Mr. Speaker, my question has to do with reform of this place. There were comments made about changing the nature of Parliament. It is a topic that I have had a personal and professional interest in for a long time.
There are two concerns I have always had with proportional representation that I would like the member to comment on. First, under our current system, any citizen of Canada has the right to run for this place directly and to represent his or her peers as a member of Parliament. Under a proportional representation system, that would not exist any more. As an individual, one would have to go through a party. A party would actually determine who would be here.
That raises my second point. If it is a list system in a proportional representation legislature, who determines who gets on the list? These two points are connected. As a member of Parliament in my riding, I feel responsible to my constituents for what I do. There are a lot of Saturday mornings when I roll out very early to head off for a full day of events because it is my riding and they are my constituents. I think that people elected in a proportional representation system would be much less likely to do that.
I have two parts of one question. First, how does the member resolve this issue that individuals actually cannot run for Parliament, that it is up to parties to decide who would sit in this place? Second, how would the member convince the voters out there that they would be better served by members of Parliament who are not actually directly connected to them or not directly elected by them, and consequently have no responsibility back to them, but who will be less accessible to them because it is not their own constituency per se?