Debates of June 2nd, 2016

Opposition Motion—Special Committee on Electoral Reform

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

Mr. Speaker, we initially proposed this in February. We went to the government and to the official opposition and we approached my friend from Saanich—Gulf Islands as well. We also talked a bit with the Bloc.

The hope today is that we can simply pass this motion. The motion may be unusual for an opposition day motion. It would be binding when passed. The motion requires the committee to be constituted. Ten days after the motion passes the committee would start to get to work.

It has been eight months since the election with this conversation about process. What Canadians really want, whether they are interested in the status quo or whether they are interested in proportional representation as we are as New Democrats, is to get to the heart of the issue.

I completely respect why some of my Conservative colleagues want to vote against the motion. They have a particular fixation on the referendum piece and wanting that language in there. There had been initial comments from all sides of the House about the basic construction of the committee. As my colleague pointed out, it should not allow any one party alone to pass something so fundamental as the way we vote as Canadians. It is imperative for all Canadians looking at this and trying to figure out why this matters that we not have a committee process that will spit out some result greatly favouring one party. It has to greatly favour the voices of Canadians.

Of all the work being done, the research being done in Canada over voting systems and voting changes, could my colleague tell me how those studies have concluded on the need for what is called proportionality, that representation be connected to how Canadians actually cast their vote?

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

Mr. Speaker, there is a rich literature on this. The committee is lucky in that several citizen assemblies in British Columbia and Ontario have already been held. We can benefit from the work that has already been done by those bodies, but the academic literature is rich.

A study was done of 36 democratic countries. It was empirically established that those countries with voting systems that ensure that every vote counts, those systems that can be categorized as consensus-based voting as opposed to majoritarian oppositional voting, have a more civil discourse, have higher voter turnout, have stronger macroeconomic results, have stronger social justice, better social safety nets, better environmental protection, more women elected to parliaments, and more minorities elected to parliaments.

We do not have to rely on opinions or party positions. When we really start to study this we will find that a lot of the work has already been done and it is clear that those systems that are proportional are fairer and produce better results.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands commented that only some systems allow a majority that has a different percentage of the vote from votes cast. There is one flaw in that argument. It is generally true but there is one in the proportional set that does have that problem as well and that is a mixed member proportional. This has happened in a number of countries that have abandoned it after trying it.

If a party were to be split in two, then people would vote on the seat list and on the list list and that party could end up with a majority government with only 30% of the vote.

It is important to be careful of all of the different risks and all of the different benefits in every system and to be careful in how we study this. I am looking forward to the work of the committee. I wonder if my colleague could comment on the finer details of some of these problems.

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

Mr. Speaker, when I say I favour proportional representation systems I would exclude one, which is the one where there is no connection between an MP and a community. It is really important that people know who their MP is, and by that I would exclude the system that is used in Israel and Italy where voters just vote for a party and not for a member of Parliament to represent them. I do not think that meets the basic criteria going forward.

With an open mind, I could be wrong on what I have studied for years, that first past the post majoritarian voting systems produce this perverse result that no other system can. However, if there is a perversion of proportionality that produces perverse results, I certainly would not want to go there.

We have a huge amount of work to do and I want to start soon but we have to be prepared.

I appreciate that my friend from Laurentides—Labelle has looked at a particular system. The Minister of Foreign Affairs has an interesting system on his website that he invented for proportional, preferential, and personal. It is important that we look at all systems and hybrid systems.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

I'll just give a reminder to all hon. members that this is a topic of great interest to hon. members and many are wishing to get up during the five-minute period we usually have for questions and comments. I remind hon. members to keep their arguments as succinct as they can so that their colleagues can participate in that portion of the debate.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Vancouver Kingsway.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Montcalm.

