Electoral Reform committee  If I may comment on that, on the one hand I'll praise our present Prime Minister for doing the gender equality thing in the cabinet, but I have to be candid. When that happened, I thought of how Gro Brundtland, a prime minister of Norway, did it decades ago in Norway. I remember

Electoral Reform committee  Right.

Electoral Reform committee  That's okay. No, I understand. It's all right. Go to Mr. Cullen.

Electoral Reform committee  Okay. I understand.

Electoral Reform committee  It's a matter of preferring the system that I advocated, either strict PR or MMP. A ranked ballot system can have the effect of eliminating particularly very small parties. They can be ranked out of the system. The advantage of either MMP or strict PR is that every vote will co

Electoral Reform committee  Mr. Chairman, let me say to my colleague, if I can put it that way, that like everyone around this table I change my mind occasionally.

Electoral Reform committee  I can hardly wait now.

Electoral Reform committee  If you look with care, I think, at what I said then, it was a democratic option to proceed with a referendum, which I could understand, and I could see people going from that to endorsing the idea. I have thought more about it since, particularly about the legitimacy argument. I'

Electoral Reform committee  As Mr. Charbonneau has mentioned, and I've experienced it, very often when politicians find that they get elected by first past the post, they conveniently forget about any commitment they might have made to an alternative system. It's very tempting. Anyone who pursues power and

Electoral Reform committee  I agree with my friend.

Electoral Reform committee  I'm saying that however the Liberal Party voted on that motion—frankly, I was not familiar with that—they had a campaign after that, in any case. The man who became prime minister did make a campaign for electoral reform, with many options open, as I recall. He also, again if I r

Electoral Reform committee  Well, these are subjective opinions, as the honourable member will recognize. It was from both my general experience and from reading about these countries, and more specifically from talking to members of Parliament, especially when I had a position in Socialist International th

Electoral Reform committee  I hope your views have changed since then.

Electoral Reform committee  I can see the argument for it, but on balance I think the arguments against it are better, frankly. Beginning from a constitutional position, it certainly isn't constitutionally required to have a referendum. Second, I agree with our distinguished academic from Toronto in ter

Electoral Reform committee  Once I was elected, the point that you've raised became clear to me. I used to favour straight....