Debates of Dec. 8th, 2016

Government Response to Petitions

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8) I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to seven petitions.

Interparliamentary Delegations

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 34(1) I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the reports of the Canadian parliamentary delegation respecting its participation at the 25th Annual Session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly in Tbilisi, Georgia, from July 1 to 5, 2016, and the autumn meeting of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly in Skopje, Macedonia from September 29 to October 3, 2016.

Canadian Heritage

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the third report of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage entitled “Interim Report on Media Study: The Impact of Digital Technology”.

Electoral Reform

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I move that the second report of the Special Committee on Electoral Reform, presented on November 28, 2016, be concurred in.

It is with great pleasure that I rise this morning to perform what could colloquially be called a rescue mission of sorts. We have seen the government launch a very expensive and broad survey that has been met with a great deal of ridicule from a large number of Canadians.

The report I am presenting today was passed by the electoral reform committee, the same committee the minister first threw under the bus but now says did great work. It was the second point she made that was true. We were an all-party committee that worked very hard through a number of important questions about our democracy, and we came out with a report of several hundred pages, the most comprehensive report on Canadian democracy in Canada's history. It looked at all the elements, the pros and cons of various changes that are proposed, all in an effort to help the Liberals keep a Liberal campaign promise. It was extraordinary work. I think I can speak for all committee members in saying we got along very well. We felt very enriched by how Canadians invested in us, and we got to hear from some of the best experts, not just here in Canada, but right around the world.

I will be sharing my time with the member for Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston. I neglected to mention that.

The member moved a motion, so I thought it appropriate he be afforded some time to speak as well. His motion reads:

That, in relation to the questions on democratic values that the Minister of Democratic Institutions intends to make available for Canadians' responses on the website, MyDemocracy.ca, the Committee encourages the Minister to reproduce and include in its entirety the questions within this Committee's e-consultation survey, either as a replacement for other planned questions, or in addition to any other questions that the Minister wishes to include;

and that the Committee report this motion to the House.

The committee is now doing that today, to bring forward debate in an attempt to rescue what has been derided from all corners, not just from average, ordinary Canadians who tried to participate or did fill out the survey, finding it incredibly frustrating, confusing, and insulting to their intelligence actually because the survey never comes to the point of actually asking the question that is in front of us, which is “What do you want to do with the Canadian voting system?” I am not a rocket scientist, but that seems like a pretty obvious question to me when talking about changing the Canadian voting system, rather than some of these vague questions that I will read out in a minute.

The notion before us is that there needs to be a reset button done of this whole process. The government is spending a large amount of taxpayer money through a sole-source contract to one firm. There was no consultation whatsoever with other members of Parliament, or other people outside that little inner circle. They produced a survey that confuses, confounds, and insults Canadians, with such gems as, “There should be parties in Parliament that represent the views of all Canadians, even if some are radical or extreme.” What kind of false choice is that? Canadians need to either say yes, they would like all the views of Canadians represented in Parliament, but gosh, what if some of them are extreme or radical? That is a false choice if I have ever read one.

There is another gem here, “A party that wins the most seats in an election should still have to compromise with other parties, even if it means reconsidering some of its policies.” What does that mean? Of course Canadians want parties to compromise. Of course they want parties to reach out and governments to actually engage members of the opposition, even their own backbench who are not in cabinet, to come to the best solutions, because no one party has all the solutions to the challenges we face, particularly when we get to an issue like voting, which has at its core an element of partisan interest that we are seeing on display from the government, unfortunately.

The Prime Minister has said he actually has a preferred system. The minister said she has a preferred system as well, but she will not tell us what it is. The only time the Prime Minister has actually taken a moment to say what voting system he would like is one the committee heard would not only make the problems in our current system dramatically worse, with more unfair voting, more wasted votes, and more false majorities. It also as a by-product would probably keep the Liberals in power forever. What a coincidence that is, that the current Liberal Prime Minister favours that system.

The Liberals said they had to offer all these false choices in order to gauge out and tease out what Canadians really felt about it, that they could not ask a straightforward question. However, they did ask straightforward questions like, “The voting age for federal elections should be lowered.” They did not even include “if the following crisis were to ensue”, or even “if chaos would follow”.

They also said, “The day of a federal election should be a statutory holiday.” That's a straightforward question. There is no binary, there is no poll, there is no false choice.

“There should be a limit to the length of federal election campaign periods.”

