Thank you.
I'd like to thank the committee for inviting me to speak here today, and I'd also like to thank all the committee members for deciding to travel around the country to give as many people as possible an opportunity to have their say on this very important issue of reform of the federal electoral system.
The written brief I've presented focuses on three main points: the current voting system provides only weak accountability at either the local or national level, it exaggerates regional divisions, and a system of proportional representation would best meet the principles for electoral reform as stated in the committee's mandate.
I'm very pleased the committee has come here to listen to Albertans speak on this issue. I was born and raised in Alberta in the 1960s and 1970s. I remember seeing a picture of Canada's federal electoral map with Alberta a solid blue, but no matter how blue Alberta was, the federal government in that era was always red. It was a picture that masked the diversity of political opinion here in Alberta as well as in other provinces. It was a picture that fed a deep sense of alienation from federal politics and the federal government that was certainly ever-present when I was growing up here. It was a picture that was, to a significant extent, created by our electoral system.
I strongly believe that the House of Commons is intended to be an inclusive body that broadly represents the national community as a whole. What we have is a body that represents the plurality of opinion groups in 338 local ridings. It excludes other opinions at the local level, which results in an inaccurate reflection of the aggregate strength of those groups at the national level. Accountability at the local level is important. That's why we need proportional representation instead of the situation we have now, where in some ridings, from one election to the next, competing opinion groups take turns choosing the local MP, while in other ridings one group maintains exclusive right to representation in election after election.
Proportional representation provides a group of MPs responsible to the community as a whole. Imagine, for example, a three-member district with two MPs from party A, and one from party B. In the next election, party A knows it's not going to win all three seats, but they want to hold on to the two they have. Party B wants to take one of those seats away from party A, while other parties are also evaluating the possibility of taking a seat away from either A or B.
Instead of a plurality of voters determining one representative for the whole riding, multiple opinion groups are included in selecting several MPs. It would be a more inclusive and accountable system of representation.
My briefing has evaluated four electoral systems—first past the post, the single transferable vote, mixed member plurality, and a list PR system—against the principles of electoral reform described in the committee's mandate. Each system has its strengths and weaknesses; however, the current voting system is clearly out of line with those principles.
I therefore urge the committee to recommend a proportional representation system. Which PR system the committee chooses depends on the weight the members place on each of those principles.
Thank you.