Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the minister, if we were to accept an amendment to remove the dates, would he support the motion before the House today? The minister is concerned about the dates being too rigid. I would certainly accept an amendment that we remove any reference about dates.
I also want to say to the minister that what I said was there were only three countries in the world with more than eight million people that use the pure first past the post system. In Australia there is PR in the Senate. France uses what is called the majoritarian system where there is a first vote and a second vote to make sure every member of parliament represents a majority of the people.
I think what the minister is trying to do is distort what I am saying, that we are one of the few countries in the world to use the pure first past the post system. It is a system that is archaic in the minds of most people right around the world.
Is he not concerned about the fact that we have these fake majorities? We have only had four majority governments elected by the majority of people going way back to 1921. The will of the people is just not represented in the House of Commons. Does that not concern him?
The other point I wanted to make is that in terms of proportional representation there are two principles. We have geographical representation which would remain, but we also need political representation. If there 20% of the people vote for a certain party, they deserve as well 20% of the representation in the House of Commons.
I want to ask the minister whether or not he would support our motion if we deleted any reference to the date of the referendum. Also does he have any concern about the fact that under our system a minority of the people elect the majority of the government, and a majority of the people vote for the opposition? To me that is not the will of the people.