Members of Parliament, I'd like to add my thanks to that of many others for your hard work in Ottawa and across Canada.
I'd like to skip the unfairness and anti-democratic aspects of the first-past-the-post system, of which you are all very much aware, and encourage you to adopt one of the proportional representation systems you've been studying.
I'd like to quickly cover three subjects: the change of culture with coalition governments, why coalition governments are more efficient than our present system, and a plug for a delayed referendum.
On the change of culture with coalitions, I hope it's not too naive to think that parties would work better with each other because of the need to form coalitions after the election.
Second, coalitions are more efficient because there would never be any need to reverse, replace, or amend the previous government's legislation. I don't know how much time members of Parliament are spending now on changing the legislation of the previous government, but it seems to me that this activity would be a waste of time. If a coalition that represents over 50% of the population passes the legislation, there would be no need to revamp, replace, or amend the previous legislation because it would have been so well supported and represented in the House.
Finally, as Mr. Howe, the professor at the University of New Brunswick, said, “A referendum after the fact is a better idea.” I believe that when New Zealand adopted the system of proportional representation, it included in the package a referendum after New Zealanders had had a chance to vote via the new system. I believe Canada should use that model and I think it would be unwise to use a referendum before trying out the PR system.
Thank you.