I want to open my remarks by paying some due respect to a number of people and parties in the House. It is something that I think Canadians would like to see us do more of. My first kudos have to go to my hon. colleague, the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley, who from the inception of his appointment as the New Democratic critic for democratic reform has been a voice of reason, fairness, and co-operation on a matter that transcends partisan values in this place, and more important, among Canadians.

We are dealing here with something that is fundamental to our democratic fabric, and that is our electoral system. This is the foundation of our democracy. While we may disagree on matters like tax policy, social policy, or health policy and take partisan positions on those issues, our electoral system is something that transcends that kind of partisanship.

The hon. member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley has been, I think, a model of the kind of parliamentarianism that Canadians both expect and appreciate, in carrying the message that we need to approach this not from a partisan point of view but in a way that serves Canadians from coast to coast.

I also want to give kudos to the Liberal government, my colleagues on the other side. The genesis of the motion today started from a position where, in striking the committee that would look at changing the fundamental nature of our electoral system, the government's proposition was to establish a committee that was patently, fundamentally, and clearly unfair. It was a committee that ironically reflected the very illegitimacy of the first-past-the-post system that the government has identified as a flawed system.

Quite ironically, the government has acknowledged, and I think properly so, that the first-past-the-post system almost all the time produces results in legislatures that are vastly disproportionate to the actual will of the voters. In the last case, of course, as the government has admitted, they received 39% of the vote of Canadians and they were rewarded with about 54% of the votes in the House. The Liberals themselves have called that an illegitimate result, yet the government's first proposal to look at change was to establish a committee where the government had 60% of the seats on that committee, notwithstanding the fact that they only have 39%.

It was quite ironic that the government, in calling the present system an illegitimate and skewed system that needed to be changed, would then strike a committee process that would replicate the exact same flaws that were inherent in that system.

Where I give them credit is, due to the hard work of my hon. colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley who put forward a committee structure that corrected those flaws, the government has done something that I think is very commendable and worthy of praise, and that is they altered their position. I give the government full credit for that, because the proposal before the House now is to make the committee that will represent Canadians and look at this very foundational and profoundly important issue proportional, or roughly proportional, to the votes of Canadians in the last federal election. It also, more importantly, requires the support of more than just the governing party in order to get any recommendation to come before the House.

That is as it should be, because any change to the electoral system of Canada should either have broad, cross-party support in the House, or in lieu of that, it should have the broad support of the majority of Canadians.

What is never acceptable is for one party, particularly a party that received a minority of votes in an election, to change the electoral system on its own without the agreement or support of anybody else. I think Canadians, over the last few months, have reflected that message loudly and clearly, and I give credit to the government for listening to that and making the necessary change.

I can tell the House that is something I did not see in the last Parliament under the Conservative government, which instead brought in elections act changes that were not consulted with or agreed to by any other party or Canadians. I think in fact in many ways that created the context for the current situation.

Before I leave this, I want to just say that the other reason it is important for the government to agree to this important motion today is because it was the same position that the Liberals took prior to being elected as government. The Liberal caucus chair and member for Lac-Saint-Louis, when he was in opposition, said, “As members who are in touch with our constituents' values, we know that Canadians have a very keen sense of fair play....Canadians recognize that we should not change the rules of the game without the consensus of all parties involved”.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs under the Liberal government, when he was in opposition, said, “A solid democratic tradition in Canada requires the largest possible consensus for the law that sets out election rules. This time it is a complete failure.” The minister said that when the previous government wanted to change the rules unilaterally.

The government House leader had said similar things. The parliamentary secretary to the government House leader, when he was in opposition, said the same thing. Senior leadership of the present government, when they were in opposition, said publicly that we cannot change the electoral system in this country without the broad support of a majority of parties or at least the broad support of Canadians.

The reason that this is important to set out is because Canadians should still note that the first instinct of the current government, when it set out this committee, was to try to establish a unilateral ability to change this system. It was only through the hard work of the Conservative Party, the Liberal Party, the Green Party, and the Bloc Québécois, when we rallied Canadians to the notion that it is unacceptable that the government changed. While I give the Liberals credit for the change, I also think it is important that Canadians know that the Liberals tried to establish a process that would have allowed them unilaterally to change the system, probably toward a system that favoured them.

