Electoral Reform committee  Having not heard what he said, I'm not sure where the figure of 75% comes from.

Electoral Reform committee  We looked at the wasted vote. We thought that first past the post accentuated that, because if you don't vote for the winning candidate, it's pointless. With mixed member proportional, you can see that the relationship is that your vote ended up electing the list candidate. You c

Electoral Reform committee  On the question of STV, although perhaps we could have dealt with it at greater length in the report, it's not because we didn't consider it, it's just that you have an over 200-page report and you have to make choices. We did consider it and it satisfies a number of the criteri

Electoral Reform committee  I suppose, as well, in terms of countries that use STV, my impression is that it probably works better in smaller jurisdictions or smaller settings, where it's really the candidate who counts. That's why you see it used in municipal politics where I think it first arose. So for t

Electoral Reform committee  We considered that as a possibility in the report, although we didn't put the mechanism in. We said that it would require a whole different order of discussions and conversation. We didn't want to rule it out, but we said that, at this point, we were dealing with the electoral sy

Electoral Reform committee  It is certainly a possibility. The advantage of it is that you can get citizens who do have the time to study the particular system in detail and make an informed choice. As I said, the difficulty with a referendum is having an informed vote on the question. I think there might e

Electoral Reform committee  Well, first past the post is also cruel to them, because they won't be the winners forever. The tide will turn, and they'll find themselves on the losing side. They might find their party virtually wiped out because of the vagaries of first past the post. You might find them lead

Electoral Reform committee  We proposed that the list, except for Quebec and Ontario because of the size of those provinces, would be on a regional basis, so you would have your provincial list. What that would mean is that if you have a province like Newfoundland and Labrador with seven MPs, then there wou

Electoral Reform committee  It is a matter of some controversy. The worry was with the backdoor candidate. You get voted out on Friday, and you're back in on the list on Monday. That's how people refer to it in New Zealand. New Zealand and Germany do allow dual candidacy, and I think there is a good reason

Electoral Reform committee  Yes.

Electoral Reform committee  Briefly, with the closed list, the parties decide the ranking; with the open list, the voters decide. At the time of the report, we heard that voters in New Zealand said the parties shouldn't decide; the voters should decide the ranking. We were very concerned the proposal for MM

Electoral Reform committee  On closed list?

Electoral Reform committee  I don't think so. If properly understood, it's not a problem. You have to understand that there's the constituency vote and the party vote, and when you're voting for the party, the party is setting up its view of its candidacy on that side. They're putting together their ranking

Electoral Reform committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, for your very kind invitation to appear today. I believe that a country that is willing to examine its electoral system is much stronger for doing so. Twelve years ago, the Law Commission of Canada published its report on electoral reform. I was a