I'm looking at voices expressed in two ways.
One is the voice of the voter going into the ballot box and having that voice reflected in Parliament. I think that leads to some of those people being reflected in Parliament—the question you raised earlier—but also that sense of “I have some power here.” Voting, as one witness told us, is mostly an irrational act. One vote very rarely ever turns the tide of an election, yet collectively we know it matters.
However, how do we know and feel that it matters if, as in the last election, 9.2 million votes out of the 18 million votes that were cast elected nobody, were just an expression of something else? That's one thing I'd like you to address.
The second thing is—and this has often happened in Canada—what happens where entire regions, major metropolitan groups, are shut out entirely from government, or opposition, or sometimes both, which is a remarkable feat. You have entire groups of Canadians, like with the last Conservative government—Atlantic Canada, or Newfoundland, for example, or the entire cities of Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, for the most part—or you don't have voices in opposition.... I think those both need attention.
Our system sometimes drives us to where.... There are no opposition voices coming from Atlantic Canada right now. That matters for the country, but also for people who happen to not ascribe to the current government's ideas. This is what we're trying to solve.
Do you have any research or evidence around proportional systems or other systems, other than SMP, first past the post, that can help a country like Canada make sure there is regional representation in both opposition and government, as well as increasing the power of individual voters when they go to the ballot box, to know that their vote is going to matter?