Electoral Reform committee  Anybody can interpret it however they want, but the courts when they interpret it, and I'm not a lawyer—

Electoral Reform committee  They said that the candidates talked about slow, uneven steps toward effective representation, and first past the post is clearly, in my mind, not effective representation.

Electoral Reform committee  Basically, for seven-member districts, it's like taking seven current electoral districts and putting them together. Within that group of districts—which might be the northern half of Saskatchewan, for example, probably going down below Davidson and that area—all of the people in

Electoral Reform committee  I don't know if I have much more to add. In terms of the Far North, I would respect the territorial boundaries of the Far North in terms of the three northern territories and let them each elect one member, as they do now. As for northern Saskatchewan, I know that area is huge; I

Electoral Reform committee  I go beyond that, because unless the body we elect is a mirror image of the people of Canada, not only in terms of political leanings but also in terms of ethnic background, race, and gender, we don't have effective representation. Effective representation means that we should ha

Electoral Reform committee  No.

Electoral Reform committee  I don't think so, because our electoral system doesn't do it. The first past the post system simply does not represent small parties and minorities as well as a larger group of votes over a broader area. Check STV. With first past the post, you need 30%, 40%, or 50%. That's 30,

Electoral Reform committee  I still wouldn't have a referendum. I think there are rights issues in here, in the Charter of Rights. We're moving slowly, as a country, toward effective representation. We're not there yet. In moving toward effective representation, I think we should take a huge step that way,

Electoral Reform committee  I'm happy to do that. I think there's no question that you are a legitimate committee. Our system up until this point in time has been first past the post. We have a majority government. You can agree with the system to get there or not, but that's what we have. This committee w

Electoral Reform committee  I thought the idea of combining different regions was unique. I probably wouldn't have done that myself. I don't know the answer to whether or not it gives us equal legislative power to the voters. That's the key thing that I'm driving at because we are a representative democracy

Electoral Reform committee  Yes, for two reasons. One, if you catch a voter early while they're still studying civics, I think they become a voter for life. That's one piece of the equation. The other piece to the equation involves long-term decisions that MPs make. Frankly, they're going to live with the d

Electoral Reform committee  I wouldn't do it simply because I've been at a couple of group sessions where they are talking about proportional representation and changing it, and the level of understanding in the general population is extremely low. I think if you try to get people to pick between three diff

Electoral Reform committee  I think the number one thing, front and centre, is something I call equal legislative power. What that means is under STV in five- to seven-member districts, if they had 100,000 votes to elect an MP, every MP would be elected with 80,000 to 90,000 votes. Every MP has the same aut

Electoral Reform committee  I have just one more comment. If under mixed member proportional somewhere between 60% and 70% of the MPs are elected with first past the post, they're probably elected with 30% or 40% of the vote, 30,000 to 40,000 votes. Why not elect MPs, all MPs, with 80,000 votes instead of s

Electoral Reform committee  I think we should proceed and implement it now, and I think after two election cycles we should have another go-around to see if we can't make it better. If people wanted to have a citizens' assembly then, I think that would be wonderful, but I think we're long past due the point