lasting decision, can be decided without the democratic participation of all Canadians. This is why we must have a referendum on this issue where all Canadians, and not just the nice people in this room, can have their say.
Thank you very much.