Mr. Speaker, I do not believe the triple E idea is ever going to happen. We would need an amendment to the Constitution and the unanimous consent of all provinces along with the federal parliament in order to do that. I do not think we are ever going to get Quebec to agree to have the same number of senators as Prince Edward Island, let alone Ontario having the same number of senators as New Brunswick. If we did get that agreement the powers would be so weak and ineffective it would not matter if we had a Senate in the first place. It comes right down to the fact that this is never going to happen.
I do not think we need a second elected body in terms of bureaucracy and the many more politicians who would be funded. The amount involved would be greater than the $50 million we see today. This would invite gridlock between the two Houses.
In answer to the member's question, we need to bring accountability into the House of Commons. We need to bring the review process into the House of Commons by reforming and democratizing this place.
The powers of the Prime Minister's Office and the Privy Council Office have to be reduced. These questions were raised in the House today by the Reform Party and I certainly agree. The appointment of justices and the appointment of senior people in the government should have a parliamentary and democratic review as is done in most countries around the world.
Our parliamentary committees should be stronger and have more independence where legislation can be initiated. We should have fewer confidence votes in the House of Commons. All kinds of bills go through this place that should not be confidence bills. Parliamentarians should be able to vote their own line and express their own point of view. That should be done.
I also believe that we should have fixed election dates, fixed dates for budgets and fixed dates for throne speeches. This would again take power away from the government and away from the Prime Minister and the executive.
Why do I say that? I say it because we need big democracy in this country. There have only been two elections since 1921 where a majority of the people voted for a majority government and those were the governments of Mackenzie King in 1945 and John Diefenbaker in 1958. Every other time a majority has been elected by a minority of the people. This Liberal government has the support of 38% of the Canadian people, yet it has had a majority for five years. I think that is wrong without accountability built into this place.
We should be looking at modernizing our electoral system by bringing in a mix of proportional representation so the vote of the people is reflected by the composition of the House. We are now one of only two or three countries in the world without a mix of PR. We are not a modern electoral democracy and the minister across the way knows this.
Even Britain, the mother of parliaments, has a mix of PR in the Scottish assembly and the Welsh assembly. In the election after the next, it will be brought into the United Kingdom parliament itself. There is an election taking place now for the European parliament where every member from Great Britain is being elected through PR, through regional constituencies.
Those are things which we should be looking at. Every other country in the world has modernized its electoral system. We can do it in Canada as well.