Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do share that appreciation for innovation.
The provincial jurisdiction thing does come up when, as Mr. Arreak was proposing to us earlier, there is direct representation based on ethnicity. There would potentially be first nations, Métis, and Inuit representation. Do you try to capture people geographically in that representation, or do you capture it in a way that it is presented, as it is in New Zealand? I don't know if we have other examples. I'm sure there are some.
Mr. Matshazi, first of all, congratulations on your election to office.
I'd like to quote your cousin, Beacon Khumalo. I looked you up. He said on the night of your historic election win:
Winning is actually when he delivers (on his promises) so I think this is half the point where I can say he has won.
I like that quote, because on election night we celebrate the winners. We say, “Oh, they have won”, yet they're not truly winners, particularly according to your cousin and I think others, until they deliver on the promises that got them elected in the first place. That quotation struck me simply because the formation of this committee is an effort to fulfill a promise. Mr. Trudeau won the last election federally under our current system, but won it with a promise, which is ironic, to do away with that system. As I said, 63% of the people in the House of Commons....
I'll turn this question to Senator Patterson. I'll read you another quote, this one from a former senator. This is weird for a New Democrat, but we're going there.
Senator Len Marchand was talking about first nations' strength in our country in terms of representation. He noted back in 1990 that the current voting system is bad and a barrier because it “fragments aboriginal voting strength to the point where an aboriginal vote is next to meaningless.”
What I'm hearing so far today, if I found a theme throughout the testimony, is to please do no harm to the north. Our voices are often singular in terms of Nunavut, but for three vast territories across the north, the theme is “Don't come up with a system that will do us harm”, and maybe there can be some enhancements.
Let me put both of the citations I just read those to you, Mr. Patterson. One is about fulfilling a promise, and the second is about the dilution of aboriginal first nations, Métis, and Inuit voices in the current system that we have right now.