Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the important motion put forward by the member for Vancouver Island North. I am hopeful that all members will see their way clear to supporting the motion.
Motion No. 262 calls for the continuation of the work previously done by the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs in the 38th Parliament. It specifically calls on the House to make further recommendations on strengthening and modernizing the democratic and electoral systems and that we set up a special committee to hear from Canadians on what is important in terms of electoral reform.
The member for Vancouver Island North and a former member of this House, Mr. Ed Broadbent, have done considerable work in trying to bring this important issue around proportional representation before the House and Canadians. Mr. Broadbent said it far more eloquently than I could ever say it. In his speech at Queen's University on March 2005, he gave reasons why electoral reform was so necessary. He said:
The truth is that the most seriously flawed component of our democratic society is our profoundly undemocratic electoral system. We have impartial courts and the rule of law, a Charter of Rights and Freedoms, a vigorous independent civil society and an independent press, but our electoral system is an outdated, non-representative, conflict-prone, gender discriminating, regionally divisive mess, bestowed to us from a pre-democratic era.
A number of points have been covered quite well about why we need proportional representation and electoral reform in this country but I will focus on one particular area, the under-representation of women in the House.
Equal Voice has done a good job of outlining the importance of electing more women and outlining the dismal state of affairs in Canada's Parliament. On its website, it says that once a leader, Canada, with just 64 women in Parliament, 20.8% of MPs, now ranks 47th in the world in terms of women's representation in the national legislature. Canada is far behind countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Portugal. Canada's international rankings in terms of women's representation has been falling. In 2002, Canada was 34th in the world and we have dropped to 47th. Our international standing is declining with every federal election.
Not a single country in the world has delivered more women to its national Parliament without undertaking action to make it happen. The under-representation of women in the national Parliament is not a problem that will fix itself, which is where the issue around proportional representation comes in. In countries that have looked at proportional representation, they have been able to increase the representation of women, visible minorities and aboriginal peoples in their Parliament. This is why it is such an urgent matter that we must consider.
When Equal Voice was doing the analysis on women in federal politics, it looked at political party representation. In this current sitting of the House, 64 of the 308 members who are women, the NDP has 41%, which is the highest percentage of any party, down to a dismal 11% for the Conservatives. This under-representation impacts on the kinds of policies and legislation that the House develops.
At its annual general meeting in 2004, Fair Vote Canada made a presentation on “Reaching Women About Proportional Representation”. Its presentation was entitled, “The Electoral Glass Ceiling” and it says:
An elite consensus -- that 20 to 25 per cent representation of women is 'good enough' -- provides the solid underpinnings of the electoral glass ceiling for women.
Given those kinds of numbers and the trends in Canada, it goes on to say:
One hundred and seventeen years...is how long it will take for women to achieve equity in the Canadian House of Commons.
THAT'S 4 GENERATIONS.
At the rate we are going...it won't be until our great, great granddaughters are women that we'll have 50/50 in the House.
IT WILL BE IN 2118.
Given the fact that women represent over 50% of the population, I would argue that having only 20% sitting in the House is just not acceptable.
Fair Vote Canada talks about why it is important. It says that:
The absence of women from structures of governance inevitably means that national, regional and local priorities— i.e. how resources are allocated—are typically defined without meaningful input from women, whose life experience gives them a different awareness of the community’s needs, concerns and interests from that of men.
Why does proportional representation work? Fair Vote Canada states:
What studies of proportional representation reveal, however, is that it sufficiently alters the political structure to enable women to transcend the 'winner-takes-all' competition for votes one now witnesses in Canada.
Changing a country's electoral system often represents a far more realistic goal to work towards than dramatically changing the culture's view of women.
I would argue that if we had more women in the House that when employment insurance reform happened in 1995, we would not have seen women disproportionately impacted by the changes in that legislation. Women are now far less likely to quality for employment insurance under those rules and regulations. I would argue that we would have the national child care system. Instead, we have a family allowance system that does not remotely meet the needs of women and families in looking after their children.
There are any number of other pieces of legislation that disproportionately impact women. We do not even conduct an adequate gender based analysis on our budget process to determine how it affects women and men differently. If we had more women in the House, surely we would have policies and legislation that more reflected the needs of women and children and their families in this country.
An organization called Safer Futures looks at safety in communities and the fact that as communities are made safer for women and children they are also made safer for everybody. If we had more women in federal, provincial and municipal politics, we would be developing programs and policies that reflect the reality of women's lives.
In a newspaper recently was a stunning picture of the premiers and the representatives from the territories but none were woman. We need to change the face of politics so women feel it is an appropriate place for them. Besides looking at proportional representation, electoral reform must look at the larger issue of how we conduct ourselves as parliamentarians.
Mr. Broadbent not only talked about conduct in this House but also about the fact that we need to change many systems. In a speech that he gave to the NDP breakthrough conference in October 2005, he outlined a number of extremely important elements in electoral reform. I will not go through all of them but there are a couple that are really important.
He said that reforms were badly needed. He said that wherever we can, we must put an end to backroom wheeling and dealing in politics. He was referring to floor crossing. These days one never knows exactly which member will be sitting on which side of the House. We would argue that any member who chooses not to sit for the party that he or she was elected to represent should either sit as an independent or go back to the electorate for a vote to determine that the new party is actually the party the constituents supported.
Mr. Broadbent also said that election dates should be fixed. We know there is a bill that attempts to fix election dates in Canada. This would prevent governments from calling elections whenever its numbers took a bounce in the polls. In a minority government, there is still the option for governments to fall if there is a vote of confidence before the House.
Mr. Broadbent went on to talk about the need for democratic reform for our outmoded first past the post electoral system. He talked about 90% of the world's democracies, including Australia, New Zealand, Scotland, Ireland and Wales having abandoned or significantly modified the pre-democratic British system that still prevails in Ottawa.
I would urge all members of the House to support this important motion so we can ensure that when Canadians vote that every vote truly does count.