Good evening. My name is Julian Potvin-Bernal. I wrote this at my seat; hopefully it's coherent.
I'd like to talk more about the actual system. I personally support a PR system, but I want to gloss over that quickly and talk about something else.
On that matter, though, I think a variation of STV would work very well in terms of being a flexible expression of voters' stances. It's a very complex opinion you're trying to present in a ballot, and allowing a ballot that has all the parties listed with all the candidates of each party and ranking amongst everybody seems to be quite a flexible way of expressing that view. Also, a variation of it would work for the Canadian geography, obviously.
Regarding the actual system, you've listened to many witnesses throughout the summer, experts in the matter who most likely know a lot more about the system than all of us sitting here, and that is the point and the reason I want to talk about the referendum issue and about why a referendum is not necessarily fitting for this topic.
The issue we're talking about here is to institute a system that reflects voter views, and both sides of a topic are not necessarily equal, in the sense that it's arguably more of an objective debate than a subjective debate.
I think it would be disrespectful to the work of the whole committee and all the witnesses who spoke to you if the 99% of Canadians who aren't in these rooms got off their couches and went to vote in a referendum in a black and white manner, yes or no, when the issues are very much more complex than that. It's an impossible task to formulate a question that can reflect the full gradient.
I know that many people have taken flack—for instance, Professor Dennis Pilon—for suggesting that voters might be ignorant on these matters, but it's the truth, and not a shameful one, that you might not know as much as everybody sitting here and all the witnesses who spoke to you.
If a referendum is a matter of unanimity in the committee, then perhaps it's fair to have one and to have as much education as you possibly can and engage everyone, so that if you have a referendum you can have a coherent outcome to it.