I want to talk for a few moments about democratic reform itself. It has been commented by many people across the spectrum of this country that Canadian politics have been marked by a certain amount of cynicism about our Canadian voting structure. We have low turnouts, decreasing turnouts in federal elections over the last several decades. I will venture a guess as to why that is. It is because under the present first-past-the-post system, most Canadians realize that their votes do not count, that their votes often do not matter. The reason is that the first-past-the-post system very commonly produces false majorities.

We know that the current Liberal government was elected by only 39% of Canadians. Sixty-one per cent of Canadians did not vote for it. The majority of Canadians did not vote for the Liberals, yet the government has been awarded with 54% to 55% of the seats and a majority government. That is not a partisan attack on the Liberals, because the exact same thing happened to the Conservative government in the last Parliament: 39% of the vote, 55% of the seats.

Democracy is supposed to be about government by the majority. We solve disputes in a democracy by taking a vote, and the majority wins. When we have perversely an electoral system where the majority of votes do not win and it is a minority of votes that determine policy, with 100% of the power going to a majority government with less than a majority of votes, that creates cynicism.

Other problems with the first-past-the-post system are that it minimizes or eliminates the motivation for co-operation and compromise in Parliament and discourages parties from working together; it encourages under-representation in Parliament, with fewer women, fewer minorities, and fewer disabled representatives. The first-past-the-post system encourages and inflames strategic voting, which is toxic because it is the opposite of democracy. We should be encouraging people to vote for the party and candidate that they believe in, not the one they like less than the person they think is going to win. That is what strategic voting encourages. It is perverse in the system, where we have a system where people are encouraged to vote for someone they do not really believe in but they do it to avoid a bigger evil. First past the post was invented before the lightbulb, before women could vote, before minorities could vote, and before first nations could vote. It is an outdated, outmoded, and deeply flawed system.

I am going to advocate, as I have for the last 30 years, in this House and to Canadians as we move forward that we develop a system based on three principles: one, that every vote should count; two, that the parties' representation in Parliament should reflect the actual votes they get; and, three, where Canadians do not give any party a majority support, that parties should have to work together to produce policies that enjoy broad majority agreement in this country. That is proportional representation, specifically a mixed-member system where Canadians will elect a representative directly accountable to them as they do now, plus enjoy the benefit of proportionality.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a quick question for the member for Vancouver Kingsway. The NDP has held power in many provinces in the country always under a majority ranked system. While it has been a platform plank of the NDP for as long as I can remember to influence proportional, in the six or seven provinces where they had majorities, they have not attempted to implement the system. I am wondering if the member could address why that might have been.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I think that is a fair question. It gets to the nub of the problem that the Liberal government faced and the real dilemma that faces governments. When governments do get elected under the first-past-the-post system and they have a majority, they tend to be discouraged from changing that system that they have just benefited from. I think that is a fair comment that has been the fair criticism of every party in this country that has achieved majority government through this flawed system and then failed to act to correct that primarily out of self-interest.

Again, I applaud the government for moving forward with looking at electoral reform, but it causes me to reflect on how important it is that we get the right system. If the Liberal government pursues what many Canadians think it wants to pursue, which is a ranked ballot system that is designed to favour a centrist Liberal Party, then that will feed into even increased cynicism in this country because citizens do not want to see parties favouring systems that favour the particular party. They want to see a real electoral reform based on principle that makes our electoral system better for voters, not—

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Chilliwack—Hope.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the member's speech. Canadians and all members of the House will note that he is sincere in the system that he prefers to see come forward out of this process, but I would argue that the process matters less than the fact that with this process, even this new process that the NDP is proposing, Canadians still do not have a direct say in the outcome.

