Debates of Feb. 9th, 2017

Opposition Motion—Commitments Regarding Electoral Reform

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

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I know my colleague is near the end of his time, and I could say mercifully, but he has spoken much about Bill C-33, which Parliament will debate at some point. He knows that as deputy House leader. It will come at some point whenever the Liberals decide to put it on the agenda. However, the opposition motion we are dealing with today is—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I am not sure that is a point of order or a point of debate. I am going to have to let the hon. parliamentary secretary continue.

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

Mr. Speaker, other than a few Liberals who have spoken, to spend the entire time on a bill—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I will recognize the hon. member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley. Please go on a bit and we will see what it comes to.

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

Mr. Speaker, in the few Liberal speeches we have heard so far, all of their time is being spent talking about Bill C-33, which is a bill that is standing before Parliament at some point for debate. We look forward to that debate, and we will engage on all the issues about which my friend and other Liberals have talked.

The opposition motion today is very explicit. It is about the commitment on electoral reform, changing the voting system. Bill C-33 does not change the voting system. While they are tangentially connected as one is about voting and the other is about voting—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

We have another point of order, but I am going to mention that I am sure the hon. member will get to what he is going to talk about or to the point we are discussing today.

I have heard many discussions take place in this honourable place. What often happens is we wonder how they are going to get tied together, and often the member brings it back together. It is kind of hard to judge. The hon. member does have a short time left to wrap it all up. I will leave it with him.

The hon. parliamentary secretary.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the word that comes to my mind is “hogwash”.

If the member listened to what was being said, and it is unfortunate he would not have been listening, he would have heard that it was absolutely 100% relevant to the debate we are having today. I would suggest the member needs to open his mind and listen to what is being said. It was relevant.

It is time the members across the way recognize that there is so much more we could be doing to improve the system. The portion that the member raised in his point of order was but a small portion of what I was actually speaking about.

I understand my time has expired. Hopefully the member will have the opportunity to ask a question, and make it relevant.

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

Mr. Speaker, relevant? How about the hon. member shows some class and dignity in this place, and when he is part of a government that has broken a black and white promise, he has the integrity, I believe is the word, to say “We broke the promise” as some Liberals have done and he has yet to do, and apologize for breaking a promise.

If the Liberals are so committed, as they campaigned on and have since championed, to being the defenders of democracy, one of the core principles of democracy is that people run on a platform, which is their commitment to the voters that they will do this thing. That is their mandate.

The mandate does not come from a letter, by the way, scratched out by Gerry Butts or whoever in the Prime Minister's office. That is not a mandate. The mandate comes from one place and one place only, the Canadian people. The Canadian people gave the government a mandate to change the voting system. That was the promise.

All this motion does today, and it is quite simple and I am sure my friend can grab hold of this one, is say that when a party and its members make a promise and when a Prime Minister repeats the promise in the throne speech and hundreds of times since, if it is to mean anything at all, and if any future promises are to hold any weight with Canadians, when that promise is explicitly broken, they admit it, they apologize, and then they work to restore the faith that has been broken.

My question for my friend is this. Why not apologize? Why not do the right thing? Why not admit to what everybody knows, that he and his party broke a sacred promise to Canadians to change the voting system in Canada, full stop?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Before the parliamentary secretary answers, I just want to remind the hon. members that sometimes the speeches get borderline disrespectful. I want to remind them to keep in mind that our rules do ask us to be respectful of one another.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, what Canadians voted for and gave to the Prime Minister was a majority mandate of good governance, of being able to make good sound decisions. What the member across the way needs to appreciate is that a good prime minister will in fact listen to what Canadians have to say. I believe the Prime Minister of Canada has accurately reflected what Canadians are thinking on this issue. He indicated that in a mandate letter that was issued to the Minister of Democratic Institutions.

In case the member did not hear, this is what the Prime Minister indicated, “A clear preference for a new electoral system, let alone a consensus, has not emerged.” The Prime Minister was right in making that decision. Therefore, I will not apologize. In fact, if anyone should be apologizing, from my perspective, given what has taken place in the last few minutes, it might be the member across the way.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am reminded of the Elton John song Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word, and we are certainly hearing that from the government today.

