Electoral Reform committee  The electoral system is the big issue, obviously, and there is room for certain compromises. When we start to talk about systems that move us towards proportionality, there is room to hedge that in various ways so that it's not the full-fledged proportional representation. There

Electoral Reform committee  I think that would be a reasonable thing to do. I don't think it would be seen as an imposition. It would be seen as a welcoming embrace of sorts.

Electoral Reform committee  When writing about the elimination of the per-vote subsidies, I argued against it. I felt that it was better to have a balanced system of individual donations and per-vote subsidies. The per-vote subsidies are a much more egalitarian method. Every single Canadian is able to provi

Electoral Reform committee  It seems to me that, if you are going to look for a compromise, the second option seems like a reasonable one to go for. There is the question of how many elections people would need to try it. I think it would have to be a minimum of two. One is simply not enough. Ideally, it wo

Electoral Reform committee  I think you have heard from witnesses, people like Arend Lijphart, who have studied it pretty closely and have said that coalition governments in many places work very effectively and they can lead to governance that is as good as or better than what you have under first past the

Electoral Reform committee  Some of them have been mentioned. I think that lowering the voting age could actually have surprisingly strong effects. Countries that have done it have found that the turnout among those who are 16 or 17 can be 15% higher than it is for those who are 20 or 21, because of the fac

Electoral Reform committee  I agree with your analysis of the evolution over time, and of how we've become disconnected from government to the point where we feel like the government is just this agency that does things but is not really our government. That discourse has been quite corrosive, and I agree t

Electoral Reform committee  Curiously enough, I was involved in a survey that asked this question. My recollection is that about 2% or 3% of people could come up with the exact number.

Electoral Reform committee  Yes. Many could not even get close to a ballpark figure. Of course, when people talk about electoral systems and the values people have, they often say, “Oh, I want my local MP. I value my local MP.” There are some contradictions, perhaps, in people's views on these matters.

Electoral Reform committee  It was 2015.

Electoral Reform committee  I think we can point to the evolution of news media, such that it's become the case that we now have a tremendous diversity of options to the point where it's very easy to avoid learning about politics or hearing much about it if you don't want to. That proliferation is not just

Electoral Reform committee  I could see a case being made for doing a bit of both. Let's say, for example, that two-thirds of the ridings were designated as first past the post. Then you could increase them somewhat, but not to the full extent that you would have to if you also increase the size of the Hous

Electoral Reform committee  The geographic size rather than the demographic size?

Electoral Reform committee  I don't know. Sorry, in what sense, like square miles, or...?

Electoral Reform committee  Coming back to these calculations, you're talking about maybe increasing the size by about 20% demographically, in terms of the number of people represented, if you do the two measures I described. What that means in terms of geography, I guess, could be maybe about 20%. I can'