Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in adjournment proceedings this evening to return to a question I originally asked on February 1. The House will recall, because we have spent today discussing the subject of electoral reform, that it was on February 1 that the Prime Minister changed the mandate letter to the hon. Minister of Democratic Institutions.
I put to the Prime Minister this question.
“Within 18 months of forming government, we will introduce legislation to enact electoral reform”. That is from the Liberal platform. It is very clear, and it was repeated with clarity in the Speech from the Throne, and the mandate to us as members of the special committee said we were replacing first past the post.
I went on to ask the Prime Minister,
If it was an essential precondition to follow on this promise that there be some sort of nationally proven majority, that there be some consensus discerned through vague surveys, why was that never mentioned in any promise or any mandate?
I was honoured that the Prime Minister stood to respond to my question personally. He replied:
anything a prime minister or a government must do must be in the interests of Canada and of all Canadians, particularly when it comes to transforming our electoral system. I understand the passion and intensity with which the member opposite believes in this, and many Canadians mirror that passion and intensity, but there is no consensus.
I could continue with the answer, but as we can see, it missed the fundamental point of my question, which was that if there was going to be a precondition, a condition precedent, before the Liberal government kept its promise, why was that never mentioned?
I contrast that with other promises in the Liberal platform, promises that I am glad were kept, frankly. There was a promise to bring in a national carbon price, and the government is on its way to doing that. It had a long process involving the various provinces. The architecture of it allows every province to have the money come back to it if it does not, in fact, put forward its own carbon pricing mechanism. It allows for cap and trade in Ontario and Quebec and a carbon tax in B.C.
If members catch my drift, I am sure they will see that this was an election promise. There was no attempt to go back and find out if there was a broad consensus within Canada for one particular form of carbon pricing. There are many different kinds. There is cap and trade. There is a straight up carbon tax. There is carbon fee and dividend. There is a revenue-neutral carbon tax. There are adherents to all of those systems, and there are those, as we know, in the House, who do not want any carbon pricing at all. I do not know that one could say there was a clear path forward for a particular form of carbon pricing, but I am very glad the government of the day did what it promised to do in its platform and brought forward some form of carbon pricing.
I suggest that this is exactly what the Liberals should do about their promise on electoral reform. It did betray that promise by withdrawing it on February 1.
It is just a coincidence that my adjournment proceedings question came up on a day that we have been debating this promise all day long. However, I am of the view that the Liberals, in making that promise, intended to keep it. If they were to see a clear path forward, more particularly, if the Prime Minister were to see a clear path forward, through the work of all of us, many of us on that electoral reform committee, in a non-partisan fashion, as well as through the efforts of those on the Liberal backbenches who were lamenting a decision to break a promise, and who no doubt are hearing from their angry constituents, it is not too late.
In the course of this debate over the next remaining six minutes or so that we have, I would like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Democratic Institutions, in response, to help me, with goodwill, and setting aside partisanship, figure out how the promise can still be kept.