Mr. Speaker, there is more to come on this issue because this is something we have taken on as important change in our democracy. Simply put, what we could do, and what has been suggested by the Law Commission and other jurisdictions, is have a threshold before a party is recognized.
I might add that we are not talking about having full-blown proportional representation on this side as a model. We would look at having two-thirds of the members according to first past the post, in other words the way it is now, and one-third according to a proportional list. When we had elections like in 2000 where 40% of the vote was given to the government of the day, yet it received 60% of the seats, we would change that. Clearly, no one wants that. That is not proportional. When a party like ours receives two million votes and the party across the way receives one million votes, but the other party receives twice as many seats, that is clearly not democratic.
We are saying that we need to change that. There are ways of doing it and certainly making sure that we do not have the kind of pizza Parliament, as it has been called, as a model that no one wants. The way we would do that is to have a threshold, 5% perhaps, before a party is recognized with seats proportionally. In fact, it has been done in every other jurisdiction save Canada. It has been done in New Zealand, the United States, Great Britain and Scotland. We are clearly behind the times. It is time to look at it seriously and to move forward on this issue.