Mr. Speaker, in a sense the debate points to the weaknesses of our system in regard to private members' bills and motions. It underlines very clearly that the system needs a basic reform because of the anomaly of finding today that we are debating a motion which is not votable and will die in a few minutes when before the election the same motion was deemed votable by another committee and was debated fully until acceptance or rejection. Perhaps we should reflect upon why the same motion is votable one day and non-votable today.
I have a lot of reservations about strict proportional representation because of the instability it has caused in so many countries where it has been tried as a pure system. I also have reservations about a referendum that would decide on a question with either a yea or nay without a huge amount of study as to what is the best system.
I congratulate the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle for bringing the motion before us. I wish it was votable because I believe these fundamental questions should be debated and studied by us. I believe that for us to say our present system is the best of them all without looking at all the others and finding out what improvements can be made is short term. We should not close our eyes to possible improvements that could make our democratic process far more effective and far better for Canadians at large.
The members before me have quoted obvious examples. In the last B.C. election three New Democrats were elected but no Green Party members were elected in spite of having gathered 12% of the vote. B.C. now has a government with all the seats except three. This obviously will create problems because a government cannot govern without an effective opposition to put pressure on it to perform over the years.
We also have the example of New Brunswick and of our own party. Although I rejoice in that, when I look at it objectively and fairly I have to admit that it was a quirk of history which gave us most of the seats in the province even though we did not get a majority percentage of the votes.
I look at what the Australians have done and admire them for their grit, daring and courage in having looked at different systems. They have realized that first past the post is not the perfect system. They have devised a system where the person who wins truly wins an overall majority.
I look at various European nations that have tried different systems and have decided that pure proportional representation does not quite work but have adopted a mixed system of runoffs and different types of proportional representation systems. Today certain countries in Europe, such as Germany, Finland and France are showing very stable democracies and all have various segments of their populations duly represented by elected representatives.
I wish the motion had been made votable because I would have voted for it. I believe we must study these questions. During this quiet debate I felt there was a consensus or a feeling among us that nobody had the perfect answer but that everybody wanted to seek out a way to make democracy fairer and more workable.
I congratulate the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle. I invite him to bring his motion back to the House but to perhaps leave out the referendum and strict proportional representation. Perhaps he could look at fixed term elections every four years. I wish he would bring it back because I for one would love to vote on it and have the matter studied further.