Mr. Speaker, I thank the government House leader for his comments and want to refer to a couple of things he said.
He said that people want someone from home to represent them. I do not disagree with that. There are PR systems in the world, like Germany's for example, where there are single member constituencies with half of the members elected riding by riding and half elected according to the party's PR vote. In Germany, for example, when they vote they get two ballots. They vote for their local MP and their party of preference. They have what is called a mixed member proportional system, which compensates for these vagaries and distortions in the electoral system. In many ways they get the best of both worlds.
Even now I would argue that electors do not always get a member from home. The member's own leader, the Prime Minister, occasionally names candidates to run in various ridings, so we already have a system in which the party leader can refuse to sign the nomination papers of someone who is nominated in a particular riding and can parachute in a certain person. That has happened. I remember sitting on that side of the House when it happened. It has also happened on this side of the House and it happens today, so I do not think that is an argument pro or con a PR system.
The other point is the whole question of regional parties. I agree with the minister across the way. I like to have broad national parties with a national vision. I think it is good for the country in terms of knitting the country together, but a PR system could easily be designed, particularly in a federation where we can have regional parties.
We could have PR done on a region by region or province by province basis. I would not want to have a PR system where we took the vote of the country as a whole and apportioned parties in accordance with the national vote. My own preference would be the German type of system, which is a mixed member proportional system, doing it region by region or province by province. We could still have the United Farmers of Ontario or the Bloc Quebecois. We could still have a party in western Canada. What is wrong with that? We could design a PR system that fits that criteria as well.
I ask the government House leader across the way why he would not be in favour of striking an all party committee to at least look at the merits of PR and the kinds of PR models that might be relevant to our country. Almost every democracy in the world has PR of one sort or another.
We have a crisis in the country in terms of falling voter turnout, alienation toward the political system and a parliament that is very distorted in terms of its composition compared to how people vote, so why not take a look at this? Let us have a true political democracy wherein members of parliament can debate the real issues of the day. Is there any greater issue than the fundamental issue of democracy and voting? I do not think there is.
This also leads to all kinds of other issues, so why not have a parliamentary committee look at this issue, look at the various models and then make a recommendation? We have not done that in this country. If we do it, I would argue that we would be doing the Canadian people a great service.