I would hypothesize that one of the biggest electoral reforms ever to happen in this country was giving women the vote in 1918. It doubled the number of people voting in the next election. In that next election, we ended a 50-year period in Canada of essentially a two party system, where we alternated between parties. That was the first election, in 1921, in which a viable third option was presented. Since then we have seen that develop into more and more parties. How many parties were there in the last election? There were probably 20 actual parties. Not just three, four, or five, but almost 20 parties had candidates running.
I would suggest that one of the reasons this happened is that with women beginning to vote, we ceased to have battles purely for dominance in elections. We actually had people who came forward wanting to advance other causes and improve the way the country worked. It wasn't just, “You're in and we're out.”
I asked somebody in a fairly high position in a political party in this province, while I was covering a meeting in Halifax for CBC, if they could explain the real difference between the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party. His answer was this: “They're in and we're out.” The fact is that if elections are simply a battle for dominance, then the two party system and first past the post works, but when we start talking about more complex ideas, we need to have a more complex electoral system. I would argue that proportional representation is an essential part of that.
I'm not supposed to ask you questions, but how many of you are familiar with the book Tragedy in the Commons? I think it's very important to realize that there are multiple functions of a member of Parliament. Very often, members from the backbench have found their sole expression in terms of doing constituency work. That's a valuable thing, and that's one of the reasons we want to have local representation. I go to my MP periodically and talk to him about what I think should be happening, and I get a blank stare because it doesn't correspond with what he wants to happen. I don't feel I'm being adequately represented, and I think it's important for us to be adequately represented.
Thank you.