Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses.
I'd also like to thank the people in the room who came to attend the deliberations and discussions.
Welcome back, Ms. May. We missed you yesterday.
Ms. Dassonville, you mentioned the fact that mandatory voting had an impact on reducing social inequalities. Could you send the committee some studies or documents on that? I find it very interesting. This is the first time I've heard about it. It may seem logical. When we went door to door, we actually noticed that people who had lower incomes and were less educated were less likely to vote. If we have to consider these people, maybe we will have social policies that will speak more to them. If there are documents available, could you please send them to the analysts?
Mrs. Tremblay, your proposal is very interesting. I have the impression that you have tried to find a solution that reconciles two things that are difficult to reconcile: the local affiliation of the MP and the direct link between voters and their MPs, which everyone wants to maintain; and a proportionality that is reached on a wider scale, be it provincial or territorial.
You are seeing the reactions of my colleagues; I think this is how most people would react. If we keep a local vote by riding and then, because of the proportionality model, the candidate who comes first is not elected MP, I don't think the public will accept that.
Did you consider the single transferable vote, which includes multi-member ridings? The model exists in Ireland. They are combining three to five current ridings, so that one riding is represented by three MPs, for example, and the proportionality is done inside that small territory. The three elected members have truly been elected by the locals. It improves the proportionality, as we see with the Irish experience. It also allows for stable and sometimes even majority governments. In Ireland, the Fianna Fáil party has formed six majority governments since the republic was established.
Would this kind of model, with larger ridings that include more MPs, be better accepted by the public?