Committee members, I'm here to talk about the first past the post system in how it suppresses the most important issue we face, and that's climate change. It's not a stretch to say that if we had proportional representation in place for election 2008, voters freed from the shackles of strategic voting and first past the post would have voted in, at a minimum, 21 MPs concerned about climate change. It's not a stretch to say that something similar would have occurred in election 2011. Imagine the outrage that would have confronted Bill C-38: the Environmental Destruction Act.
Imagine the legislation that would have been prevented and the legislation that would have been implemented if Canadians deeply concerned about climate changes had seen their votes reflected proportionally in our 2011 Parliament.
Everyone of us in this room has a child in our life. If not a son, then a daughter, a grandchild, a niece, a nephew, or the child of a friend. The children in our lives are the ones who will face the ever increasing force of the climate danger that we so far have done absolutely nothing about.
The children in our lives will someday look back and ask themselves why governments didn't act on climate change. They will come to understand that our first past the post system denied Parliament, up to and including our present Parliament, the voice that this issue deserves.
This committee has an opportunity to change that. You can do that by recommending a proportional system of voting.