Thank you, members of Parliament and members of the Special Committee on Electoral Reform, for inviting me here today to talk about how electoral reform can assist people with disabilities in being better represented in our elected bodies.
I'd also like to take a moment now to acknowledge the Mi'kmaq first nations peoples whose traditional land we are gathering on today.
Statistics tell us that 3.7 million people are living with disabilities in Canada. This represents over 10% of the Canadian population, yet this is not reflected in our elected bodies nationally or provincially. Our current federal government for the first time in history appointed a minister responsible for people with disabilities. This is a first good step, but we believe if we had a proportional electoral system, we would see elected bodies truly reflect the diversity of our communities.
If we had a PR system, it would allow for the number of seats captured in the legislature to truly reflect the percentage of popular votes cast at the ballot box and move us away from the winner-loser mentality that we currently have in our first-past-the-post system. A PR system encourages parties to be more conciliatory, more open to co-operation and collaboration, thus eliminating and reducing the adversarial nature of our current first-past-the-post system. This has the potential to create an environment for people from diverse groups to feel more valued, which will increase our participation in the electoral process.
A PR system would greatly reduce wasted votes, resulting in increased voter engagement and a reduction in voter apathy. A PR system would ensure that minority parties had access to representation, resulting in a multitude of voices being heard to shape legislature and policy. A PR system would encourage parties to campaign beyond the districts in which they are strong or where the results are expected to be close. PR systems are designed to maximize the overall vote regardless of where the votes might come from, resulting in a system where all votes truly matter. A PR system is less likely to lead to situations where a single party holds all the seats in a given province or district, again honouring our diversity.
A PR system would lead to greater continuity and stability in our policy development. First-past-the-post systems make long-term social and economic planning more difficult. PR coalition governments help engender stability and a coherence in decision-making that would allow our national development to benefit the majority of citizens. This is a key point for people with disabilities. When we have opposing parties with ideologies that are very different from one another, which continue from one election to another so they can get elected, we see extreme changes in social policy with regard to dealing with vulnerable people. We've seen that in our last government, as funding was stripped away from many sectors that serve our most vulnerable in this country. Now we're seeing that being reversed with our current government. This is a huge cost to the taxpayer, to the well-being of the individuals whom government is supposed to be serving.
All these reasons listed above would create more diversity in our House of Commons and our other elected bodies. It would result in more people living with disabilities running for office, as they would no longer be at the whim of a two-party system that uses the disability rights movement as a political football.
Fairness and plurality are fundamental Canadian values, and a PR system would honour those values and create a true democracy.
Thank you.