Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I'm here tonight because of Elizabeth May, whom I saw on an airplane travelling from Calgary to Ottawa a few weeks ago. She impressed upon me the importance of average Canadians making representations before this committee and making their views heard. I'm glad to see a room filled with people here tonight.
For those who do not like the present system of first past the post, for whatever reason, the question then becomes, what will we replace the present system with? I did a bit of research, and I compared first past the post with the mixed member proportional representation system for 60 years, from 1957 to 2016, involving 20 federal elections.
I determined that if you have a mixed member proportional system, you essentially have the first past the post, but it then addresses some of the concerns that other Canadians have regarding the idea that, for whatever reason, their vote's not counted, their views aren't heard, or they don't have adequate representation because of the current system.
My results show that under a single-member plurality system, in the last 20 elections since 1957, we would have 11 majority governments and nine minority governments. If you change our present system to one involving mixed member proportional representation, for example, you will have two majority governments—and John Diefenbaker and Brian Mulroney would be glad to hear they were theirs in 1958 and 1984—and 18 minority governments over a 60-year period.
What does that mean for our system? It means that we might add members of Parliament. It might cost additional financial resources. It will involve not just changing our electoral system, but it means that our parliamentary system will also change. With more minority governments, it means that we might need more co-operative government. We might need more interaction with parliamentarians.
The bottom line is that if you change the system as I've suggested, the parties that stand to gain the most are the smaller third parties, such as the Green Party and the New Democratic Party. The party that loses the most is the Bloc Québécois, for obvious reasons.
I have given a copy of my presentation to the clerk. My PowerPoint presentation, hopefully, will be distributed to all of you.