Electoral Reform committee  Yes. I think—

Electoral Reform committee  At first glance, I don't think so. I actually don't think a national list was ever seriously considered. And it shouldn't be anyway. I will explain why. Canada is a federation. Consider how federations proceed in such matters. In Germany, there is no national list. That has alre

Electoral Reform committee  That is the practice and it's fairly common.

Electoral Reform committee  Quebec did not adopt a reform. So it is difficult for me to say how quickly it could happen.

Electoral Reform committee  I believe that the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada is much more qualified than I am to answer this question, as he is familiar with all the required mechanisms, all the work that must be done in preparation. My understanding was that the current time frame was realistic, but I

Electoral Reform committee  That is the option involving minimal change. That way, the ridings would remain the same. The voting ballot would be exactly the same as the one that already exists. All that would change would be the way the ballot paper is marked. In addition, it would take longer for the resu

Electoral Reform committee  There would be no change. It is well established by political scientists that the single member majority system and the first-past-the-post system both contain distortions. Some studies even claim that the single member majority system is even more unstable than the first-past-t

Electoral Reform committee  Thank you for your question, Mr. Boulerice. As to the way a person votes, the ballot is similar to ours, except that there are two options. On the left side of the ballot, the voter can choose a candidate and, on the right, they can vote for a party, that is, the list created b

Electoral Reform committee  Thanks for your question. Yes, I said that Canada does not have, indeed, a culture of coalitions. I will cite two examples. In 1999 in Saskatchewan, the NDP government—the incumbents—were reduced to a minority status, and a few Liberal members decided to go into a coalition su

Electoral Reform committee  The standard reaction of Canadian politicians, when they are facing minority Parliaments, is to opt for a single-party minority government. I suspect this has to do with this being the way they are used to governing, with all fellows from the same party sitting around the cabinet

Electoral Reform committee  Just another 10 seconds or so. In conclusion, since this is a federal parliament, the compensatory seats will have to be allocated by province. Otherwise, a national list is not realistic. In answering your questions, I can tell you about other technical aspects, such as “overh

Electoral Reform committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ladies and gentlemen, members of the committee, good afternoon. I have published a book and several scholarly articles on electoral systems. When I worked for the Library of Parliament, here on the Hill, in 1983 and 1984, we were talking about implementing

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We used to. I'll give you this. I receive members every year in my seminar, precisely to overcome the dearth of academic literature on it.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I can reassure the member that if the number of professors had increased to the extent that the number of students has increased, we would be many many more than we are at present. When I started teaching in 1992, for example, there were approximately 20 students in every undergr

Procedure and House Affairs committee  A number of factors are involved. In particular, we see that, internationally, Canada is less egalitarian-minded than most federations when it comes to its distribution. I think that only Brazil, Argentina and Spain are even less so than we are. I think that's justification enoug