I wanted to make a representation. I submitted a brief so that you people can look at it.
It's a little different from some of the others. I tried to submit a brief that would enable a consensus, a compromise, for all the members.
For instance, for the Liberals, it agrees with what one would expect, maybe, that what the Prime Minister wants is a ranked ballot, so it deals with that as an optional preferential vote. In the case of Mr. Reid, it tries to accommodate his wishes when he was the spokesperson for the Conservative Party on a bill in 2007. It was the bill for an elected Senate. In other words, it wanted proportionality for multi-members, and if there was one vacancy, then it went for the ranked ballot. Obviously I'm trying to go for proportional representation for Ms. May, as well as for the New Democrats, because I think it's essential that they have it. I even thought of Monsieur Thériault, because with proportional representation you would have had
—a recognized party in Parliament and all the advantages that it might have.
In any event, this is my background.
I was a House of Commons table officer. I have been retired for 19 years, so it was a very long time ago.
I've heard of different things over the years, things such as mixed member proportional, how it worked in Germany, and so on and so forth, but I wasn't going for that. I was trying to do a brief that you all might be able to agree with.
The key, of course, is that it's dealing with parliamentary reform, not just House reform. In other words, House reform is the preferential ballot, and Senate reform, as Mr. Reid had proposed, is proportional representation, which might avoid a referendum.