If we go through the questions, and Canadians did, they were a source of some significant humour on social media. I will give the government that. We often need levity in this place because we deal with serious things and people say that politics is boring. The response from Canadians was not boring. Rather, it was quite funny. However, when a government is being mocked, it is not a good day. Canadians can disagree with a policy that government has, they can take a countering view, and that is respect. When we get to the level of fundamental mockery, Canadians do not respect anything that the government is doing at all. That should be a warning sign.

Carole said, “The questions were unclear and several repeated themselves in a backward fashion. They certainly could have been better written.”

Will said, “I did the survey anyway, but was struck by the nature of the questions, which did not seem to want to address the various alternatives to the [first-past-the-post] system directly. I wondered why.”

Barbara said, “I filled it in. But felt like the questions were so circuitous and aggressively either/or that I knew less at the end.”

We have to keep in mind that the government will say that 150,000 Canadians filled it out, assuming that the experience of those Canadians who went through this was a great one, when we know for a fact that it was not. Rather, it was the opposite.

We also know this fact. The minister misspoke yesterday in the House when she said that people could fill this survey in and not provide all that incredibly personal information at the end. She neglected to mention that then the survey does not count. To me that seems to be a strange thing if the government wants to know the opinions of Canadians.

The one question the survey did not ask is whether or not they are Canadian and if they could vote in federal elections in Canada. We would think that if the government is surveying Canadians with respect to Canadian values toward the Canadian election system it would include the questions, “Are you Canadian?” and “Can you vote in our elections?” Those would be important ones, and people should have to tick those boxes before they answer these other vague and preposterously stupid questions.

Clark said, “I thought I'd be able to give my opinion on different forms of voting, but was presented with vague, meaningless (and repeated!) statements, where I was often unable to actually answer in a way that actually reflected my 'values'.”

The very definition of a bad survey is one where we go through it and are unable to express what it is that we care about.

The government goes on and on about values. Here are a couple of important values.

With respect to integrity, here is a question that could have been on the survey, “Do you think the Prime Minister should keep his promise?” I know it is a tough one.

With respect to fairness, this is another question, “Do you think every vote in Canadian elections should count?”

What we have said today is that the all-party committee, working with the analysts in the House of Commons, who are the best, put together a survey that we offered before to the government. It did not hear us, so maybe today it will. The survey had such radical questions as, “Voters should elect local candidates to represent them in Parliament.” Do you feel strongly about that? Do you feel not strongly about that? That way there is no confusion.

We asked about, “...the number of seats held by a party in Parliament reflects the proportion of votes it received across the country.” People did not have a problem filling out their opinions on that. Some people said that it is very important, and other people said it is not. We did not add any chaos element. We did not add any skewing to try to drive people in one direction or the other. We had enough respect for people and their intelligence to just ask them the question.

We asked whether, “If I vote for my candidate in my riding who does not win, my vote is wasted.” We heard at committee over and over again from people who said, “I'm a good Canadian. I participated in the elections, but I live in riding X, and this riding never supports the party that I represent”, be it a Conservative in Toronto or a New Democrat on the east coast, ridings that for so long have voted a certain way and voters feel unheard, because they are.

As I said, this is a rescue mission. We need to reset this process for the government. It has not heard the overwhelming wave of feedback and cynicism that has been heaped upon it because Canadians are frustrated with governments that come forward and say, “We're going to consult”, and then we get to that consultation meeting, we try to add our input, we read bogus questions, and we read a skewed survey. We read questions that will lead to bad data, as a leading Canadian pollster told us.

This is an opportunity for the government to make good on its promise to work with the opposition. This is its opportunity to make good on its promise to truly consult and listen to Canadians in a respectful way.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, the member himself presents a valid argument as to why it is not the responsibility of the NDP to come up with the actual questions. The member said the first question is a no-brainer; it should have been “Are you Canadian?”. May I remind the member that there are roughly 1.5 million people who are residents in Canada and, for a wide variety of reasons, do not have their citizenship. I would argue, contrary to what that member might believe, that they too have a vested interest in the democracy we have here in Canada.

I think we have to open the doors, as this government has clearly demonstrated, and get all Canadians involved in the type of democracy we have.

Why do the member and his party believe that individuals who are not citizens should not have their opinions taken into consideration? In many ways, they will become citizens of Canada. Why would the NDP deny—

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, with all due respect to my colleague, what is he talking about?

The survey the Liberals set up allows people from anywhere in the world to answer the questions as long as they can fill in a postal code that is connected to Canada. It makes the results of their survey utterly useless, never mind the fact of the questions that are so idiotic and nonsensical that Canadians, when responding to their survey, say “I am trying to let you know what I think and what my values are, but your questions are so stupid that I cannot get through it; I am insulted”.

