I'd like to start by thanking everyone for inviting me and my organization, Newfoundland and Labrador Youth Parliament, to come in and speak with you all and testify. We really appreciate it. It speaks volumes about what the government and committees think of youth engagement and youth voices. We appreciate that.
I'm a student here at Memorial University. I'm a political science and history double major. I'm also the president of the Newfoundland and Labrador Youth Parliament. This organization strives to engage youth from across this province and in Labrador specifically. We have a big emphasis on including Labradorians in our program.
We take over the House of Assembly for a few days, and for just a short time we become MHAs, known as MPPs in Ontario. We become the provincial representatives. The government puts in resolutions that we debate in depth, and we propose amendments. The opposition, a very short bench, will critique and will often try to critique constructively, although sometimes it's hard. Sometimes it's not.
Everyone involved, by the way, is an independent member. We do not assign political parties to anyone, but we do assign the seats to make it feel as though you're an MHA. We're a non-partisan organization, so it's very good for us to remain unbiased.
What's really neat about this program and very pertinent to this discussion is that in one year, we actually had a resolution on MMP. We debated it and we ended up having it. It was very interesting. I just goes to show how complicated the question is that you folks have to deal with. One of the debates we got into was on whether we should have the PR system based on a closed list or an open list. Is it a regional? It is a national list? How do you do it? Even here, as youth, we understand completely the difficult task you folks are assigned.
First and foremost, our program strives to engage youth and we also do strive for gender parity within our program. Last year we actually had a 50-50 split of males and females, which was fantastic.
I'm going to leave it there. I found out about this last night and thought I'd give you an introduction. I look forward to all your questions.
Thank you very much.