Electoral Reform committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would also like to thank you very much for the invitation to address the committee. It's a wonderful opportunity, and it's a great thing that we are actually engaging in the process in Canada. Thank you. What I'm going to do is answer some of the questio

Electoral Reform committee  I was of course afraid you were going to ask that question.

Electoral Reform committee  Perhaps this is really pie in the sky, but given the nature of the way in which this committee has functioned, its composition, etc., when it goes back to the House, I'm just wondering if there could be some campaign or education process that would allow everyone in the House to

Electoral Reform committee  There are experts out there who strategize around these kinds of things, and we're very fortunate to be in the 21st century, with online availability as it is. One thing you might consider, because I'm definitely not in the camp of “let's go to a referendum”, is to come up with a

Electoral Reform committee  Are you referring to the section in the Constitution that specifically refers to the proportion that—

Electoral Reform committee  Yes, I think if you affected the proportionality in the way that you've just described, you might well need a constitutional amendment. But I think we need to really understand what is meant by proportionate. There are many different points of view on that issue. I can't state

Electoral Reform committee  Well, the question you'd have to ask the Supreme Court is whether or not that change would be constitutional. That would be your question. I am absolutely not certain that the Supreme Court would say yes, because we don't want to be in a situation in our country where we're expan

Electoral Reform committee  Yes, that is what I said.

Electoral Reform committee  I can't see how that would create a constitutional problem. At the end of the day, we have to keep our system working. It seems to me that this is just a logical approach. That's my opinion.

Electoral Reform committee  I agree, it could be done relatively quickly or not, it depends on the court. We did wait some time for the Senate reform reference decision to come through. I seem to recall it was almost a year. It's if you're willing to wait that length of time and, frankly, a year is not that

Electoral Reform committee  Yes.

Electoral Reform committee  I completely agree.

Electoral Reform committee  I would agree with that, and you're quite right; obviously, not every vote is going to count, but it's important for Canadians to know that there might be more than one approach, and that is the benefit of this MMP system.

Electoral Reform committee  I haven't given this a great deal of thought. I don't think Elections Canada should have to do that work. It seems to me that if you're really looking at a strategy for informing your electorate, you're going to use many different approaches, not just one. One is, obviously, to g

Electoral Reform committee  I thought it was an interesting suggestion. If you can get 75% support in the House, that would be great. What I don't know is whether or not the Canadian electorate would be sufficiently swayed by that 75% vote to feel that the new system was legitimate. Now coming from Monsieur