SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 80

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 2, 2022 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 80 - Jun/2/22
Mr. Alexandre Boulerice
  • Jun/2/22 12:30:10 p.m.
  • Watch
  • Re: Bill C-14 
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for that excellent question. Earlier I said that I was part of the Special Committee on Electoral Reform, which travelled across the country to hear what people had to say. This is an issue that came up many times. I know that in my colleague's riding, people like to know who their MP is, sometimes so that they can congratulate him, sometimes so that they can criticize him, sometimes so that they can hold him to account and sometimes so that they can ask for federal government services. That is entirely appropriate. We could have a big discussion about that, but there is a way to maintain that contact. Let us look at Germany, which has a mixed member proportional system. Half of the members are elected in local ridings, like in our current system. The other half are elected by a proportional voting system. Proportional representation corrects the major distortions created by a purely local electoral model. Why is it that Conservative voters have basically no representation in Toronto? Why do Liberal voters have no representation in the Prairies? I think we also need to keep that in mind. There are models that can help us maintain that connection with voters while correcting problems with the system.
215 words
All Topics
  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
  • star_border