Perhaps I can set an example here. I would like to offer my own apology. Earlier today in the House I made the statement that the Liberal government had broken 23 solemn promises that it made in its electoral platform. I was wrong. I mislead the House with that number. The number is actually 29. I will apologize for having misrepresented the number of promises the Liberal government has broken. It was 29, not 23. This is confirmed by a website, but I cannot use the name of it because it includes the Prime Minister's last name. People are paying attention. They are tracking the promises the Liberal Party and the government made.

Will the member follow my example and apologize for having broken 29 promises in less than 500 days?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, that comment did nothing other than demonstrate the member's math is not that great.

There is no way the member can convince me that 29 promises were broken. I suspect a gross exaggeration might be taking place. If he wants to give a genuine apology, maybe he should stand in his place and apologize to Canadians for giving an impression that is just not true. I suspect, as an example, he would say “the middle class” and we would say that the middle class of Canada was doing quite well with the commitments this government provided, whether it was tax breaks or a litany of other commitments that were made and kept.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona.

Before I start, I have to say that I am absolutely flabbergasted by the ducking, the weaving, the dodging, and the deflection I have seen from the member for Winnipeg North.

I am also flabbergasted, because I am the father of four-year-old twin daughters who know that when they break a promise, they say they are sorry. What I have witnessed today is that I have four-year-olds who have more sense and more respect than the Government of Canada. That is a shameful thing.

I want to begin by repeating, again, because I just cannot say this enough, and neither can any of us in going over the Liberal broken promises, the fact that in June 2015, the Prime Minister made an explicit promise to Canadians that 2015 would be the last election conducted under the first past the post voting system and that a bill would be presented to the House within 18 months of forming government.

This was repeated in December, when a commitment was made in the throne speech, probably one of the most sacred speeches outlining a government's plans for the nation:

To make sure that every vote counts, the Government will undertake consultations on electoral reform, and will take action to ensure that 2015 will be the last federal election conducted under the first-past-the-post voting system.

I checked the liberal.ca website. I am not sure if it has changed, but as of 11:30 a.m. today, it still says, “We are committed to ensuring that 2015 will be the last federal election conducted under...first- past-the-post”. It is still up there.

I also had time to look at the new mandate letter to the new Minister of Democratic Institutions. The Prime Minister had the audacity in the opening lines of that letter to say, “We promised Canadians real change—in both what we do and how we do it”. It went on to say, “I made a personal commitment to bring new leadership and a new tone to Ottawa”. Then we get to the crux of the letter: “Changing electoral reform will not be in your mandate”.

That just makes a mockery of the Prime Minister's words, an absolute mockery. The new minister actually made a call to my friend from Skeena—Bulkley Valley the day before the announcement was made, and everything looked like it was still on course. Then we were presented with a political deception of the highest order when the news was broken, and I think the sense of betrayal we felt was really profound.

We have a Prime Minister who obviously broke a promise, who obviously misled Canadians and the House, and who did not tell the truth. There are Canadians who have a word to describe such a person. We cannot use it in the House, but trust me, from the correspondence I have received from my constituents and from people across the country, that word is being used a lot out in the public.

I want to read into the record some of the correspondence I have received from some of my constituents, and I will start with this quote: “I was really upset when I heard what the PM had to say about no change in electoral reform.... I guess that is putting it politely. I was actually furious! All that work from the [electoral reform] committee, seemingly for nothing.”

Another quote: “I'm appalled that [the Prime Minister] has abdicated on his promise to make 2015 the last election under first-past-the-post. Thousands of Vancouver Island citizens spoke up at public consultations, canvassed voters, researched the issue and wrote letters to the editor. We all wanted a form of proportional representation, and we weren't alone".

These are from copies my office received of letters sent to the Prime Minister.

“Your failure to keep this commitment is a betrayal to the many voters who were counting on you to fix our broken voting system”.

