Electoral Reform committee  Of course. This would not lead to perfect proportionality. No electoral system provides a perfectly proportional result. It may be more or less proportional. The determining factor is the number of elected representatives in constituencies. In the Atlantic provinces, where 30% of votes were for the Conservatives, there would clearly have been more Conservative MPs elected if we had used this system.

Electoral Reform committee  No. To me, Vincent Lemieux's term “moderate proportional representation” is excellent. If you want to develop a system proportionate with the size of Canada, it is sufficient to obtain one-third of 1% of the vote to be elected. It is also possible to implement a proportional system based on the size of the provinces.

Electoral Reform committee  The Irish system produces a result that is roughly proportional between the parties.

Electoral Reform committee  If you ask the voters to choose between closed lists, they will have five boxes in which to indicate their first choice, second choice, and so on, for the parties. If they vote as they do in Ireland, there will be 25 boxes, or five candidates per party, for a total of 25 candidates.

Electoral Reform committee  Yes, that's it.

Electoral Reform committee  By voting for the candidate, we vote for the party.

Electoral Reform committee  Not necessarily. I may be repeating myself, but it can be done with closed lists. In that case, we just vote for a list. Clearly, this will result in the candidates on the list being elected. However, we can give voters a choice not only of parties but of party candidates, if we want them to express a preference between the party candidates—

Electoral Reform committee  Not necessarily. In Ireland, there are 25 candidates, assuming that there are five parties and five candidates per party. The parties are ranked. A candidate of a party is ranked first; then in second place comes a candidate of the same party; in third, a candidate from another party, and so on.

Electoral Reform committee  Take the example of a ballot paper that indicates: “Liberal Party: candidate A, candidate B and candidate C; NDP: candidate A, candidate B and candidate C”, and so on, with boxes to record numbers. There is one for the Liberal Party, but not for the candidates. There is one for the NDP, but not for the candidates.

Electoral Reform committee  The question is whether you decide to choose one system or the other. I don't think the political difference is huge. So if you opt for one or the other, I would be very happy. There must be ranked ballots between the parties because of the small parties and because it is very unfair to be in a society where 20% to 25% of the people want to vote for political parties that they rank first, but don't do so because they know it's a wasted vote.

Electoral Reform committee  It is similar to the Irish single transferable vote if we have a preferential vote both for parties and for individual candidates. It is possible to vote only for parties. The objection some politician friends made to me is that the Irish single transferable vote may lead several candidates from the same party to campaign against each other.

Electoral Reform committee  There would be as many candidates for each party as there are seats to be filled in the constituency. We can imagine that a party would have the right to present fewer candidates. I don’t think it's a good idea, but I would have to think about it. That might create distortions.

Electoral Reform committee  If the Irish system is applied, there may be competition between the candidates from the same party. It is possible to adopt a moderate proportional system with ranked ballots, with closed lists, and people choose only from the lists. If a party is entitled to two elected representatives, they will be the two elected at the top of the list.

Electoral Reform committee  If the reform you are studying leads to a moderate proportional representation system with ranked ballots, there will be a number of benefits for the citizens of Canada. The members of the House of Commons elected by 48% of the citizens who voted will be elected by almost all voters.

Electoral Reform committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for inviting me. I submitted a brief summarizing the findings of a small activist book that I wrote and that was published at the start of this year. It is called A Better Electoral System for Canada. I will summarize the conclusions of my brief.