I do not know why the Liberals would not take up this offer, because that is what it is, an offer to do better, an offer to work with the opposition. They say the words all the time. Here is an opportunity. Let us see that the words actually match the actions.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is clear that the government wants to avoid this discussion by all means necessary.

The member spoke about some of the substantive problems. I want to just probe further this issue of the technical problems, because of course we and anyone who has filled out online polls know that often a poll will leave some kind of cookies on our computer, so we at least cannot fill out the same survey multiple times with the same device.

I wanted to test this out. I filled out the survey twice and got different responses both times, incidentally, in terms of whether I am a guardian or whatever it is, but the government did not even put in place basic security mechanisms in order to ensure that we could not fill out the same survey multiple times on the same device.

There would have been a variety of ways of protecting people's privacy while still ensuring that there are not multiple responses, and of course there is the issue of people out of the country.

I want to ask this in the spirit of the survey. Does the member think the questionnaire should seek to prevent people from filling out the survey multiple times, or would he prefer a plague of locusts?

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

It is such a hard question, Mr. Speaker. I want to prevent people from filling it out multiple times, but I do not know about the locusts thing. It sounds like something that could have been written by the Liberal friends who wrote the survey.

The basic security is incredibly concerning to us, and members will notice that the survey does not ask for an individual's name, but it asks for an email address. At first I thought it was asking for the email, like those surveys that do that to make sure the respondents are not one of those robots that automatically fill them out. They email them back, and then they have to confirm they are human. That is not what this did. It is just gathering emails. Why?

Why is the email important to the survey in any way whatsoever? Is this a data mining exercise? A taxpayer-funded data mining exercise for the Liberal Party of Canada would break a significant number of laws, never mind the basic morality of a government hiding under the pretence of consultation simply to try to gather more data to run more effective elections for itself.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I hope to address this later, because as a member of the now extinct Special Committee on Electoral Reform, I am enormously proud of the work we did and of the report we tabled, and I think all members from all parties on that committee share that pride.

I am wondering if the hon. member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley does not think that, in a rescue mission of this kind, even now we could ask that the minister direct the firm the Liberals have hired to have an automatic opportunity for anyone who goes to MyDemocracy.ca to be encouraged to click to read the report we submitted.

My biggest concern is the disconnect in timing. We submitted a report December 1, and now all people want to talk about is an online survey, which bears no connection in terms of building upon our work.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, of course, now the minister admits that the committee did very good work. One would have thought the work was so good that on the big survey, and 15 million postcards, they would have included a click to connect to that good work, because it is comprehensive. It just walks one through, in a non-partisan way, all the different questions and considerations, the trade-offs and the values, and the important things, but the Liberals do not reference it all, as if it did not exist.

My question is this. What are the Liberals going to do with the results? Some 20% of Canadians are guardians, 15% are pragmatists, and a bunch are innovators. What does that mean? What system do we get from that? We do not get one. It is totally subjective and is as useless as the exercise has been deemed by Canadians, which is absolutely accurate.

This does not merit the time of Canadians. Unfortunately, Canadians are experiencing that when they go through it, and that is why they are feeling insulted by the process.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from the New Democrats for graciously agreeing to split his time with me. His reason for doing so, as I understand it, is that we do not know what the Liberals are going to do. Are they simply going to force this debate to adjourn before others have had the chance to speak? It is something they can do if they move a motion to that effect. Of course, they have the majority in the House. Therefore, I am grateful for the time, even though it means that both his time and mine are somewhat foreshortened.

I will not be addressing today the security issues, except in passing, simply because they are not the subject of Report 2: Electoral Reform, of the Special Committee on Electoral Reform. I will simply observe that my colleague is quite right.

One can fill this in from any place in the world. Of course, it can be filled in by a non-citizen of Canada, if one is willing to pretend to be a citizen. A person can do numerous other things that are problematic, such as filling it in multiple times, and so on. I simply observe that these are problems if this is an exercise that will have its results publicized, and we understand that is what the government intends to do. At least the general results will be publicized if not the actual data, and then we can say that we have discovered the following things. However, we will have discovered nothing, because of the security issues.

Yesterday we heard the minister offer the number of people who filled it out, and I think she said 80,000. However, the impression I get is that at least half of those must be people in this very House who have been experimenting to find out what the flaws with the system are.

