Mr. Speaker, it is always good to start the day with a laugh. I enjoyed that last element of humour when the parliamentary secretary suggested that the Liberal Party cared about cross-partisan approaches after having launched a very partisan attack upon the excellent proposals of my friend from the New Democratic Party.
Contrary to what the parliamentary secretary said, the primary focus of the bill is very clearly electoral reform. Questions like whether to use the funding formula, as the finance committee has suggested under the Referendum Act, in a situation of a referendum on a non-constitutional item is perhaps the most irrelevant consideration I can imagine. I have no idea why the speech writer who wrote for the parliamentary secretary put it into his speech. It truly is an absolutely irrelevant point.
The bill is a revised version of a bill that the hon. member for Regina—Qu'Appelle introduced about a year and a half ago in this place. We debated it once before. Due to the intransigent attitude of the government on the subject of private members' business, it was not votable then and it is not votable now. That is a most regrettable fact because it is a very good piece of legislation which deals with a very important issue.
The fact is our current electoral system benefits nobody except the Liberal Party of Canada, a party which has received three majority governments in a row based upon mandates of 40%, 38% and 40% respectively. That is to say, that at no point in the past decade has the federal Liberal majority government, with its absolute dictatorial powers, ever had the support or indeed a mandate from the majority of Canadians. Nevertheless it proceeds to hold more than 50% of the seats due to the vagaries of our electoral system and because of our system and the ironclad party discipline in the Liberal Party, it holds 100% of the power. That is not the way things should be.
Therefore when we hear the parliamentary secretary attack my hon. colleague from the New Democratic Party on the basis that his proposals serve the partisan advantage of the New Democratic Party, I can only say that my hon. friend from the Liberal Party should avoid perhaps casting aspersions.
There are changes that can be made to the electoral system that would improve it. There are changes that can be made to the electoral system that could make it worse than the status quo. The first past the post system is not the worst imaginable system.
I chatted with another member earlier. We discussed the system that exists in Israel for example. There are no constituencies and everybody is elected from a single party list submitted by each party. The result is that Israel has no form of local representation. For example, it has parties with very small percentages of the total vote holding the balance of power in the Knesset with a result that they are able to have a disproportionate influence on policy. I submit that is worse than the status quo.
One can imagine other systems. We can see other systems, including the French run-off system, which I think is atrocious and would be a step backwards from the status quo.
I have my own preferred system that I would like to see in place instead of the system we have now. However rather than going on about what that system might be, I will simply observe that there are many systems in the world, for example, the multi-member proportional system, the MMP system that is used in Germany and New Zealand. Some members elected at large, as in Israel, and some elected in single member districts as in Canada.
The system in Australia in its lower house has members elected by preferential ballot, a single transferable ballot in which voters cast a ballot and list off their candidates and preference. If their preferred candidate does not win, some other candidate can be elected as their ballot is passed on indicating their second preference. Also, Australia uses the system in the senate where each Australian state has 12 separate representatives and voters are able to choose their top 12 candidates.
One can go on and on. The Irish have their own system. There are various systems in place in Canada at the municipal level.
Rather than advocate any of those policies in particular, I want to suggest something that I think would overcome the kind of allegation the parliamentary secretary made. He suggested that there was partisan preference going on and that my hon. colleague from the NDP was somehow choosing a system that best suited the NDP and would best achieve the NDP's overall goals or that I might do the same thing with regard to the kind of electoral system that would produce the largest number of Canadian Alliance members.
The problem is that it is very easy to take current election results and start fiddling with them to produce numbers that would produce, for example, more Canadian Alliance members in Ontario, or more Liberal members in Saskatchewan, or more New Democrats or whatever. That is not really the point. The point is to design a system that would allow us to begin discussion and would allow Canadians to choose a system that favours the kind of outcome which would produce the best representation, without regard to which party will benefit.
My hon. colleague's bill starts the process. Whatever system we are talking about, it suggests it should be submitted to a referendum so at least Canadians can vote for or against it based upon whether in their minds it is better or worse than the status quo. That is a very good starting point.
I would like to take it one step further and suggest that my hon. colleague's bill would be improved if he were to have some form of a two step process. This was a proposal that was executed in New Zealand when it moved from a first past the post system to the system it currently has. If I am not mistaken, the system currently in place in New Zealand is one that my hon. colleague from Regina—Qu'Appelle looks upon very favourably, an MMP system.
New Zealand held a first referendum in which this question was asked. Should there be a change to the electoral system? When that was agreed upon, there was then the promise of a second referendum in which the actual choice would be made.
The particular form of this policy which the Canadian Alliance has adopted is that we would have a first referendum which would set up a commission. The commission would review and come up with several proposals on different electoral systems. Then, in a second referendum Canadians would vote by means of a preferential ballot and indicate which of those systems seemed to be the best. One item on that ballot would be a status quo, the first past the post system. If all options put forward by the commission were inferior in the minds of Canadians to the status quo, we would simply revert to the status quo.
However we have the possibility of moving forward and in a way that could not have been predetermined by the existing parties, because one thing we all can define is that all of us here have a certain stake in one system or another coming out.
We must all be behind what the philosopher John Rawls called a veil of ignorance. As we move forward and look toward the electoral system that replaces the status quo, none of us can go in knowing what the outcome would be or else we would wind up debating the outcome and the partisan benefits for one party or another of that outcome as opposed to the status quo.
However if we have that veil of ignorance through a two referendum process in which the second referendum is a choice between a number of options that have not yet been made at the time of the first referendum, then we have made the system largely free from the interference of those who are currently members of the House of Commons and who have an interest in one side or another coming out.
This is not a votable item. If it were, I would suggest the amendments I have described. Nonetheless, the measure as proposed by my hon. colleague for the New Democratic Party is a good one. I hope at some point in the future it will be possible to make this item votable. I believe that it could be made votable if the unanimous consent of the House were found. Therefore I will now ask that unanimous consent be given to making this a votable bill to demonstrate the goodwill that my hon. colleague from the Liberal Party spoke of earlier in his speech.