Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. McCurdy, for joining us this evening.
I've listened and listened to other witnesses come before the panel and suggest that moving to a PR system will increase voter turnout. Something I think we want to be striving for is greater voter engagement at the time of election and leading into greater democratic engagement between election periods.
If we look at the statistics across western democracies, whether in proportional systems or in single-member plurality systems, regardless of the type of system, then there seems to be a trend throughout western democracies of decreasing voter engagement and decreasing voter turnout.
Some of that could be due in Canada potentially to fewer people seeing themselves reflected in the Parliament that is elected. I think that is a goal that we have to strive for, enhancing diversity in politics. I had this conversation with Professor Bittner earlier today about whether that means enhancing diversity in the people we see and what they look like in Parliament, with men, women, indigenous persons, persons living with disabilities, and people from racialized minorities, or does it mean people who reflect different partisan views or different ideologies? We had a good conversation about the intersection and the diversion that those diversities represent.
I'm wondering if you have any insight into how we can focus our efforts more on encouraging parties to put forth more diverse candidacies. Professor Bittner said regardless of what system we move to, and even if you move to PR, you still need to find ways to have parties beholden or committing to putting forth more women candidates, more indigenous candidates, and more candidates from ethnic minorities.