Clifton van der Linden, who runs the Vox Pop Labs, who actually organized this, has a system for weeding out these kinds of responses, and members can read his literature on how they do it. However, that becomes a problem too, as we are going to weed out some valid responses, because they looked, according to the algorithm that was designed, the metric that was designed, as if they were non-valid responses. Therefore, from a systems point of view, it is a complete shemozzle. Nothing that comes out of this will be useful data from the point of view of figuring out what Canadians want.

Now, some would say that this is what the government's objective was to start with. Of course, I would never be so cynical about the Liberal Party of Canada, and they are free to quote this in their literature from now on. It is motivated exclusively by a unique advocacy and care for the good will of the people of Canada, which is unmatched by any party in this country or indeed by any other party in any country in the history of the world, possibly the galaxy.

Nonetheless, we have reason to be suspicious of this instrument. There are some problems with this. My colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley and I have been on a number of panel shows with the parliamentary secretary, who is defending the kinds of questions that we have, the either/or questions that have been the subject of so much ridicule. Also, he has talked about why there are no specific questions. He says we have to have values-based questions. This is not the time for specific questions, he explains, with regard to electoral reform.

However, as my colleague noted, there are numerous specific policy questions, not values questions, on other aspects of the electoral reform committee's mandate; for example, eligible voters who do not vote in elections should be fined; or the day of a federal election should be a statutory holiday. One has to agree or disagree with these things. Another is that the voting age for federal elections should be lowered, and one is asked to agree or disagree with that, although the government seems to have decided unilaterally on this exercise that it is now 16. Another is that there should be a limit to the length of the time of campaign election periods, and one must agree or disagree.

So here we have specific questions. However, when it gets to asking which kind of system one would prefer, even in the general category system, that is excluded. The argument is that these were just too complicated. Canadians cannot handle these questions. At any rate, they are unlike values questions. Also, we have to ask questions in this either/or fashion to determine what people think at this stage of the process. It is just not the right time to get into determining priorities in some sort of other manner.

I just want to go through and explain how the ERRE committee handled this, because what this motion is saying is, in addition to the questions being asked, to include the questions that were designed and approved unanimously by all the members of the special committee on electoral reform. We had to deal with the problem that there are trade-offs. There is no such thing as a perfect electoral system, one that would give maximum local representation, proportionality, choice of one's own MP, and minimum party discipline, all together in one package. There are trade-offs.

Here is how we did it. We would have questions grouped together. We would have four or five of them in a row, and on each one people would be asked if they agree or disagree on a scale of one to five, the exact same scale that is used in the MyDemocracy.ca survey; so there is no incompatibility there, but as they go through, they may agree with multiple statements but at different levels and intensity.

Here is an example:

Please indicate whether you agree or disagree with each of the following statements:

Canada's electoral system should favour the following outcome: one political party holds a majority of seats in Parliament and is able to implement its campaign platform.

And people rate that one to five.

Canada's electoral system should favour the following outcome: no single political party holds the majority of seats in Parliament, thereby increasing the likelihood that all political parties will work together to pass legislation.

Canada's electoral system should ensure that voters elect local candidates to represent them in Parliament.

Canada's electoral system should ensure that the number of seats held by a party in Parliament reflects the portion of votes it received across the country.

Independent candidates (not part of a political party) should be able to be elected to Parliament.

What we can see with that series of questions is the problem of not having a really clear mandate when multiple parties forming the government together have to negotiate. Both its good and bad sides are presented, but not presented as a false dichotomy. They are presented as two different options. People can indicate they favour both, but then the strength of their preference is also captured, and that will hint at where their values lie. This is a much more robust, much more useful device for actually determining how people feel about these issues. There are no false choices. There is nothing they can poke fun at here, and at the same time we are getting both the values and the policy preferences.

The government could have done that, but it chose not to do it.

Here is another example:

Please indicate whether you agree or disagree with any of the following statements.

The current electoral system adequately reflects voters' intentions.

If I vote for a candidate in my riding who does not win, my vote is wasted.

The current electoral system should be maintained.

The current electoral system should be changed.

There are four different ways of asking the fundamental issue, which is whether we should replace first past the post with something else, and if so, with what. The former questionnaire was about whether people are in favour of proportionate versus majoritarian systems, the series of questions.

This series of questions is about whether or not people are generally satisfied or dissatisfied with the status quo. There are two very robust, helpful, values-based, but also policy-based ways of determining how people feel. Because there is more than one question, we do not have the problem of false dichotomies, the plague of locusts questions, and that sort of thing: would they vote for proportional representation, which is covered with rabid fire ants, and questions like that.

