I had a second question relating to the nature of the way we answer questions. The Referendum Act requires that every question has to be in the form of a yes versus a no, and it seems to me there are some issues to which this is ill suited. When we had the referendum in Ontario on multi-member proportional, MMP, versus first past the post, I thought it was a good example of a question that's not well suited to a first past the post response system, in that there are multiple alternatives to the status quo.
I actually spoke with the folks at Fair Vote Ontario and indicated that I thought the appropriate way to deal with this question would have been to have some kind of preferential ballot, in which you see at the top a couple of or maybe three alternative options to the status quo, plus the status quo, and are asked if you can rank them preferentially. That's on the assumption that in the end there will always be more people who don't favour any particular system and who are willing to game the system in the hope that their alternative, such as STV, will come up, rather than vote for the alternative.
That's just my own opinion and I may be alone in having it. Do you think there's merit to the idea in allowing in certain circumstances for a preferential ballot? Or ought that to be avoided at all times, in your opinion?