Madam Speaker, there is no doubt the member presenting the bill is motivated by good intentions but I do not feel inclined to support a bill to have a none of the above choice on the ballot itself.
In today's election campaigns one can vote for none of the above just by not voting at all. One can write none of the above on it if one wishes. One can spoil the ballot if wants to. However I do not think we should be offering a choice where one can vote for none of the above. We should be doing positive things to encourage people to turn out for the election campaign, to vote in campaigns, to make a choice, to vote for a vision of the country and to do a positive thing rather than a negative thing. That is the way we should go.
That being said, this debate gives an opportunity to say we need some voting reform in the country. We have tried going with a permanent voters list and I do not think that is working. A lot of people were left off the list in every riding of the country.
My recollection is that there were about one million Canadians who were not on the voters list in the November 2000 election. We should go back to the door to door enumeration of people in the campaign. It is a way to motivate the population to vote. It is a way to make sure that those not on the list get on it.
If we look at the lack of participation, we find that it is greatest among people living in poorer communities and in the inner cities, and among young people who tend to move a lot and have different addresses on a very frequent basis.
One of the changes we should make is the permanent voters list in the country. I heard that all over the place in my riding during the last campaign. I have heard it from colleagues from all the parties in the House since then. It is important that kind of change be made in terms of voting practices in Canada.
I am concerned about the plummeting drop in turnout. It was not long ago in the 1950s through to the 1980s when 75% or 80% of the people would vote. I was shocked in 1997, four years ago, when the turnout was only 67%.
Last fall the turnout dropped even lower. It went down to only 61% of the people on the list who actually voted. If we include people who were not enumerated on the permanent voters list, and many people say there were about one million of them, we find that well under 60% of the population who were over the age of 18 and were Canadian citizens participated in the last election campaign.
We have to do something to motivate people to vote. Why do people not vote? Part of the problem is the need for reform of the parliamentary system and reform of the voting system in the country. Our parliament is in dire need of radical reform to make this place more meaningful, accountable and democratic.
The Prime Minister's Office has far too much power. Almost every vote in the House of Commons is a confidence vote. Parliamentary committees do not have enough power. Individual MPs do not have much power. There are too many confidence votes and not enough free votes. Government appointments are made without any kind of ratification process in the opposition.
The public accounts committee today heard from the auditor general. One of the complaints was the lack of parliamentary oversight for many spending programs, like the employment insurance program.
More and more decisions are made by the executive, by the Prime Minister's Office and the Privy Council Office.
We have to make a change to democratize the place, to make sure that on major appointments for example the government will nominate and have the relevant committee of the House of Commons either ratify or reject the nomination. Committees and MPs should be given a more meaningful role. Committees should be given more independence and the right to initiate legislation and timetable it. We should have rules and regulations like in Great Britain where parliament can defeat government bills and the government does not fall.
In Britain, despite the popularity years ago of the Margaret Thatcher government, several government bills were defeated. It is the same thing in Tony Blair's government despite his popularity. Government bills have been defeated and the only consequence is that the bills are defeated. The government does not fall. It is healthy for parliamentary democracy.
Time and again I talked to Liberal backbenchers who are extremely frustrated with the Prime Minister's Office, the PCO or cabinet but they cannot do anything about it because of the kind of system we have. The Prime Minister appoints all the cabinet ministers and the parliamentary secretaries. The government appoints all the committee chairs. There is also parliamentary travel and parliamentary associations.
When we have that kind of handcuffed parliamentary system, the voters see it for what it is, that it is not democratic. They feel that politicians are not listening to them and that all politicians and political parties are the same. That is why we need serious parliamentary reform in this institution.
The last point is voting reform. We are one of the few democracies in the world where the will of the people is not accurately reflected in the House of Commons. Most countries in the world have a measure of proportional representation, where if a party has 20% of the votes, it gets 20% of the seats in that parliamentary institution.
There are only three countries in the world now with more than eight million people where there is not some measure of proportional representation. The United States is one, we are another one and India is the third. When we do not have proportional representation, we get all kinds of distortions in the system.
South of the border last year Al Gore had 550,000 more votes than George W. Bush. Who became the president? George W. Bush. There was an election in New Brunswick back in the 1980s when Frank McKenna was the premier. He got 55% or 60% of the votes, something in that range, and he had 100% of the seats. People who voted for the other parties had zero representation in the legislature.
Even in this parliament the Prime Minister's party got 41% of the votes cast and 60% of the people cast a ballot. However with 41% of the votes cast, he has a mandate constitutionally for five years. The opposition represent roughly 60% of the electorate, yet the opposition is in the minority.
There can be a distortion between parties. I think of 1993 when the Conservative Party had 16% or 17% of the votes and had two MPs. In the 1997 election the Tories and the Reform both had 19% of the votes. There were 60 Reformers and some 20 Conservatives. The NDP and the Bloc each had 11% of the vote. The NDP had 21 seats and the Bloc Quebecois had 44 seats. These distortions happen time and time again.
An analysis was done of the last election. I cannot remember the exact numbers now but it took something like 65,000 Canadians to elect the average Liberal member of parliament. For the NDP it was 97,000. For the Conservative Party it was 130,000.
Everybody's vote is not equal. Everybody's vote is not the same. We need a parliamentary system where the will of the people is represented and reflected in the parliamentary body that governs the people. That is what most countries in the world have when they have a measure of PR.
Even Britain with its longstanding parliamentary system is starting to move in that direction. The Scottish parliament, the Welsh parliament and the Irish parliament have some proportional representation. All of the MPs elected to the European parliament in Strasbourg are elected by proportional representation. In Great Britain Tony Blair has promised a referendum on a measure or model of PR in Westminster itself before the next election campaign, which is due in about three and a half to four years.
The bill before us today gives us an opportunity to talk about voting reform so we would have a parliamentary system that reflects the will of the people. We should encourage the people to participate in much greater numbers. It would mean that if one cast a vote for a political party, one's vote would count. Everybody's vote would be equal. Nobody's vote would be wasted. That is the kind of parliamentary system we need.
I close by saying that the time has come when we should strike an all party committee to look at the various models of proportional representation that would be relevant to our unique federation. My preference would be what I call a mixed member proportional like Germany has, where some members are elected riding by riding and some members are elected in accordance with proportional representation. There are 13 countries in the world that have a mixed member proportional. That is the direction we should be going in.
The important thing is to strike a committee to look at reforming the electoral system. Let us get back to door to door enumeration. Let us reform the House of Commons. Let us abolish the unelected Senate. If we did those kinds of things, more people would have confidence and faith in the parliamentary system. They would be willing to participate in election campaigns. It is extremely important that people participate and fulfill a responsibility which many people died fighting wars for.
I had an uncle who was killed in the second world war in Normandy fighting for freedom and democracy. Many people in the House have family and friends who have died in great wars fighting for democracy.
Let us not take democracy for granted. Let us get out there and vote, but let us reform our parliamentary institutions and voting system.