Hi, there.
I feel I need to speak to this committee in favour of proportional representation, because I feel that our current system is doing a poor job of giving a voice to voters.
I have voted in every single provincial and federal election since I've been of age to cast a ballot, and not once have I voted for a candidate who won. This could mean that I'm just a bad luck charm, but it also means that the values that I voted for are not being represented, and I'm in good company. Some 17 million Canadians cast their ballots in the last federal election, but nine million, like me, voted for candidates who did not win. That means that more votes didn't count, than counted.
At election time you meet a lot of people, especially young people, who will tell you that they aren't voting. They say, “What's the point? My vote probably won't count anyway.” Well, statistically speaking, they're not wrong. If you check the news around the world, we see the effects of members of the voting public who are lashing out because they feel they're not being listened to. People have given up on a system that they feel has excluded them, on institutions they see as unresponsive, and on politicians they think care little about their voice.
It would be smug to think that we in Canada are uniquely immune to this rage. Our voting system is feeding this cynicism, this disengagement, and this frustration that leads to this rage, and makes no attempt whatsoever to create fair results. It gives us distorted majorities in which a party regularly takes control of whole provinces, and indeed the country, against the will of the majority of voters.
In most of the world, by definition, a government taking control of a country against the will of the majority is an illegal and fraudulent coup d'état. Here in Canada, it's sanctioned and publicly funded.
The 12 of you on this committee are uniquely poised to make changes that can truly allow all Canadians to feel they have a stake in our collective future, to allow all Canadians to know that they and their values are represented. I call on you to be decisive, to act boldly, and to implement changes to ensure that the voice of every Canadian is heard. You can choose a system that will serve and represent Canadians fairly and equally while better engaging them in the political process, and that system is mixed member proportional.
I call on you to support proportional representation, an electoral system that's fair, representative, and engaging, because Canadian democracy and those who live under it deserve nothing less.