Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you all for being here. I realize it's a tremendous contribution you're making of time and effort, travelling the country, one-night-stands, going from place to place like rock stars, and presumably not trashing too many hotel rooms. I know it's been a lot of hard work, and like many other Canadians, I am interested in this issue and very appreciative of that.
I want to start off with something with a little audience participation, if I could. Could all those who can comfortably stand up, please stand up for a moment.
This is an election 100 years ago and I'm going to arbitrarily assign 4% of this group, which is about 30 people, as electors. You, sir, will represent indigenous voters, because this is who was voting 100 years ago, so, sit down, sir, please. You, sir, will represent south Asians 100 years ago. You sit down, please. You, sir, will represent east Asians. You sit down, please. All the women sit down, please.
This is who was voting 100 years ago, lest we forget. Thanks. Everyone can sit down.
I agree with our previous musician friend that this is history in the making, and I can't underline that more. This is a historic opportunity. Now that I'm older, I play a little game with my friends called, “I'm so old that...” whether it's in my work as a family physician or as an observer of social change. Just think back to a previous generation, whatever it is, and think about the illegality of homosexual orientation, and the illegality of interracial marriage in the sixties, in the United States. The list goes on and on. We changed profoundly. We look back at previous generations and say, “How the hell could they do that?“
Well, this is what we have now. What this is is the GTA, anatomically correct, so to speak. Each of these little animals represents 51,000 voters, colour-coded according to the party they voted for. In one group over here are those who voted Liberals, about 1.25 million voters in the 50 ridings of the GTA, and over here are the same number of voters, within 1%, who voted in the group either CPC, NDP, or Green. Check out the outcome by MPs. There are 47 Liberal MPs and three CPC MPs.
I'm on the executive committee for the riding that I live in, which is Simcoe North, in Ontario. I was away on a canoe trip when you were in Toronto, and that's why I'm here. I'm visiting my friends in P.E.I.
I go around to schools and talk about electoral reform. I would challenge any member of this committee, if you wish to take up the challenge, to go into a high school civics class, as I have been doing for the past two years, and try to explain how first past the post makes sense. I guarantee that to anyone who's not been indoctrinated in voting first past the post, it's inexplicable. You cannot make sense of it. Unless you think I'm manipulating by presenting an aberrant situation here, about 52% of these voters got what they voted for, which is about what happened in the last election. As you may know, only 49% of people got what they voted for.
This is the take-home message, I hope, at the end of the day. Who can live with this? Who can honestly live with this? This is an accurate reflection of what happens every election under first past the post.
My challenge is that you have to look at historical perspective and see that you are making history. Get rid of first past the post. That cannot work. Where you go from there is up to you and how to make it work. First past the post's day may have come, but it's gone now.
By that same token—and it's the last point I'll make—if the argument for a referendum is that we want Canadians to have a chance to show us their preference, then you have to have a system where Canadians have a chance to show their preference, not a 50% chance, but close to a 100% chance.
By all means, have a referendum that doesn't have first past the post on it. Have people try a new system for two or three election cycles and vote again, because first past the post is going down if it goes head to head against any kind of proportional representation system.
Thank you for that time.