Business of Supply   preference, was that it had an alternate ballot. The result of that referendum was a call for mixed member proportional representation, which the Liberal government in P.E.I. decided to ignore. There are some similarities. It is not in respect to what people want. It is the behaviour

Electoral Reform committee  Thank you very much for joining us for what is our evening and for talking about your various electoral systems. One of the witnesses we heard today, who is not an advocate for any form of proportional representation, said that one of the real dangers—and he seemed quite

Electoral Reform committee   capable of being politically enlightened in that sense under a first past the post system, the same kind of goodwill and political enlightenment wouldn't mitigate toward less regional politics within a proportional representational system. I've been struggling with the presentation

Electoral Reform committee  I want to follow up on the question of regionalism in Canadian politics and the voting system. In your presentation, you say that one of the positives of proportional representation is that parliamentary groups and main parties would have MPs from right across the country. I'm

Electoral Reform committee  Thank you very much. We've heard a fair bit from Mr. Carty concerning his views about the impact a proportional system might have on regionalism in Canadian politics. I came of age in an era in which, under the first past the post system, Canadian politics was intensely

Salaries Act   and then have to go back and reverse it because there was something they did not know. That is important. It may be odd for the member, but I am thinking about this in terms of the feedback we got on electoral reform. One of the important arguments for proportional representation is getting

Business of Supply   in Atlantic Canada, they got 100% of the seats. I wonder if the member would agree that this very debate is one of the reasons why we need proportional representation in Canada.

Electoral Reform committee   case for proportional representation. So I'll thank him for that. I want to get back to the issue of process and give Professor Cyr the opportunity to weigh in on my earlier question, which Mr. Seidle had an opportunity to answer in his response to another question. There's

Electoral Reform committee  If we did decide to go to some kind of mixed member proportional system, for example, it's seems to me that one of the really important questions would be the composition of the lists and how exactly you institute some kind of open list. So maybe you've got the most closed model

Electoral Reform committee  So even in the New Zealand case, switching to a proportional system didn't mean the end of national parties. National parties continue to be relatively strong and haven't been usurped by regionally interested parties.

Electoral Reform committee  That's why it had to engage in.... You know, the right had to come back together. You have the Bloc Québécois, which is a regional party. The idea that somehow we would be introducing regional parties to Canada because we adopted a proportional representation system is just

Electoral Reform committee   vote system and you have some form of proportional system, and there are many configurations. Which of those two do you think is most likely to duplicate that problem of the first past the post system, and how?

Electoral Reform committee  Maybe I'll put a more philosophical kind of question to the entire panel. For me, part of the question between trying to decide between an AV model and a proportional model of some kind, if there's agreement that we move away from the first past the post system, is whether we

Business of Supply   that it wants to go to some form of mixed member proportional system. At the end of the day, it would be unfortunate if the list of MPs was just a creature of the leader's decision. It is important for internal party democracy that there be some method, whether through the party or Canadians

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, as I said, for a long time the NDP, as a matter of policy, has preferred some form of mixed member proportional system. That is where I am at as well. However, the nitty-gritty details would have to be worked out. We do not have a full proposal, but, in principle