Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by simply reminding this House that democracy is not something static, something that exists unchanging. Democracy is a principle which must be defended and cherished every day. But it evolves. It is transformed.
The democracy within which we operate here in Canada in this House of Commons is, in a way, the heritage of numerous generations of parliamentarians who passed through these hallowed halls before us and who made Canadian democracy what it is today. Similarly, it is our duty to keep on with this work so that the evolution will continue.
In that spirit, I believe that the suggestion from our Reform Party colleague is most worthwhile, but only if it serves as a point of departure for an in-depth examination of all of the rules governing this House, as the parliamentary secretary has suggested.
When I look at the specific wording of the motion by the Reform Party, I cannot help but recall that, when this party first appeared in the House in 1993, it arrived with the avowed intention of changing everything. They came here as the Reform Party and, as such, they wanted to reform everything.>
For a while, they tried to operate without a whip, without a House leader. For a while, they tried to change the rules for oral question period. But, as I have just said, the British parliamentary system is not something that dropped out of the sky completely formed. It is something that has been built up over many centuries. It is an evolving process. It is what I would call the outcome of lengthy reflection which had produced our institutions as we know them today, operating, functioning, in the way that they do.
I note some frustration on the other side, but when I saw our Reform Party friends finally re-adopting practices that are very common in the British parliamentary system, such as having a whip and a House leader, such as maintaining oral question period as is in Canada, I said to myself they have somehow understood that this is how the system is, that they must operate within the specific framework the system calls for.
That does not, of course, exclude the possibility of our looking at potential changes to the Standing Orders, but let us go back to the wording of the motion. As the text of the motion indicates, the proposal is to replace the pairing system with a proxy system.
As the parliamentary secretary rightly pointed out, the Constitution, which forms the basis of the institutions we are part of, speaks clearly on the subject of voting by members of Parliament. In order to vote, a member must be in the House and cast a vote.
The pairing system was set up at the outset, as the parliamentary secretary mentioned, at the time of Cromwell in the United Kingdom, in England, to allow members with opposing opinions not to vote and be recorded as such in the record of divisions.
The advantage of this measure is that it preserves the inviolate aspect of the vote while allowing members who have not voted to indirectly express how they would have voted. Voting by proxy could definitely have a detrimental effect on our democracy.
Does this mean that a member wishing to vote in the House could do so some way from his riding office in New Brunswick, Ontario or the Yukon? What is the direct effect of such a practice? The direct effect comes when the institution representing democracy in a country informs the public that proxy votes are permitted. Will we end up with the public voting by proxy in an election? If we allow the representatives of the people to vote by proxy, will the people have the same right as parliamentarians?
We have to think about that, and I think we should consider the principle of voting. Nevertheless, the problem remains for the time being. It remains because allowing members to vote from outside the House could have the deleterious effect of weakening some of the dynamism of this House through the acceptance of less rigorous requirements for attendance in the House.
The member quite rightly pointed out that the duty of a parliamentarian naturally includes not just the work of a lawmaker, which must be performed here in the House, in the form of voting, but also the work of representing the public, of serving as the link between the public and government organizations. As society evolves, this requires that parliamentarians spend more time in their ridings.
Earlier, it was mentioned that parliamentarians in New Zealand sit only three days a week. A bill is now in the works to consider whether it would not be possible to set aside one day a week for parliamentarians to spend more time in their ridings. This is another matter that we must consider. But until then, does vote pairing not answer this very concern of the member that parliamentarians be allowed to do their work in their ridings, to perform parliamentary duties outside the walls of the House, and still have the opportunity to make their voice heard here in the House?
The answer is yes. As I was saying earlier, when two members of opposing views do not vote and their absence is recorded in the record of the division, implicitly we know how the member intended to vote. But to allow proxy voting would, I think, be to go against the notion that the vote is a solemn, sacred duty.
As things now stand, since no more thought has been given to this issue, and since we will probably be called on to reflect more generally on all the rules of the House, I can only urge my colleagues to reject this motion and to give careful consideration over the coming weeks and months to a possible reform of the rules of the House.