Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Vancouver Kingsway for sharing his time with me.
First of all, I cannot ignore the remarks made by the member for Sarnia—Lambton, which, in the context of this morning's fully transpartisan debate, were disgraceful to say the least.
Let me remind the hon. member of two things. First, to the millions of Quebeckers who voted for Bloc Québécois representatives in the House of Commons, Quebec is one of the founding nations alongside the indigenous peoples. The 1982 Constitution may have sought to obliterate our status as a nation and reduce it to one ethnic group among many, but we do not have to be treated as such.
One of the fundamental principles that all parliamentarians in the House must uphold is the principle of being democratic. When you are democratic, you are committed to pursuing the democratic ideal of a government of the people, for the people. In that sense, I represent the voices of constituents who pay taxes to the Canadian government and are entitled to make their voices heard in this assembly.
Only totalitarian and fascist regimes exclude parliamentarians or political parties based on their allegiance. We are not members of a religion and we do not adhere to dogmas. We are democrats.
That being said, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. We will keep that in mind as we begin the long journey that we are going to take together. I am not saying this to brag. I simply want to let my colleagues know that from 2003 to 2007, I was the official opposition critic on the reform of democratic institutions in Quebec. I was therefore able to witness first-hand Quebec's experience in this regard.
I spent an entire year making official and unofficial visits to all of the regions of Quebec. I listened to Quebeckers who wanted to improve the democratic workings of government and those who also wanted to improve the voting procedure. They wanted to restore the public's confidence in the system and make sure that every vote counted so that Quebec's parliament would be more pluralistic.
For four years, I was either in front of the cameras or working really hard on modelling different systems. I would therefore like to tell all of my colleagues that all of the existing models have their advantages and disadvantages and that there will be distortion with each one of them. That is why it is not up to us to decide. It is up to Canadians.
When it comes to changing the rules of democracy in a transpartisan atmosphere, I know from my experience in Quebec how important it is to call people's attention to the issue and ask them to follow the debate and get involved, because it is up to them to make the decision.
The only way to increase citizen participation in elections is to make them feel that they are part of the process of adopting new rules. That is why we must make a commitment right now to avoid polluting the debate with partisanship because it will not be long before it comes back at some point. We must keep track of days like today. However, there will be disagreement. There is no problem with having disagreement if the goal is to find a point of convergence. However, if our point of convergence is wanting every vote to count in an election, how can we, from the outset, oppose the idea of having the vote of each constituent count in determining the new election rules?
I also saw a government that said, in front of the cameras as the time, that it wanted a reform, but its leader was the only one committed to doing so, as the caucus did not follow. Ultimately, when you do not want a referendum and you do not want the people to decide, it will come from on high from a majority government elected by a distortion that some claim is not legitimate, as the government or the Prime Minister himself said here, and as the premier also said in Quebec. The result is that when the caucus is not on the same page, you end up with what I have just heard: a disconnect between the members elected by the people and list members and other members. We can have all those debates, but if this is not sorted out right away, there is a risk. If we held a quick secret vote on the other side of the House, then we would know how many of the Liberal Party members debated this issue during the election, how many have actually talked about it, how many feel committed, and, if they do feel committed, which model they chose.
Today, some of my colleagues, and this is fine, make me think of my daughter when she got a huge gift box she wanted so badly. She assumed the wonderful gift she wanted was in that big, beautiful box. It all came crashing down when she unwrapped it and discovered that there was so much wrapping and there were so many instructions that she needed a lot of advice and especially her dad's help to finally be able to enjoy the gift a few hours later.
The thing is, there is a committee. It is just an advisory committee. What will the government do afterward?
That is why I would like to move the following subamendment: “That the amendment be amended by adding after the words “in that regard” in paragraph 5(c) the following: “including a referendum on proposed voting systems.””