Good morning everyone, and thank you for inviting me.

I'll say a few words about Leadnow in just a moment, but I'm going to begin with a couple of quotes.

The first is from Bruce Woollatt, a Leadnow member from London, Ontario. He says, “I'm tired of the MP for my riding being the representative of his party in his constituency, rather than my representative in Ottawa.”

The next quote is from Lori James in Yorkton, Saskatchewan, who says, “I've had enough of MPs waving ta/king points rather than debating issues and working together to resolve them. I want my representatives to work together for the good of the country not the good of their party.”

Leadnow is an independent advocacy organization. We work to bring Canadians together from coast to coast and across party lines to take action on the issues that matter. Since our launch just before the last federal election, our online campaigning community has grown to include over 360,000 Canadians.

Together, through online consultations and face-to-face gatherings, our community has decided to focus on three areas: building a fair economy, action to protect our environment and address climate change, and democratic reform.

What we keep hearing over and over again from our community is a grave concern about the state of our democracy, as well as a deep desire for positive change. Democracy isn't an end in itself. It's a means by which we can come together to make progress on the major challenges we face as a society, and that's why when Mr. Chong introduced the reform act, we felt compelled to act. There are issues that we believe Canadians want to make progress on, but the reality is that action to improve the functioning of our democracy and to empower MPs to better represent their constituents truly cuts across all issues and cuts across all party lines.

Over 26,000 Canadians have now signed on to Leadnow's campaign in support of the reform reform act. Yesterday, I sent out a survey asking all of them for their opinions on the issues that this bill encompasses, as well as their thoughts on democratic reform more broadly. In just a few hours, over 3,000 had responded. That's where the quotes I opened with come from, the voices of regular Canadians across the country who care about these issues.

These are Canadians who self-identified as being supportive of the reform act, as opposed to a random public poll, but I do believe it will be useful for the committee to get a sense of the reasons why Canadians support this bill.

First, when we asked about the freedom MPs have to represent their constituents over the interests of their parties, 91% told us it's very important for MPs to be able to disagree with, speak out, or vote against the official positions of their parties.

One of the issues we've seen debated within the context of this bill is the ability of parties to ensure a diversity of candidates. That's a goal that is in tension with the aims of increasing MPs' freedoms to represent their constituents. Despite this tension, it is something that is important to the Canadians we surveyed—75% said it is very important for parties to be able to ensure a broad diversity of candidates.

My understanding is that Mr. Chong's latest proposed amendments would give each party the power to decide what mechanisms it puts in place for the approval of candidates. We asked people who they thought should have the final say in whether a candidate gets to run for a party. This was more varied, but 53% said it should be the sole control of the local riding association and 37% were in support of regional nomination officers chosen by the local riding associations. Only 6% thought it should be nationally appointed nominations officers, and less than 2% believed the status quo of the party leader signing nomination papers is a good idea.

The last point I want to make is that while we believe the reform act is a useful first step towards democratic reform, and one we very much hope to see passed into law, it is just that, a first step. We have a very long way to go if we're going to meaningfully restore Canadians' confidence and trust in our democracy. At the end of the survey we asked what other reforms, which are outside of the scope of this bill, they would support. It's notable that over 96% believe our first past the post voting system is broken, and that we need electoral reform.

Catriona Sinclair, a Leadnow member from Millbrook, Ontario, summed this up. She says, “I believe the Reform Act is extremely important. I also very much want to see Proportional Representation brought into our voting system.”

On behalf of everyone who signed on to our campaign, thank you again for inviting me this morning, and I look forward to the discussion.

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