Thank you, Chair, and thank you to our witnesses. It's nice to be here. Nakurmiik.
I'll start with Mr. Buscemi. I thought your testimony was incredibly powerful and, unfortunately, too familiar to a lot of places in this country. I represent northern British Columbia, up against the Yukon and Alaska borders. What you described in terms of people's priorities—not having a safe place to sleep, not having good food, and the threat or the actuality of violence—means that electoral reform isn't hitting your radar.
One of the criticisms of the current way we vote in this country is that we like to throw the bums out, as they say. There's something satisfying in that, right? You have a government for a while, and if you don't like them, you toss them all out. First past the post does an okay job of that. The difference between the winner and the loser can be a few percentage points, but the change can be 100% when it comes to being in power.
It's been proposed to us that longer-term issues, such as poverty and climate change, don't do well when every eight to 10 years, or so, the country flips, and all the stuff that was being done is reversed by the new government as part of their promises. The new guys come in with their agenda for a while, and then they get thrown out. I think you can maybe see where I'm going.
We've heard from young people that one of the reasons they don't vote is they don't think it matters. One vote's not going to affect anything, or they live in a place where we already know who's going to win. Some of the systems that we're considering give more chances for each vote to matter.
Is this too far away from trying to draw people back in, or draw them in for the first time into having that voice, which is what I believe a vote should be—a voice, and some power in their world—or am I too far away from that?