Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague very much for weighing in. Some explanation is needed.
It is not as if the debate is just starting now. It has been going on for decades and there is an accumulated series of studies, commissions, and citizens' assemblies on it. Eight out of nine of the serious ones have reported that a mixed member proportional system, MMP, is the best. We are standing here and saying that there are only two possibilities that would really work in Canada, and there is a consensus on that: a single transferable vote system, STV, or MMP. STV has no locally elected MPs—no single-member-constituency MPs. We personally believe, from all of the studies of the past 12 years, that Canadians would not accept that. Therefore, we are standing here and saying that the only other proportional representation system that would work in Canada is MMP. We have been studying it.
The fact is the Liberal Party has only recently begun to add a process commitment to look at proportional representation after the next election. It is not our fault that the Liberals are so far behind in thinking about this. The point is that if the Liberal Party were to stand up and move an amendment and say that it fully supported proportional representation, that proportional representation is what all parties should be committed to the next time around, that would change the debate because then we would only be arguing about which system. I have not heard that from the Liberal Party. It is very important to know.
What we have not heard is anything at all resembling a commitment to proportional representation, and that is not surprising when the leader of the Liberal Party is constantly saying that he does not support proportional representation, and giving bad reasons for not supporting it.