Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, professors, and welcome to your Parliament. As my colleagues pointed out earlier, it's fascinating to hear two respected academics with such opposing views debate the merits of the issue alongside one another. It's a wonderful example of democracy in action, and we are very fortunate to have you.
I believe the two of you bring the tally of academics who have appeared before the committee to eight. I would like everyone to carefully consider hearing from the academic who said, and I quote, “Precedent makes holding a referendum necessary in Canada: changing the voting system would require popular support.” That great scholar is none other than the Honourable Stéphane Dion. I encourage all of my fellow members to seriously consider that possibility.
Before going any further, I'd like to pick up on what my NDP colleague Mr. Cullen said a few moments ago about the makeup of this committee reflecting the will of voters during the last election. From a numbers standpoint, I don't agree with that statement.
The Green Party received 600,000 votes, corresponding to one committee member. The NDP has two. Does that mean the NDP garnered 1.2 million votes? No. It received 3.6 million votes, six times as many as the Green Party. Now, in our case, it was nine times as many. We have three members on the committee, and they have one. The committee's makeup is indeed different from that of the House of Commons, but it does not at all reflect the will of Canadians in the last election.
I have many questions for you.
First of all, I will start with you, Mr. Russell. You said earlier that it's very tough times, if we listen to you, that during the last 150 years, and especially in the last 100 years, only three times did we have majority governments. Two of them were Conservative—Diefenbaker and Mulroney, the good old days.