Electoral Reform committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am honoured to be here today, and I appreciate the opportunity to address the committee. I should like to confine my remarks to just two points. The first is constitutional and the second is political. The first issue to be considered is the extent

Electoral Reform committee  I would have to beg off the question, since I'm a lawyer, not a political scientist. I think one of the great problems is that we assume that lawyers know everything.

Electoral Reform committee  Are you asking me which system I think would work best?

Electoral Reform committee  It's very important to bear in mind the role of lawyers. I can write the statute, I can write the provision, but as to whether this or that system is a better system is really a political science question. I would defer to Professor Norris. Unfortunately, we have a tendency....

Electoral Reform committee  Yes, I think I'm in the minority on this. I do recognize that a number of my colleagues suggest that this is a section 44 problem. I will say this. First, no matter what Parliament comes up with, this will be litigated, sadly. Second, the court has not given any guidance. I see

Electoral Reform committee  Yes.

Electoral Reform committee  I would agree with you. I think this is an area where Parliament ought to assert its sovereignty and not defer to the court.

Electoral Reform committee  Yes. Admittedly I take a rather High Church view of Parliament and its role in the system. I think that the most appropriate way for this matter to be resolved is for this to be the subject of an electoral campaign, which, of course, means that it's likely 2019. I know promises o

Electoral Reform committee  My hate mail on that is spectacular.

Electoral Reform committee  My fallback is a referendum. I think there has to be some mode by which there is a formal consultation with the people. I was reacting, at the time, to the assertion that there would be neither; there would be neither election nor referendum, in which case, as I have said, that i

Electoral Reform committee  Yes.

Electoral Reform committee  I agree. I think simplicity...and the other aspect of that is accountability. When I vote, at the end of the night I can look and I can see who won. I think a system that gets overly complicated raises suspicions that the computer is doing these things, but when we have a governm

Electoral Reform committee  I agree completely. I think that the Senate does not necessarily suffer from structural problems. The problems of the Senate can be solved by appointing better senators. The fact that the Senate is not elected is a puzzling objection to me, since the Supreme Court itself is not e

Electoral Reform committee  I would suggest that Parliament have a great deal of leeway in the organization of ridings. I think the court seems to be rather deferential to that and regards it as a housekeeping issue. With ridings, and with the number of members of Parliament, I think the court seems to have

Electoral Reform committee  Again, I would shy away from referenda except in a situation in which one is looking for just a basic understanding of where people might be on a subject, but not with respect to the designing of policy. In this particular case, I am very much convinced that if we are not going t