Electoral Reform committee  One basic instinct of a human being is about fairness. If you have young kids, the kids will say it's not fair. The first question you ask Canadians is whether it's fair for someone to be elected with 30% of the vote, or 40%, or whether it's fair if you have 20% of the vote and you get only 10% of the seats.

Electoral Reform committee  Right now, you'll get elected if all your population is in one region, so you tell the minority groups not to try to settle in various places but to all go to Saint-Léonard, Outremont, or wherever, and then they will be able to influence politics. If you want to create ghettos, it's a great system.

Electoral Reform committee  Good question. As I explained, if we want to destroy the new system project, we simply have to say we'll hold a referendum, then work to counter the idea of the project, generate fear, and say that it will result in a new system, that there will be chaos, and that there will be minority governments and elections each year.

Electoral Reform committee  I don't know. We solved the problem by opposing the idea of a referendum.

Electoral Reform committee  If your committee comes up with a proposal like the one the Law Commission is proposing, it developed independently—there were no politicians in our group or anyone who had been in politics—you would be perceived as caring about the system more than the short-term election perspective.

Electoral Reform committee  I want to make a quick clarification. First, the Law Commission of Canada's job is not to go around selling a solution. After we prepared the report, we stopped working on electoral reform. Second, the commission has found all sorts of clever ways to communicate with the public.

Electoral Reform committee  We didn't say there needed to be obligations. The reform could be useful for encouraging the parties to make sure the lists cover members of visible minority groups, people from remote regions, or people in city centres. We even said that a person could be both in a constituency and on the list.

Electoral Reform committee  The party determines who will be on the list, and the voters determine whether or not they'll vote for the party.

Electoral Reform committee  That's very important. It's a mixed electoral system, based on the “66-33” method. The voter has two ballots. We made this finding after consulting people, both citizens and experts, including academics and politicians. The system seemed the simplest and corresponded the best to the values we targeted.

Electoral Reform committee  Mr. Deltell, I don't understand why you say you disagree. It's like you're blocking communication, and, basically, we're not that close with regard to the element of the proposal and the fact the MP is in contact with the public in relation to the system. What I'm trying to explain is that the constituency would be larger.

Electoral Reform committee  That's an excellent question and it applies to those who are concerned about contact with their MP. The province is large. We therefore divided Quebec in two, but you can find other solutions. Based on the solution we proposed, there's a list for the Montreal region. So, out of 16 MPs in total, eight would be elected from a list for Montreal and eight would be elected from a list for the rest of Quebec.

Electoral Reform committee  I share Mr. Montigny's advice, and this is what we indicated in the report. There's no need for a referendum. Anyway, it's suicidal to have a referendum. If you don't want it to succeed, just hold a referendum.

Electoral Reform committee  In practical terms, the first point is that very few electors know the MP for their riding or speak to him or her. The person who has a health-related problem will have a tendency to address his concerns to the Minister of Health directly rather than to his MP. The second point is that electors would have two people in their riding whom they could turn to.

Electoral Reform committee  There are two elements in answer to your question. First, we had a yearly budget of $3 million.

Electoral Reform committee  The Government of Canada.