That is the fundamental difference we are seeing in the Conservative position. Perhaps the member will get his way on this committee. There is an additional vote for the NDP, an additional vote for the Greens, and an additional vote for the Bloc. There is not a vote for Canadians in a referendum, so he might win the day on the committee. The Liberals might win the day with their preferred system. He might win it with his.

Why will he not agree that no matter which recommendation the system produces, the only vote that really matters at the end of the day is the one given to all Canadians through a referendum? Why will he not allow Canadians to authorize this change through a referendum?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the very first thing that comes to my mind as someone who has sat in previous Parliaments with the hon. member is to turn around the question and ask him this. Why did the Conservative government make profound foundational changes to our Elections Act that affected the enfranchisement of people, changed the qualifications of people to vote, changed whether or not there be educational systems of our young people in schools, took away public financing of voting, and made profound changes to our electoral system without putting those questions to the vote of the Canadian people?

The Conservative government did not see fit to consult a single Canadian about those changes to the Elections Act or obtain the consent of any other party in the House. When the Conservatives wanted to make changes that they thought were important in the electoral system, there was no consultation required. It is a little rich listening to the Conservative Party talk about consultation after being in a government that probably was the least consultative of any government in the 20th century.

Briefly speaking, I believe the member is right in the sense that we must get broad consensus among Canadians and political parties about changes to our system. If that is done through this chamber, through multi-party support, that is fine. If it is not done that way, I certainly think that consulting Canadians through a referendum is indeed a possibility that our party has not foreclosed.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

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.””

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

The subamendment is in order. However, I must inform hon. members that a subamendment to an opposition motion cannot be moved without the consent of the sponsor. If the sponsor is not present, the House leader, deputy House leader, whip, or deputy whip of the sponsor's party may give or deny consent on the sponsor's behalf.

Since the sponsor is not present in the chamber, I ask the hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby if he consents to the subamendment being moved.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I wish my hon. colleague had actually given some notice around this.

As he knows, as a member of the House now for six months, he needs to at least send copies of those amendments around. So no, there is no consent, and there was no notice.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

There is no consent. Therefore, pursuant to Standing Order 85, the subamendment cannot be moved at this time.

Questions and comments. The hon. member for Laurentides—Labelle.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I commend the hon. member for Montcalm on his speech. His riding neighbours mine.

I want to come back to the issue of rural regions. We both represent large rural ridings. When it comes to electoral reform, I am always worried that electoral boundaries will be made between urban and rural regions.

Could my colleague from Montcalm say a few words about that?

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I did not hear the question. Could the hon. member repeat it?

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for giving me a second chance.

I would like to know what my colleague thinks about the importance of preventing conflicts between rural and urban regions when it comes to electoral reform. I am still concerned that such problems will emerge.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in Quebec, when it came time to propose a model, people suggested duplicating the federal ridings. For example, they proposed electing 75 riding members and 50 members chosen from a list. People thought that this was entirely legitimate and everyone would be pleased.

However, the work of a member who represents a rural region is quite different from that of a member who represents an urban area. In an urban setting it is easy to just cross the street and catch a bus and even cross three or four counties on one bus ride. However, the same cannot be said about getting from l'île d'Orléans to the other side of the riding. People living in rural areas were opposed to the idea because they absolutely wanted to be close to their member.

I am not sure if that answers my colleague's question, but that is the argument that is made in Quebec.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague's speech was very good, even though I did not agree with everything that he said.

We have two things in common: we were both members of the Quebec National Assembly and we are both in favour of a referendum. However, that is where the similarities end.

Earlier, the member referred to, and I quote: “the millions of Quebeckers who voted for Bloc Québécois representatives”. I too sometimes exaggerate a bit. Here are the real numbers. In the last election, 821,144 people voted for the Bloc Québécois, while 5.6 million voted for our party. We got seven times more votes than the Bloc Québécois. However, the official opposition has just two members more than the Bloc on the committee.

