Electoral Reform committee  I think it's a fair question. I must confess that I'm with Henry on this. I think greater proportionality is so much better that it would be more than sad if we didn't move in that direction. That's not to say that you're incorrect that any choice involves trade-offs. It depe

Electoral Reform committee  If I might, Mr. Chairman, it goes back to what I said: not necessarily a referendum, but a referendum if necessary.

Electoral Reform committee  I agree with what both my colleagues have said. Ideally, you have a process that's open, credible, and engaged enough that you don't need a referendum—which would be my goal—and that you actually end up with a proposal. However difficult that is, it would represent at least some

Electoral Reform committee  If there is no committee consensus, then I think you have a credibility challenge, and then I would find some mechanism to deal with that credibility challenge before I made a final decision.

Electoral Reform committee  I agree with that, although I think it's important to have principles. Linking them to actual proposals is going to be the key, because what really matters is the tension among principles. To take an example, there are two principles that I think we would all nod about. One of th

Electoral Reform committee  I think that's a multi-barrelled question. To some extent, you're asking something that goes beyond electoral reform, about how we keep disengaged communities more engaged, about how we bring them into the system. I think electoral reform is part of it, but I think it's much bigg

Electoral Reform committee  I read the article, and actually retweeted it. I think there's a lot of merit in that view. In a representative democracy, the legislators are expected to represent their constituents and do some hard work. This is not constitutional, and so it's not required. It then becomes a p

Electoral Reform committee  Fiscal situations.

Electoral Reform committee  There are a lot of substantial benefits.

Electoral Reform committee  It's interesting that comparative research on the substantive outcomes of electoral reforms do show that not only are policies more progressive as a result, in the sense of pursuing collective advance, and being more in the public interest, because, in fact, you have to find comm

Electoral Reform committee  Yes, I think narrowing down the proposals is really important, for example, taking some things off the table like national lists, which would never work for Canada. It's really important to narrow it down to things that are likely to be implemented in Canada. I would do that. I

Electoral Reform committee  Yes, I too like the idea of an earlier voting age as a way of promoting youth participation. And I am open, as I said, despite my fogeyness, to online voting if that would make a big difference not only for youth but for others whom we should be targeting. So I think those are t

Electoral Reform committee  I'm not surprised at the question either and haven't decided how I'm going to answer that. I was asked the same question, Mr. Chair, at a conference and I answered a referendum if necessary, but not necessarily a referendum, and the entire crowd groaned at me, but it is more or l

Electoral Reform committee  My own bias is that parties ought to be looking at that, but I wouldn't make a proposal on it.

Electoral Reform committee  Nobody wants to answer that.