They are not voting. They are turned off in droves. That is very worrisome in terms of a dynamic political and parliamentary system.
I think this is just one of the democratic reforms we will need if we are to make this place more relevant for the Canadian people. Parliament itself has to be reformed. The Prime Minister's Office has far too much power.
The Prime Minister's Office can appoint not only all the cabinet members and all the senators but the head of every important public agency in the country, including the judges in the supreme court, the head of the military, the head of the police, the head of state in our country and the head of state's representatives in each of the provinces, the lieutenant-governors.
When there is a majority government here, almost dictatorial powers rest in the hands of the Prime Minister of Canada. Surely the time has come to reform the system, to make it more open, accountable and democratic.
We just had a vote in the House a few minutes ago. We have votes in the House every week. Government bills are never defeated. Members cannot tell me that in the last 40 or 50 years every government bill has been the right one or the proper one for the country. We have a system of confidence votes whereby members of parliament cannot vote their conscience or for the wishes of their constituents or for what they think is best for the country without voting non-confidence in the government of the day.
We have to change those rules. The only votes that should be confidence votes in the House of Commons are budget bills, the throne speech or anything else that might be designated confidence by the government itself. Everything else should be a vote in which members have the freedom to vote how their constituents feel. In other words, the confidence vote should not be there.
We have the most handcuffed political and parliamentary system in the world. In Britain even popular governments such as the Blair government have lost several bills in the house of commons. Margaret Thatcher, a very strong and popular prime minister at one time, lost several votes in the house of commons when she was the leader of a majority government. In this country it does not happen.
Those are the kinds of changes we have to make. We need stronger parliamentary committees and more independence. The Speaker of the House of Commons is elected through a secret, independent vote where the whips are not applied, but the chairs of committees are not elected secretly. They are technically elected but are appointed by the government itself.
These are the kinds of reforms we need to make this place more relevant. We need parliamentary reform, but we also need electoral and voting reform so that when people go to the polls they can vote for their first preference and when the votes are counted on election night the composition of the parliament would reflect how the Canadian people voted.
I will conclude by saying that my motion today asks for an all party committee to study the various kinds of proportional representation that might be incorporated into our electoral system. It also calls on that committee to report to parliament. If parliament adopts the motion, it calls on parliament to put the preferred model of PR to a referendum, whereby people can choose between the model of PR recommended by parliament and the status quo, the first past the post system. If the people decide to change the voting system, we would have a system that I think the people of this country would feel is more inclusive and equal for each and every Canadian.