Ladies and gentlemen of the committee, thank you for this consultation. It has been a long time since we have seen anything like it in Canada.
My name is Benoit Bouchard and I am the regional vice-president of CUPE-Québec. The organization represents 639,000 members in Canada and 110,000 members in Quebec.
We have held consultations on this process, and, at the moment, there is a broad consensus that the current democratic political system is no longer doing its job. We have a problem and it is plain for all to see. Disillusionment is taking hold in almost all political and democratic institutions in our society. The proof is that wonderful consultations like this can be held, and the rooms are practically empty. That is a great pity. However, it is the price that we have to pay for all those years in a political system in which people no longer feel represented. The Canadian Union of Public Employees therefore supports this reform.
We support a mixed-member proportional system. It is a system that makes room for all opinions all across the country. As a country, we are diverse. We have great cities and we have more sparsely populated regions. We therefore want to be sure that opinions across the entire country are represented in proportion.
The system could be very simple. Sometimes, we make life complicated. We just need one ballot and two votes. We vote for one member of Parliament and we vote for one party. Consultations with Canadians would help to make this change less complicated. It is a change that can become very problematic for people who have had no interest in our country’s democratic system for years.
A little earlier, there was discussion about the lack of democratic education. I feel that the idea of presenting notions of democracy would help to simplify the debate and to enrich the country’s democratic system.
With that, we urge you to continue the consultation and to move towards mixed proportionality.