Mr. Chair, it is appropriate that we are having this take note debate. I read recently in yesterday's Globe and Mail that it will be doing a two or three part series on proportional representation. It is very apt timing on our part to have a debate here in the House on this issue.
I will begin by talking about the problem that spurred us to this debate on the democratic deficit, or democratic reform. It has to do with two issues: cynicism in the voting public and what is perceived to be low voter turnout. These two issues must be put into a better perspective.
Voter turnout has not been a linear thing since 1867. We did not start 130 years ago or so with a 100% turnout in those elections and now we find ourselves today at roughly 60% turnout and that it has been a sort of straight line linear decline in voter turnout since then. That has not been the case. Voter turnout has fluctuated over the last 100 years, sometimes reaching lows of 60% to 65%, sometimes spiking up to 70% or 80% in those elections where there was a very key ballot question, such as the 1988 free trade issue.
Another reason for the way things are the way they are today is because we have a relatively good economic situation and our culture in North America, in the west, is becoming increasingly fractured. Modern life has many competing interests and the body politic is, as a result, becoming fractured. In marketing terms, we would say that the market is being segmented.
I do not deny that there is a lot of cynicism out there and that there are problems with voter turnout and that we should not make efforts to increase voter participation and civic participation.
However, that said, what I worry most about this debate is that, to use a colloquialism, we are going to throw the baby out with the bath water.
One of the solutions being talked about more recently is proportional representation. It is a system that I do not agree with and one that I would quite strongly oppose. I believe in our first past the post system. The reason I do not agree with proportional representation is that on either the full proportional representation system or the mixed one, we would weaken our system of government and would actually remove people from their democratic institutions.
With full PR we would not have constituencies, we would not have ridings, and therefore people would not know who their individual member of Parliament was and, more important I think, individual deputies or members of Parliament would not take ownership of the ridings that they do have or that they have been assigned to because they would have been assigned to them as opposed to ridings that they fought for and won.
I also think that in full PR, as in mixed PR, the party list component of proportional representation gives undue influence and greater power and authority to parties. That is to the detriment of our system as well because by allowing parties to nominate people or to control the lists of people who they would put forward in a proportional representation system we are creating a system where the voters are one step further removed from their democratic institutions.
Some people propose a mixed solution, where half the people in this House, or a quarter of the people, or a third of the people, would be elected through party lists and through proportional representation and the other portion of the House, whether that be one half of it, or a third of it, or three-quarters of it, would be elected through our current system, the first past the post system.
The problem with that is that I have a riding right now which is largely rural. It has about 100,000 people in it. I can, with difficulty, make it to all parts of my riding. It is very difficult. It is many long hours and many weekends going to different parts of the riding, but I am accessible.
If we go to a system of mixed PR where instead of having 308 members of Parliament representing the country we have 100 people on the party list and 200 as riding MPs, suddenly I may find myself in a riding with 200,000 people. In that case it would be virtually impossible for me to be accessible in the way that I am today. It would be virtually impossible for me to cover that kind of geographic territory, to try to cover that number of people and the number of towns. I simply could not possibly do that. That is why I think even mixed PR has its flaws.
The other problem with ridings that get too large is that one of the fundamental principles in our current system is communities of interest. When we get to ridings, especially rural ridings, where we have 200,000 or 300,000 people, we are talking about very different communities of interest. It would be more difficult for an MP to represent two or three very different communities of interest and try to represent them as a single voice in this chamber.
Another reason why I think PR probably would lead to possibly even lower voter turnout is that it would create voter confusion. Right now we have one of the best voting systems in the world in terms of the way we set up our polls and the way we have our ballots laid out. It is very clear. It is paper-based. We go to our polling station and walk up to our ballot box. We have ballots that are consistent across the country. It is very clear who the candidates are and what the parties are. We make our selections. It is very simple, and we walk away.
With mixed PR we would be making two selections. We would vote for a candidate and for a party. I think it could cause mass confusion. At the very least it would cause some voter confusion as to what exactly they were doing and for whom they were voting. That added confusion is also another impediment between the people and their democratic institutions.
However, more important, the reason why I adamantly oppose proportional representation is that we live in a country that is very regionalized. We have very different regions in the country. We have two official languages. We have many different groups. We have British Columbia, the west, the north, Ontario, Quebec and the east. In all general elections we have had since 1867, there have only been two occasions where the voters have sent back a majority government with over 50% of the popular vote. If we went to a full proportional representation system, that would mean we would rarely, if ever, see the kind of majority governments the country needs in order to provide strong leadership. That is why we must reject any form of proportional representation federally. The country needs strong federal governments to carry it through the various crises it will face in decades to come, whether economic or otherwise. That is the strongest reason to keep the first past the post system.
Speaking as a person who is from the Conservative Party, out of self-interest, I would argue in favour of proportional representation. It was our party, our two legacy parties during the last 10 years, that had the most to benefit from PR. For the country's interest, which I place first, we need to stick with the current system.
The problem we have with our system is, to paraphrase the words of one John Diefenbaker, that Parliament is a much misunderstood institution. As parliamentarians, we need to better understand and communicate to Canadians the workings of Parliament and what it does. Our system of government has evolved out of hundreds if not a thousand years of Westminster tradition, and it is very important that we keep that in mind and not act rashly.
I will make a few quick comments as to what I think we can do to address some of this democratic deficit.
We need to reform question period. We need to lengthen the amount of time that people have to ask questions and the amount of time that people have to answer them. I would even be amenable to requiring written submissions of questions 48 hours beforehand, as is done in the United Kingdom Parliament. In that case, we would expect real answers from the government on the real issues we are questioning.
Ministerial statements need to be made in the House. Departmental announcements need to be made in the House, not outside. Too often the functioning of government, the key announcements of the day, are happening outside the House. They need to happen in this chamber.