Thank you very much for this opportunity.
I'm Christopher Majka, director of Democracy: Vox Populi, an advocacy group concerned with democratic and electoral issues. I have also been active for a decade with Fair Vote Canada, and its chapter here, Fair Vote Nova Scotia, as well as with Project Democracy, all of which are interested in issues of electoral and democratic reform.
I'd like to begin by saying that electoral reform is critically important for the future of Canadian democracy. The idea that citizens should determine the governance of a country was a radical one that originated in the 6th century BC, in Athens. For over two and a half millennia, it has spread throughout much of the world, and as it has dispersed it has evolved.
In Athens only land-owning men who were over 20 and were not slaves were permitted to vote. In Canada, the secret ballot was introduced in 1874, and women were enfranchised in 1918. There were once voting restrictions related to wealth, religion, race, and ethnicity in Canada. All these have now been eliminated and we recognize that they're incompatible with an inclusive, egalitarian and fair society.
One important obstacle that does remain is the first-past-the-post electoral system. It's understandable how it came into being. From 1867 to 1920—