I might be more effective, I do not know. I will leave that for others to judge. I certainly would find more opportunities to raise issues. I do not see that.
I put a proposal forward back in the Ontario legislature in 1992. In fact, I stood for the leadership of our party. One of my proposals was that a bill should not be referred to committee; an idea or a problem should be referred to committee and that a committee should be convened in an attempt to write a bill and to put forward a solution that could go in the bill rather than having the bureaucrats draft something, put it on our desk and it appears too many times to be a fait accompli.
This is about as close as I have seen any government get to that particular principle. This is taking the bill reforming the Elections Act into committee before second reading. If I were in opposition I would have my staff working overtime going through the bill. I would see this as an open and accountable government giving opposition members the opportunity to make comments at committee, to repair anything they thought needed repairing, to change parts of the bill and to have input into the process.
What do we get? We get, I am afraid, the somewhat typical response, “If they are doing it, we must disagree with it”. That really is unfortunate. It is somewhat myopic and narrow-minded. It does not do credit to the constituents who sent these people here, who expect them to roll up their sleeves and get into committee and work with government members and other members of the opposition to make this bill a better bill. Why would anyone opposed it?
My next election will be my tenth at the municipal, provincial and federal levels. I have had some experience. In fact, my wife has had three elections. She sits on the Mississauga council. I guess one could say we are a bit of a political family. We care about the process that is in place. We care about the rules. I, along with my family and the government, believe very much that the rules need to be fair for everyone.
Frankly, I would go a little further with this reform. If I have an opportunity at committee, I might even float an idea that members may accept or reject. I believe there should be a penalty for someone who does not vote. I know it is a very controversial idea, but there are places in the world where they actually do that. The penalty in Australia is a fine. It could show up on one's income tax reporting.
I find it disgraceful that municipally we only get a 30% voter turnout. It is the one level of government, in my view, that impacts more directly on people's lives than any other level of government and less than 30% of the people vote. In fact, if there is not a high profile contest for mayor, quite often less than 20% of the people vote. However, they are quick to pick up the phone to call their elected representative to solve a particular problem in the community, for example, if the garbage is not picked up or they have other difficulties. They just do not accept the responsibility to cast a ballet.
Provincially, that percentage goes up to between 50% and 60% depending on, I guess, the nature of the election. In the 1995 Ontario provincial election I think there was a higher voter turnout because the public generally wanted to dismiss the government of Mr. Rae that was in office. However, we have now slipped back down again. Federally, it again increases into the 65% to 75% range.
We live in a country with democratic freedom and we see other places in the world experiencing difficulties, in particular, the problems we see in Pakistan today.
I had the privilege of being part of a parliamentary group visiting Croatia during the first free election since the second world war. I saw men and women lining up down the street, with tears in their eyes, having the first opportunity to actually cast a ballot.
Let me tell members what that experience was like. When I walked into the polling booth there were Yugoslav soldiers with rifles on their shoulders standing on either side of the ballot box. Behind the ballot box was a life-sized picture of General Tito. It was only just a little bit intimidating to those people casting their ballot. I tried to lighten it up by pinning Canadian flags on the lapels of the soldiers but I do not think they were particularly amused by it.
When one sees that kind of thing, when one sees people fighting and dying for freedom and democracy all around the world as we have seen in our generation, one realizes that a Canadian who does not cast a ballot unless there is a legitimate reason, although I cannot think of one other than being dead, is not living up to the responsibility that goes along with the freedom of living in such a great and democratic society.
I would go even further, but the bill at least sets a level playing field, makes it fair for everybody involved and cleans up the election procedure in Canada.