The argument has also been presented that this is all too complicated, and the parliamentary secretary has been saying this over and over again. This is a completely disingenuous argument. Canadians do not understand first past the post, single transferable vote, and multiple member proportionality. They especially do not understand the acronyms—MMP versus STV versus DMP—in the same way that we often find it hard to attach the right label to the right thing. However, when we set the labels aside and actually move to the substance of the issues, people have a very keen understanding. This was demonstrated quite well both by the large number of responses we received—22,000—to the committee's questionnaire and also by the intelligence of the comments people provided. The reason we were able to do this was that helpful and intelligent information was provided, as it was at the town hall meetings we held, about the different kinds of systems.

There were demonstrations easily transferrable onto a computer screen explaining how each of these systems work, both for our consultation and, of course, the government's consultation as well. This includes all the systems, including the ranked ballot system that is the Prime Minister's favourite. Had it included those—and the government can still do this and then ask questions about each of these systems—we would get meaningful responses that would allow the Government of Canada to move forward, as the committee has requested, with a referendum. It could pit the first-past-the-post system against the proportional system that seems to be the one that is favoured by the largest number of respondents to the survey—or even preferential, if that is what comes out. That could be done in time for election 2019.

I encourage the government to reconsider what it has done and to actually follow the committee's recommendation and add these questions to its survey.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, for over 25 years I have had the privilege of being an elected parliamentarian, and throughout those years, the one thing I have really grown to appreciate is the value of consulting with constituents. Questionnaires or surveys are often the best way to get a good sense of what my constituents believe. That is something I have consistently done over the years. For the most part, 95% of the time, I develop the questions to try to gauge what my constituents were thinking. That said, I know that I am not the most able-minded individual in developing questionnaires. There are professionals who can do the job.

Would the member not agree that this is such an important issue that we should recognize that there might be people better qualified than elected officials in the chamber to develop questionnaires for Canadians on electoral reform?

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is exactly what happened with the set of questions prepared by the electoral reform committee, which it put on its website. These are the ones that received the responses I spoke about earlier. They were developed by experts at the Library of Parliament and then brought to the committee and discussed. Adjustments to them were made by members of the committee, but, in general, we bowed to their expertise. I tried to demonstrate in my earlier comments how objective and thoughtful the questions were, and I can only encourage others to go to the report of the special committee to see just how thoughtful the responses were as well.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech on this issue and his work in committee.

I wonder if he could try to explain why the government decided to do a new consultation, a new survey. As we have known from the start, since coming to power, the Liberals have said that they will keep their promises. The government is still holding consultations, as are the committees, and now there is this new survey.

Does the member agree that the new survey was created because the government has not received the answers it wants? Maybe it did not get the answers it wanted and was happy with, so why not do another survey? Maybe it will keep doing that until it gets the answers it wants. Does the member agree that this is why the government is doing another survey and another consultation process?

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, since the beginning, I have been under the impression, as I articulated a year ago and reiterated in mid-May in an article in the Ottawa Citizen, that the Liberals are trying to run out the clock. If the promise that the 2015 election would be the last one using first past the post is maintained and seen as sacred, and the clock runs out, it starts to narrow the range of options available to us.

The first one that would be lost is any form of electoral reform that requires redistribution. Most forms of proportional representation require some form of redistribution. That takes about two years. There is an expedited form of redistribution that could occur in a year, but if action is not taken by the end of next spring's parliamentary sitting, redistribution is out and, therefore, many forms of PR are out as options as well. That would be the first thing to go.

The second thing to go would be a referendum, because that takes about six months. Once that is gone, we are left with this sacred promise, which the Prime Minister repeated as recently as yesterday in question period, that the government will change the system. Then all that will be left will be the one system that does not involve redistribution, which just happens to be the one, ranked ballots, that guarantees the Liberals will win more seats in every election. That is a problem.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. friend for participating so ably in the special committee.

There is a disconnect between what the parliamentary committee did and this online survey. I am not against an online survey, by the way. I am not against reaching to out to every Canadian household, but it strikes me as more than a lost opportunity. It is a waste of resources that when people are doing the survey, they are directed to work done by other groups, but not to the special committee.

I will use one example. There are multiple questions in the survey on online voting, but there is no information to inform the people who are filling out the survey. They do not get to read our report first. My hon. colleague will remember the expert advice that committee members heard that changed our minds. We heard from Barbara Simons, an expert and former executive of IBM. She said that knowing what she knows about security, Canadian elections could be hacked and stolen. That is why we in the committee said that we were not ready for online voting at this time. However, people filling out this survey will not know that.

Could my hon. colleague comment on that disconnect?

