Electoral Reform committee  I'm going to be very blunt about this. It was 72% at the federal referendum. That could have been considered satisfactory. Then it was 72% in Great Britain, and that was unsatisfactory. The point is, how important is the question to society? That has an impact on the turnout an

Electoral Reform committee  I feel very strongly that all these elections represented exactly the will of the people, in keeping with the system of representation.

Electoral Reform committee  I've not gone in that direction in my thinking at this stage. I've indicated to you before that my wish is for this committee to come out with a unanimous recommendation, and if not, then with an overwhelming majority consensus. If not, I'll be more than happy to come back and te

Electoral Reform committee  If I may, I will say that, initially, an election is the way to do it. We have a representative democracy, which is the foundation of our democracy. Holding a referendum has been problematic in the past. When it came to holding a referendum in 1992, it was insisted that it could

Electoral Reform committee  I can't answer that question. I don't know. It's a feeling that will be established. There are ways of building a consensus. With the assisted dying bill, a consensus was established in our society. We saw it in newspaper editorials and articles, as well as in exchanges between

Electoral Reform committee  Nothing is free, so I will feel free just to tell you exactly what is possible. What is possible under our present system is voting machines with a paper copy. That would eliminate a lot of the rejected ballots that we have now or ballots that are not acceptable because they're

Electoral Reform committee  It would make sense in terms of overall objectives of improving the participation of electors. It would be very difficult to say that it makes sense in terms of the numbers that would apply. We must first of all understand what we're getting into by doing tests that are smaller

Electoral Reform committee  It can either be reward or penalty. The Australians have decided that they will impose a minimal fine. I think it's equivalent to $40 or $50, which is not tremendous. If you don't have an acceptable reason for not attending, they can invoke that fine. In terms of controlling it,

Electoral Reform committee  That is precisely the point I was making in my remarks, Mr. Chair. I don't think we're bound by anybody else's system. I don't think there's anything wrong with anybody else's system; I just happen to think that we have peculiarities in this country that are going to be very hard

Electoral Reform committee  I alluded to this when I said that we need a system whereby people are elected across the land and we have a party of national scope so that we have voices from all regions of Canada. The present system does not lend itself readily to that because of the success of multi-partyism

Electoral Reform committee  Elections Canada collaborated very closely with the law reform commission in the provision of information, and not of advice. It was not appropriate for the chief electoral officer, at least in my view, to participate more actively in that aspect. In terms of their report, I thi

Electoral Reform committee  I won't elaborate about the fact that I have run a referendum and know what it involves. I won't repeat the arguments for or against it. However, with a secretariat and solid mechanisms to engage Canadians about what you do, I think you could get their input, which would carry so

Electoral Reform committee  It's the importance of multi-partyism, to put it bluntly. You gave an example of 500,000 votes not getting one seat. In my introductory remarks, I said that 700,000 votes only gets one seat. We owe those Canadians an explanation if we're not going to change the system. We owe t

Electoral Reform committee  I would have to look at that model again before I would comment on it. I've not looked at it recently, but I'd be willing to do that and give you some of my feedback on it. I will remind people, by the way, because people keep saying the referendum for change in British Columbi

Electoral Reform committee  The answer is that there's danger legally in practically anything you will do. Some of it will be on constitutional grounds. People will find ways to address it if they're not happy. That is something we will have to live with, and that includes the situation you described. By t