Does the member believe that the composition of the committee, as it stands in the NDP motion, really represents the opinion of the House of Commons and Canadians?

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the members who spoke earlier mentioned the debate that took place back in the day as to whether the Bloc Québécois had the right to sit in the House. I was therefore saying that millions of Quebeckers have voted for the Bloc Québécois over the past 25 years.

I would also like to point out to my colleagues that, at one time, the Bloc Québécois was the official opposition. However, like other political parties, in the last election, we were the victims of the overdetermination of Quebeckers, who thought it was too dangerous to elect another Conservative government.

That is why they voted for a party that would get the Conservative government out of the picture. In fact, that is one of the good things about this voting system: people can vote out a government, in rotation, every four or eight years.

[Louis Plamondon, Bloc, Bécancour—Nicolet—Saurel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague on his speech. I was just at the farmers' protest, and of course we stand in solidarity with them. We support their demands.

My colleague from the Quebec City region was talking about our legitimacy. With this kind of reform, all parties should be asked to participate. The Bloc Québécois has experience; we have been the official opposition and the third party in the past. Moreover, some of our members sat as independents at one point. Also, our party has proposed a number of changes and reforms that received unanimous support in the House.

I think our experience would prove very useful to the committee.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague's question allows me to continue my response to the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent.

Following his logic, members who belong to a political party that finds itself in the minority in the House should not have the same rights, as parliamentarians and legislators, as the other legislators who belong to larger caucuses.

I do not know what logic he is basing this on, but when I arrived at both the Quebec and Canadian houses of Parliament, nowhere was it written in my job description that party lines rule over everything else. That is not written anywhere. We are all legislators. We all have the same right to vote, and we would like to see people exercise their legislative authority outside the executive branch more often. This government logic underlies my colleague's comments. I suggest he become a democrat.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will share my time with the member for Burlington.

As the 150th anniversary of the true north, strong and free approaches, it is important to emphasize our unfailing commitment to democracy. Since 1867, we have seen dictatorships and authoritarian regimes rise and fall, and we have seen major democratic events such as the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Arab Spring. Since then, Canada has been a ray of hope and a democratic force on the world stage.

This opportunity to reflect on the road we have travelled is also an occasion to think about what the next 150 years will be like in Canada. Like many of us here today, I am a parent, and I strive to be a model for young Canadians. I think it is safe to say that we all want to make our country a better place for those we love and those who will survive us.

To prepare for the next 150 years, we have to create an electoral system that better reflects the choices of Canadians. The motion before us today, which calls for the establishment of an all-party committee, is the first step in engaging Canadians in a dialogue. Establishing that dialogue should be one of this committee’s priorities, and I urge its members to broaden their efforts to reach people who do not vote, have not yet voted, or are not yet eligible to vote, particularly young people across Canada.

According to “The Millennial Dialogue Report”, published in 2015 by AudienceNet, 29% of Canadians aged 15 to 34 think that very few, if any, politicians encourage people of their age to get involved in politics. That figure is not encouraging. It is therefore not surprising that the electoral participation rate is much lower in that group than in other age groups.

The all-party committee can help change things by giving future leaders an opportunity to participate in electoral reform, whether they are currently eligible to vote or not. To ensure the integrity of electoral reform, the views of current and future voters must be taken into account. Traditionally, election campaigns focus on vote-rich constituencies. As a general rule, those constituencies are not associated with young Canadians.

It is considered simpler to engage in a dialogue with a person who has voted for many years than to start a new conversation with Canadians who have never voted. However, such an attitude will not help stem the decline in electoral participation, which is mainly attributable to the low participation rate of younger people and a participation rate that is decreasing as young people get older.

The 2015 election showed that electoral value is a matter of mobilization and not demographics, but we still have work to do. According to the same AudienceNet report, the two main deterrents to electoral participation are knowledge of politics and trust in politicians. These deterrents are our responsibility, because they are directly related to getting out the vote.