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I just want to say what a pleasure it was working with my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands on the committee. She brought real life and a fresh insight to the committee at every meeting she was at, and I personally very much appreciate it.

The member is quite right about the point made by Barbara Simons in her testimony on electronic voting. But the same point applies, and this is probably part of what the member was trying to say, to all the other subjects of the committee's report as well. It is regrettable that this information is not included.

As one final note, including a link would be very simple indeed. It could be done at a moment's notice. There are already links to a number of other resources in this survey. So putting in this link would be no effort at all. It really should happen.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, for me, the question is where do we start on such an important issue, one that I have been engaged in in one way or another for many years. Like many Canadians, I have a good number of opinions on it. At the start of the debate, it is really important to talk about how important it is that we take a multifaceted approach, so that we in government and all members of the House can reach out and ensure that Canadians can provide input in the process.

For those who are watching and those who have taken a keen interest in this subject, I cannot recall when a government has been so committed to getting the input of all Canadians in one form or another. That is what is really important to recognize. It is about trying to tap the minds of Canadians in all regions of our country so that they can give us their thoughts and ideas on how we can improve democracy in Canada. I would like to think that we would consider all sorts of vehicles for that communication, and here I will cite a few examples.

As I indicated in the question I just posed to the member across the way, there is the issue of questionnaires or surveys. We have the MyDemocracy.ca site, which is a phenomenal reach-out to all Canadians. I believe in excess of 15 million households are receiving a card in the mail and are being asked to get engaged on the topic. That in itself should not be new. I would be surprised if there are any members of Parliament who have not taken the opportunity to consult their constituents by sending out cards or some form of questionnaire. I know I have done it on numerous occasions. It is an excellent way to get feedback from our constituents. I know for a fact that New Democratic members of Parliament have done it; Conservative members of Parliament have done it; and I and, I know, other Liberal members of Parliament have done it. It is a good thing to do, reaching out to our constituents in many different forms.

I will share with the House some of the ways I do it. I have used cards, even protest cards at times. I have had questionnaires go into my riding with 40 or 50 questions. Sometimes they are just simple yes or no questions. Sometimes I am asking for an opinion on a list of subjects. It really varies. The reason I do it is that even though I knock on doors and go to many different types of events and meet all sorts of people at my office or at a local restaurant, that does not guarantee in any way that we are reaching the bulk of our constituents. Changing our democratic system is one of those issues on which we should do whatever we can to reach out to Canadians.

What have we done? We all know that the Prime Minister indicated prior to the election that this system needed to be changed and that if we were elected to government we would fight for that change. I like to think that we have been very aggressive in making sure that Canadians are afforded that opportunity.

I would like to see a greater sense of co-operation. If members of the House understand and appreciate how much the public desires this change, then there should be a great sense of co-operation to ensure that it takes place. I do not question whether it is Prime Minister, the minister responsible, the parliamentary secretary, or members from all sides of the House who genuinely want to see that change. We saw a demonstration of that last spring.

We have standing committees of the House, which typically have a majority of government members. When there is a majority government, there is typically a majority of government members on a committee. Through discussions and a debate in the chamber, the government, on this particular issue, acknowledged and agreed that we did not need to have a majority and that it would be in our best interests to make sure that there was all-party representation. Ultimately, we had minority membership on that committee.

I would like to echo many of the words of our Minister of Democratic Institutions. She has clearly indicated that the work put in by each and every member of that committee has been truly amazing. We recognize that. In our caucus, the amount of time sacrificed by the committee members, during the summer months, while we are sitting in the House, and in evenings, is valued and appreciated. It truly is.

The committee travelled and met with Canadians in all regions of our country. As one member of the House, I truly appreciate the efforts of each and every member who served on that special standing committee.

They came up with a report. I have not had an opportunity to read the entire report, but I look forward to reading more of it, as our minister has encouraged our caucus colleagues to do. I suspect that the report will get a very good reading by all members of Parliament. I believe that will apply to many individual Canadians who are really following this issue.

The calibre and quality of presenters was incredible. I would like to thank the hundreds of presenters who came before the standing committee, whether here in Ottawa or in one of the many different regions of our country where meetings took place. I compliment each and every one of those presenters for the sacrifice they made in taking the time to share their understanding and knowledge of this very important issue.

Now we have a report, which I appreciate. However, I believe there is still more that we can do, just as theMinister of Democratic Institutions is saying. She has taken the MyDemocracy.ca concept. As opposed to trying to press down and say that it is a bad idea, which is what we are hearing from the opposition, we want to see further interest in this topic. The opposition should be supportive of the idea.

