I want to thank you for the opportunity to come here and speak. I'd like to congratulate the committee for actually going around and listening to citizens. I think that's very, very important.
I'm coming here as a Canadian who returned to Canada in the last couple of years after living for 27 years in the Netherlands, where they have an open list proportional representation system of government. With coalition governments, they do last longer than in Italy, although sometimes they are very short. It's a system that has its pluses and minuses. Some of the problems include one-issue parties, but they tend to be short-lived, maybe one term in Parliament.
One of the problems with a system like that is there is a disengagement between the citizens and the members of Parliament. They don't know who the members are. They know their cabinet members, but generally people don't know the members of Parliament. In a country like the Netherlands, which is maybe two-thirds the size of Nova Scotia, that can work, but in a country as vast as Canada, it can't. I would be very much in favour of something like the mixed member proportional representation.
Europe, of course, is based on proportional representation, where the small countries are represented and have a say in what is happening Europe-wide. It's not for nothing that the European Union was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize a number of years ago. The whole thing is a project to encourage people to feel represented and therefore engaged in what is happening, despite quite a large feeling of disengagement in the political system.
I'd also like to say that I would be against a referendum. Referendums are known for answering questions, but the trouble is that it's not usually the question that's being asked. They are hijacked by either national issues or fringe issues. It would be very much a shame if that were done.
Thank you.