A committee composed of representatives of all the parties working to gather the opinions of stakeholders and citizens would help us establish a more inclusive electoral system. Apart from the committee’s efforts, this is an occasion to cement a dialogue with young people, our sons, daughters, nieces, nephews and grandchildren, the future of our democracy.

We will be returning soon to our ridings for the summer break, to spend time with family and friends. This affords an excellent opportunity to establish a dialogue with Canadians. Every handshake, tweet or video will be an occasion to address Canadians’ lack of confidence in politicians. The more ties we establish with them, the more likely it is that young Canadians will be interested in participating in the electoral process.

It will not be easy. The level of political apathy among youth is high. According to an Elections Canada report on electoral participation, nearly 38.8% of those aged 18 to 24 voted in 2011. For electors aged 25 to 34, the participation rate was just 45.1%. That being said, important accomplishments are never easy. We all know what it’s like to be young and to have to follow someone else’s rules.

Sometimes we understood and respected those rules, and sometimes we followed them because that was the way things were. When people are not asked for their opinion, apathy grows and a sense of powerlessness takes hold in those who believe that their views are neither heard nor taken into account.

In a healthy democracy, the rules governing voting are of the greatest importance. However, the first-past-the-post system now in place gives many electors the impression that their opinion and their vote are not being taken into consideration.

Things are that way because the first-past-the-post system is the system that is most likely to waste votes. A wasted vote is often defined as a vote that did not go to the elected candidate. According to this definition and in the context of our current system, it often happens that the number of wasted votes is higher than the number of votes received by the winning candidate. People then wonder why they should bother voting, if their vote will not be going to the elected candidate. Such comments are hard to hear, I grant you, but it is not uncommon to hear them.

However, others may wonder why we are trying to fix something that is not broken. An EKOS poll from April shows that Canadians' current level of trust in their government is the highest it has been in 17 years.

I admit that the current system helped build our country and was simple and stable enough to serve our interests as we matured, expanded, and adopted the deeply ingrained values of inclusion, tolerance, and mutual respect. However, we can always do better. In fact, I would say that now is the best time to try to improve our democracy, when trust and engagement are high.

A democratic change should not happen only during times of scandal or crisis. I would rather address the decades of low voter turnout among young people before the situation becomes critical.

Clearly, our system needs to be changed. We need a system that reflects Canada today and in the future. Our country has evolved rapidly since Confederation, and we owe it to Canadians to ensure that the rules governing our democracy evolve at the same pace.

Seeking the opinions of young people today is investing in Canada’s future and in the creation of citizens who will participate in the electoral process throughout their lives. The current opposition motion will make it possible to do just that. Consequently, I support the opposition motion with one amendment, and I look forward to seeing the committee get started.

Before I conclude, I want to say a little more about the options before us. There are many. I have a preference. I have worked on referendum campaigns, and I have opinions. Many colleagues in this caucus have opinions different from mine, and I am really eager to discuss them. There are systems like the one we have, proportional systems and preferential systems. Within each system there are several subsystems. The one I prefer is known as the Condorcet method, which is unfamiliar to most people.

I am eager to see the study take shape and examine all the various options before us, in every way and without any collective prejudice. I am very eager to have that debate.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Laurentides—Labelle for his statements.

I admit that I was taken aback at one point, but perhaps I misunderstood. I would like an explanation.

He defined a wasted vote, which is often what many voters feel like in the current electoral system, as a vote that did not go to the elected candidate. It seems to me that a wasted vote is a vote that is not represented in the House of Commons.

Having lost many elections in my life as a voter, my consolation, if it was one, or my disappointment, if it was one, was seeing not only that the candidate that I wanted elected in my riding had lost, but also that my vote was lost by not being represented in the House.

Could my colleague provide a better definition of what he considers a wasted vote?