Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Motion No. M-28 regarding absentee proxy voting. I thank the hon. member for presenting the motion. As he indicated, it allows us to discuss some of our fundamental responsibilities as members of Parliament.
Canadians have elected us to represent their interests, to propose and debate motions and laws on how best to meet those interests, and to vote at the end of debate. The Fathers of Confederation expressed this principle in the Constitution. Section 49 of the British North America Act states:
—questions arising in the House of Commons shall be decided by a Majority of Voices other than that of the Speaker, and when the Voices are equal, but not otherwise, the Speaker shall have a Vote.
Voting is fundamental to what we do in the House. As all members know, the pairing of votes noted in the motion refers to the practice whereby two members on opposite sides of a question agree not to vote on a specific issue. As a result, paired votes cancel each other out and do not affect the outcome of a vote.
Pairing is essentially a convenience to members of Parliament which allows a member to be absent and have his or her vote protected. The roots of paired votes go back to Great Britain in the time of Cromwell. Pairing is a common international practice. For example, the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia all have arrangements for pairing.
The first paired vote in Canada was recorded less than three weeks after the first parliament began to meet in 1867 under the terms of the British North America Act. Pairing is therefore a longstanding practice in Canada although its use has varied over the life of this House.
In one recorded vote in 1946, for example, 124 members were paired. On the other hand, between 1949 and 1957 pairing became a rare event. One writer has suggested that this was because the government of the day had a very large majority so the issue of pairing became less of a priority.
The arrangements for handling pairing have also evolved since Confederation to protect the parties involved and to ensure the efficient functioning of the House of Commons. Codes of procedure were developed including informal arrangements between whips. This culminated in the introduction of Standing Order 44.1 which was adopted as part of the changes to the standing orders made in 1991.
Standing Order 44.1 states:
(1) The Clerk of the House shall cause to be kept at the Table a Register of Paired Members, in which any Member of the government party and any Member of an Opposition party may have their names entered together by their respective Whips, to indicate that they will not take part in any recorded division held on the date inscribed on that page in the Register; provided that independent Members of Parliament may sign the Register in their own right.
(2) On any day on which one or more recorded divisions have taken place, the names of the Members so entered shall be printed in the Debates and the Journals , immediately following the entry for each of the said divisions.
The purpose of that procedure under our existing standing orders is so that pairing is transparent, so there is public accountability for members who pair, so the arrangement between two members on each side of the House is a matter of public record.
The standing committee on House management stated in April 1993 that these 1991 amendments on pairing were built on long established experience in Canada and other jurisdictions.
The committee observed that the introduction of a register of paired members at the table was an attempt to revive an earlier practice of the House where a procedure had existed for registering pairs.
The committee also noted that members often have other commitments which prevent them from being in the House on a certain day and pairing is an attempt to accommodate those members.
This brings me to proxy voting which is the other arrangement for members who, as suggested by the member, cannot for one reason or another be in the House.
While pairing is a common procedure among parliaments in other countries, some jurisdictions, as the member has indicated, have sought to address the issue of absence in other ways. One of these ways is to vote by proxy whereby a parliamentarian who is present may cast his or her own vote as well as the vote of an absent parliamentarian. This is the absentee voting suggested by the Reform member today.
Representatives of the French National Assembly, for example, can vote by proxy. Indeed the French constitution itself provides that votes can be delegated in exceptional cases by one member to another member. The cases in which members are authorized to delegate are laid down in law.
On the other hand, proxy voting was proposed in the Netherlands but was rejected because the terms of its constitution did not allow it.
If members look at the overall international experience with proxy voting they will find that proxy voting is an exceptional practice.
Voting by proxy, as far as I know, in addition to the case cited by the member is only allowed in Brazil, Cameroon, Comoros, France, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Luxembourg, Mali, Senegal and the United Kingdom. In a number of these cases I would add that proxy voting is only allowed under certain conditions such as sickness or absence on official duty.
In the United Kingdom, for example, a proxy vote is only allowed if a member is incapacitated by illness and provided he or she is in the House precincts.
The international consensus is against proxy voting. Why is this so? The basic objection to proxy voting is that a member cannot exercise his or her fundamental duty if he or she is unaware of the issue being voted on, as frequently has been shown to be the case if the member is not present in the House of Commons.
International experience shows that proxy voting encourages absenteeism. I hope the Reform Party does not want to encourage members of the House to be absent while the House is in session.
Finally, I would point out that proxy voting has led to abuses in other jurisdictions which have undermined public confidence in parliamentary institutions. One writer, in commenting on the widespread use of proxy voting in Great Britain's House of Lords during the Napoleonic wars, stated:
—any one whose conscience did not forbid him to legislate without listening to debate could delegate his power to a peer present at the voting, and it was customary for—indolent men—to assign their votes to the leader of their party.
I hope the Reform Party is not encouraging indolence in the House. I urge members to look for other ways of improving our voting procedures.
I thank the hon. member again for raising these important matters. I would suggest that in considering the motion members take note of the traditions and experience of this House of Commons. I would urge that we look at issues related to voting in a larger context which would include the possibility of other options to address any concerns that members of the House have with respect to our voting procedures.
I would point out that pursuant to another part of the standing orders of the House of Commons we are required to have a full debate on our entire standing orders between the 60th and 90th sitting days of any parliament. Shortly there will be an opportunity in the House to address all our standing orders, including our voting procedures. I hope the member opposite and all members here will use that opportunity to re-examine our standing orders.
The member is to be commended. I think he realizes that without regular reviews such as that provided for by the debate in our standing orders, the basic rules of this House of Commons could easily become, whatever his expression was, strange and antiquated. It is important when the debate on the standing orders comes forward that we all participate fully.