We see that, and I made reference to it earlier. Members of Parliament of all political stripes will often use questions and surveys. That is exactly what the government is doing on this issue. People at 15 million addresses have been advised through the mail that there is a wonderful opportunity to be engaged on a great issue, in a great debate that we are having here in Canada on democratic reform.

Those cards will hopefully cause a good number of Canadians to either phone or go to the website. The more Canadians who participate, the better.

When I say Canadians, I am also including permanent residents. One does not need to have Canadian citizenship to participate in the survey. I would estimate that about 1.5 million people who have landed call Canada home, and many of them will be citizens even before the next election.

We all should feel good about our democratic system. We should all have a say in it. We need to be inclusive in the process. That is why I was a bit surprised by some of the statements on this issue. I do not believe that the members of the standing committee ever asked a presenter if he or she was a Canadian citizen, at least I hope not. We should not be asking that question of an individual who wants to fill out the survey.

I will acknowledge that I am not the best person to devise a questionnaire that would go on the Internet. I have opinions, and I have experience. I have sent a litany of questionnaires, surveys, and cards over my 20-plus years as a parliamentarian. Ninety-five per cent of those questions were developed by me, myself, and I after working with constituents to get a sense of what questions I might want to ask to get an understanding of what is taking place on topical issues at both the national and provincial levels.

We all have opinions. The NDP member who spoke before me said he would ask if people are Canadian citizens. I would not ask that question. It is not for me or that member to make that determination. We might have an opinion, but we have professional organizations that have expertise that we might not necessarily have as MPs. I like to think that we are very knowledgeable, but there is a certain level of expertise I would like to see that would ensure that as many Canadians as possible are engaged.

If I sent a direct letter to my constituents that they could mail back to me, I would get a 5% to 7% return rate. There is a difference between sending an envelope in which they can put their results versus if there is no envelope. It all has an impact.

About 50% of people do not want to be identified on questionnaires and will not put a return address. The other half will include a return address. I take all into consideration in one form or another. What I might publish might be somewhat more targeted. At the end of the day, I want to ensure that as much as possible, the results reflect what my constituents believe on the issues I have brought to their attention.

I suggest that we look at the design of MyDemocracy.ca. Some questions have arisen in the media and on social media about whether the results of this exercise will be statistically valid. The answer to that is yes.

MyDemocracy.ca was designed by social and statistics scientists from Vox Pop Labs, which has launched similar engagement applications all over the world.

Some from across the way mock it. I have more faith in the science of this issue and the individuals who actually can deliver results and have a proven record.

I would challenge other members on their personal credentials, as I have. I acknowledge that I might not be the best person to develop it. That is why I have confidence in those individuals who have the experience to do a thorough job.

All the questions we see on MyDemocracy.ca were developed in collaboration with the government and reviewed by an academic advisory panel.

The government chose to work with Vox Pop Labs, because the company has a proven track record when it comes to using large sample data to draw valid empirical conclusions.

Members of Parliament have held town halls in ridings across the country to hear directly the views of their constituents and have submitted individual written reports of input they received.

Further, the Minister of Democratic Institutions and her parliamentary secretary have travelled to every province and territory to hear the views of Canadians on the future of our voting system.

It has been very thorough. I held two town halls on the issue. I made it very well known, with cards and phone messaging, that I was holding these town halls. I appreciated those individuals who showed up. In total, I believe there were maybe 40 to 60 people in two town halls on this issue.

The Conservative member across the way heckled, “big group”. I do not underestimate the constituents I represent. If 50 show up for a town hall, I appreciate each and every one of them, and I trust that the member across the way would do likewise. I am hoping he did not try to demean my constituents. I am sure he did not.

Having said that, what I know is that to get a better reflection of what my constituents want, I welcome the card that has been sent out by the Government of Canada. I will encourage my constituents to get engaged with MyDemocracy.ca.

I am grateful that we had a standing committee that went to every region, including the city of Winnipeg. I am grateful that we had a Minister of Democratic Institutions and her parliamentary secretary go to every province and territory of our country to seek opinions and advice.

I believe that this government has been true to its commitment to reach out and work with Canadians to try to get a better understanding of the type of democracy Canadians want. It would have been wrong to be completely dependent on a standing committee or on town halls or on a questionnaire. I think we have to have a multi-faceted approach to dealing with this issue. I believe that if we consult and work with our constituents, if we allow the standing committees to do their work, if we allow the ministers and the government to do its job, we will be in a good position to make a decision going forward, if it is desired by all members of Parliament.

