Thank you. My name is Adam Houblen. I'm finishing up my Ph.D. at the University of Ottawa here in town. I'm studying biology. I look at algae in lakes, so that really doesn't make me an electoral reform specialist in any way, but I am very much in favour of proportional representation, and I think what we have right now, the first past the post, is clearly archaic. It's an archaic form, and I think we can modernize. There are lots of examples, and I'll leave it largely up to the experts to decide which one might be the best form.
As for the question of a referendum, well, I'm here. This is my referendum right now. I'm speaking out at these public open houses. I also did vote in the last election, and I believe all but one party had electoral reform as a key platform issue, so I think it's there. I think we can move on.
I respect all of the opinions, but the best argument I've heard tonight for first past the post is that we've had stable government and it has been working so far. Well, that's not really inspirational, and I think that we have a civil government despite the electoral system. I think we can move on and experiment. I'm a scientist. Let's experiment. Let's have some perspective. We can change it again. It's not the end. It's not the last form. There might be something better.
Canada has been in a unique position as well. We have this large geography with pockets of dense population. We'd probably have to come up with something that might be unique or novel, so I hope that we can.
I trust you. If you have questions about algae, I hope you trust my expertise, and I'm going to basically trust this panel that has been working on this, doing a great job. I love that it's proportional and across all the parties, but I'm going to trust your final decision. I'll let you whittle out the final details. I hope you can take the opinion of the electorate, though, that they do want change. I think it's quite apparent here.
Thank you.