Greetings, and thank you for the opportunity to speak today. I'm a proud member of Unifor Local 4600, which represents 1,300 members in Cape Breton, and I'm here today to speak on electoral reform.
I believe it's the single most important issue to be addressed in Canadian democracy, and the time and opportunity for change is now. You have been given the task to hear from Canadians on this issue, and if you fail to take this opportunity, it will be a long time before these conditions come around again.
In Cape Breton—Canso, the area which I live in, the political outcome of the last election didn't reflect the wishes of the voters. We had close to 26% of the votes that were not represented in the legislature because they did not go to the winning candidate. Our first-past-the-post system does a bad job of translating the votes of Canadians into a distribution of seats that matches the preference of voters. Instead, it produces distorted outcomes and wasted votes and contributes to disengagement. We need more reasons for young people and all of those who have been alienated from politics to engage and participate.
My union Unifor has deliberately avoided focusing on detailed models to replace first past the post. At our national convention in August of this year, we overwhelmingly endorsed electoral reform as a proportional system that allocates seats in our Parliament in a way that gives weight to every vote. We expect this committee to reach a consensus and to recommend a system that is understandable to our members and to our community. Unifor doesn't want a referendum or another process that will make proportional voting impossible in the next election.
In closing, along with my union, I am calling for a new electoral system where we maintain a local representative, where every vote counts, and where our politicians are elected in proportion to the votes received. Thank you.