Hopefully, what we will see are some political parties recognizing that if we truly believe in democratic reform, the best thing we could be doing on this particular file is, in fact, encouraging those individuals to participate in MyDemocracy.ca.

I would challenge any member of this House to come to Winnipeg North, and we can knock on 10 doors and see what they say to me in the form of a question.

If we ask, “Do you want first past the post, a ranked ballot, or some hybrid system?”, chances are we will have to explain in detail to get the answer. If members were truly honest, they would recognize that the questionnaire being proposed, with the level of expertise we have developed in MyDemocracy.ca, is doing what is in the best interest of all Canadians so that we can have legitimate, true reform.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to this entire speech, and I am dumbfounded. I wish to share with the House that the government asked us, all members of the House, who worked very hard last summer, to host sessions in our constituencies about electoral reform and share with our constituents what some of the various options might be.

I instead held my session in the fall, because everyone who has done this kind of work, which I have done for 40 years, knows that they do not get a good turnout in the summer. I held my session in September, and I am delighted to say that I had 250 people. Two days later, the minister arrived in town and reported that she had 17 people.

I also went to the effort, with my staff, to circulate a survey, asking very simple, straightforward questions, explain the alternatives, and get feedback. We compiled it and presented it to the government.

I find it an affront to my constituents, having done all that work, that now they have to deal with this puffery piece, which does not present to them the same level of honest options.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know about the member's actual numbers, but 50 or 60 people attended both my town halls, which were actually held in September. I am sure she is not trying to impute motives to my own constituents. I am very proud of the residents of Winnipeg North.

The hon. member might be content with 200 or 300 individuals from her riding. I want to provide many vehicles for my constituents to be engaged in this issue, and I want to see a government being proactive in consulting with Canadians in every region. That is what this government is doing.

I am not settling for two town halls with 50 or 60 of my constituents. I want my constituents engaged. I am promoting that they get engaged on the issue.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the minister has made reference to a panel of academics who were involved in the survey as her defence for the survey being as is, in the order it is, the way it is. We are told that the experts who designed it made it this way. The parliamentary secretary has repeated this statement today. This seems like a dubious assertion to me.

I want to point out, first, that if one goes to the Vox Pop website, it points out that the choice as to wording the questions this way was actually ultimately a government decision. It is on its website.

I have the following question with regard to the panel of experts and the design of the questions.

Number one, did the panel of experts design all the questions, as opposed to some of them? Was it every single one of the questions on this as opposed to some of them?

Number two, did the panel of academics design the questions in the preliminary version of the survey, some of which were dropped from this survey, and if so, what was the basis for changing it?

Number three, which questions did they have a say in removing from the preliminary version and that were not included in this one?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, as I have tried to explain, I have had many years of writing questions and having surveys and questionnaires going out to my constituency, and I truly believe that I have done a relatively reasonable job doing questions and surveys. However, I recognize that there is a point when we need to have individuals who bring to the table a certain level of expertise. By using that expertise, we are able to gain a better understanding of what average Canadians truly believe about their democratic system.

Yes/no answers are not the only types of answers. Sometimes we need to dig more deeply, and at the end of the day, I have more faith in the level of expertise that has been brought to the table to develop MyDemocracy.ca than in individual members of Parliament.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I may fall in between extremes here. Every Canadian should go to MyDemocracy.ca. and fill out the form. Then they should contact the minister and the Prime Minister and give them some feedback.

I can accept the point of view of the hon. member that these people were designing a survey of a different type to tease out values. What I find very disturbing is that the key essence of the promise in the Speech from the Throne is premised on an order to make every vote count. Therefore, the key effort here is to ensure that 40% of the vote equals 40% of the seats, something Canadians overwhelmingly agree is a matter of fairness. However, there are not any questions in the survey that tease out a values question of, “Do you think that 40% of the votes should equal 40% of the seats?” The key question before us is omitted in teasing out the values in the survey.

Would my hon. colleague not agree that there is no harm whatsoever in acceding to this motion and allowing the non-partisan questions that were passed unanimously by the special committee being attached to the survey?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to compliment the leader of the Green Party on her general attitude toward genuinely trying to make a difference. I am somewhat sympathetic to it. In Manitoba, for many years I was one of two MLAs in Manitoba. At one time we would get 18% of the vote and would get that sense of a need for reform.

I have confidence in the types of questions that have been developed, as it has been explained to me. Could there always be additional questions? Could there have been some questions deleted? We could talk about this indefinitely, but as an overall package, I believe the intent is to try to draw out Canadian values toward our democratic system. To that degree, we will see a successful—