Electoral Reform committee  I agree that under the first past the post system minority governments can be rough and tumble. I suggest the reason is that both the opposition and the governing party have a carrot dangling in front of them, and that's to win the next election and win it by a majority. That incentive is not as strong where the prospect of gaining the majority is not as great, so that aspect might be different now.

Electoral Reform committee  The most recent report from New Zealand looked at dual candidacy and whether that happens. The report found that it doesn't. In fact, when candidates lose their constituency and end up on the list, it's almost an endgame. You find that they don't end up on the list that much longer; they tend to retire.

Electoral Reform committee  Yes, I think you'd want to look at New Zealand as a model, because they've done that. We just didn't think that we could complete the process that would take us along that path in the time that we had for the report. That's why we said this kind of thing could be accommodated with MMP, but first you need some idea or some consensus about the need to change to another system before you get to that next step in terms of devoted seats for first nations people.

Electoral Reform committee  We did look at other countries, and some of them did put requirements that a number of list candidates have certain qualifications, attributes, and the like, so it certainly could be done. It's not something that can't be done within the system.

Electoral Reform committee  About the online?

Electoral Reform committee  As a first step in a more proportional system—something like MMP with a closed list—what we do see is that there are more women, minorities, and first nations people elected.

Electoral Reform committee  In New Zealand, where they did change, that was the effect, so that would be a first step. There are obviously a whole lot of other things, then, that have to happen, but I think that as a first step you need to be in the House.

Electoral Reform committee  [Inaudible—Editor]

Electoral Reform committee  Well, our report dealt with electoral reform. We had a chapter that talked about it, but it would require further negotiations and discussions. We said that this should be encouraged, but this really wasn't something that we were dealing with in that particular report. We looked at some other countries that did it, such as New Zealand, with the participation of the Maoris in their legislature.

Electoral Reform committee  Okay.

Electoral Reform committee  Yes, 75 or two-thirds, higher or lower, I'm not sure where you draw that. In terms of legitimacy, we see that in our history. In this province, electoral reform was put in in the 1920s without a referendum. It was changed again in the 1950s without a referendum. Then in Manitoba, single transferable vote was eliminated without a referendum.

Electoral Reform committee  Yes.

Electoral Reform committee  No, absolutely not. My only point was that there are instances where there haven't been referendums. With the Law Commission's report we said a referendum should be considered. That's a choice, and legitimacy is a concern.

Electoral Reform committee  We did not deal with that to a great extent. We did note that the current system punishes parties that have dispersed national support. The Green Party would be a case in point. It's very hard in that despite having a large segment of the proportion of the vote, you get one or zero seats.

Electoral Reform committee  There's some suggestion, or I've heard it said, that where you have a system of first past the post, which may work badly, or where you have two dominant parties shifting back and forth in power, you would have the problem of controversial parties put in, a change in power, and those policies taken out.