Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The reason why you are here today and why you are doing a cross-Canada tour this fall is that some people, such as Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party, together with other parties like the NDP and the Green Party, have felt that our electoral system is broken. As you do your work, I feel that it is important that you always keep in mind how broken it is.
I have looked at the election results from a year ago and I am fascinated by the false representation in various constituencies. In Quebec, for example, in the constituency of Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, a Bloc Québécois member was elected with the lowest majority in Canada, just 28.8% of the votes. With 28.4% of the votes, the Liberal candidate lost. The NDP candidate won 24% of the votes. That means that the votes of a lot of constituents went into the garbage.
If we want to get our democracy moving again, if we want to renew it and convince Canadian voters that change is possible, we have to change our voting system. We must put a proportional system in place, with compensatory members, for whom each vote counts. That is your mandate. As members of this committee, your mandate, your mantra, from the time you get up in the morning to the time you go to bed at night, should be to think about what you, as elected members of Parliament, can do to make it so. You have been given a solemn mandate to make each vote count and to prevent MPs in this democracy from ever again being elected with 28% of the votes.
Thank you.