Mr. Speaker, 90% of the world's democracies use a system of proportional representation, even those which formerly used a first past the post system. They do this because it is more respectful of the wishes of the electorate. It gives a truer picture of the desire of the people for their political representation. I thank my hon. colleague for raising this issue.
I want to give a couple of brief examples of how our current system skews the political process. In the last two general elections, the Liberals had 50% fewer seats in western Canada than they would have had under a proportional representation system. However, there are situations such as that of the previous Reform Alliance Conservatives, who were consistently underrepresented in Ontario even though they did get a number of seats. When Preston Manning was leader, he got 20% of the vote in Ontario, but how many seats? Zero. That does not seem to represent the wishes of the electorate.
Today in the House of Commons, the Bloc Québécois has 16 more seats than it should have under a proportional representation system. Certainly the NDP should have 48 seats in the House of Commons, not 19.
I say to my hon. colleagues that if we are truly talking about democracy and the wishes of the people of Canada to have a Parliament that represents their views and interests, then something very basic is that every vote should count. For every vote truly to count, we should have a system that includes proportional representation.
Commissions have recommended this. The Canadian law commission has recommended it. A quarter of a century ago, the Pépin-Robarts task force recommended that this system needed to be changed because it does a great disservice to Canadian people and to Canadian unity in that it skews regional representation in Canada.
Bill C-2 has failed to address this issue. That is very unfortunate, because we do not often get to deal with new bills around the issues of accountability and democracy. This is truly a missed opportunity, but I would call on my hon. colleagues to keep this in mind and keep this issue on the front burner. It is an issue that we desperately need to address.