Another quote: “Canadians need to feel included and represented in their politics, and if you choose not to include this in your mandate, you and the Liberal party of Canada will be further alienating this and other groups which feel unrepresented by the political parties of Canada. Please do not make this mistake”.

All of us on this side of the House, and I am sure many of my Liberal colleagues as well, are getting correspondence like this. Canadians are profoundly disappointed about this, because a promise was made that was black and white.

What is the word of the Prime Minister worth anymore? How can we trust him on other fundamental issues, like the great social change we need to see, the social contract with our veterans, how we look after our seniors, and what we are going to do with the retirement age? He keeps referring us to the Liberal website, There are still promises there that he does not intend to keep.

I also want to mention that we have an online petition, which I believe two weeks ago was sitting at about 6,000 signatures and has now surpassed 92,000 signatures. The petition is making history.

With my friend from Skeena—Bulkley Valley, I was honoured to substitute on the electoral reform committee while it was doing its cross-country tour. I sat on it for the Atlantic Canada tour. I was really impressed with the correspondence the committee received and the feedback from experts and Atlantic Canadians.

I remember specifically, when I was in Prince Edward Island, in Charlottetown, when we had the former commissioner responsible for the plebiscite in Prince Edward Island appear. He warned the committee to beware of the vested interests, those who want to see the present system maintained because it benefits them. He told a story about how when the recommendation in Prince Edward Island was to go to a proportional system, both the Liberal and Conservative parties of that province realized that it might upset their hold on power, and they both secretly campaigned against it in church basements and community halls in the province. They deliberately undermined the work of that important committee.

As we have heard time and again, nearly 90% of the experts and 80% of the members of the public who testified called on the government to implement a proportional representation system.

On the other side, in addition to all the deflection the Liberals have been promoting in the House, I have also tried to set up a straw-man argument. The Prime Minister, during question period, once said that a proportional system would give rise to alt-right parties and dangerous fringe elements in the House, while conveniently forgetting that the first past the post system in the United States just elected Donald Trump.

Yes, there could be fringe elements elected, but I tend to believe that the best disinfectant for those kinds of policies is sunshine. Bring them into the House. Make them defend their ideas. We, on the moderate side of the House, will just as quickly knock them down.

When Canadians vote, they should expect to have every vote count equally. Our present system is nowhere close to that. We have a system that allows 39% of the electorate to give a party 100% of the power. Make no mistake, when we have a majority government in the House, it is essentially an elected dictatorship. The fact that 39% of the Canadians who voted have sway over so much of our policy is profoundly undemocratic.

We need to encourage more participation and broaden participation in this country, not lessen it. This was a golden opportunity that was missed by the government.

Respect and trust in politics are finite resources, and they can be used up really quickly. Cynicism can be like a cancer. If unchecked, it can grow exponentially. The Prime Minister's actions last week, and indeed the continuing ability of the Liberal Party to not apologize for its actions, is growing cynicism in the country at an alarming rate.

I am profoundly saddened that the Liberal Party, the government, is deflecting and dodging the essence of our motion today. Why will the Liberals not act like adults? Why will they not show the same level of respect my four-year-olds have, admit that they misled the House and misled Canadians, and simply apologize?

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I too held a town hall in my riding and spoke with lots of my constituents. We had quite a variety of commentary, whether it be for proportional or for any kind of system. We also had a lot of people who were screaming for a national referendum. However, the majority of people who came through did not want a national referendum. That is what I heard time and time again from Liberal Party members, from the NDP members, and from the Green Party. They did not want a national referendum.

I am having a problem trying to understand how, after we gave up the majority on our committee, for the first time, to do the right thing, we ended up with a recommendation calling for a national referendum. I would like to know how my colleague across can explain that to me.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I think I need to give my friend a little bit of a lesson on the definition of reaching consensus. In this place, with 338 members of Parliament, representing different major parties, we sometimes have to drop some provisions to work together.

I was on that committee. It was the Liberals who were holding everything up. The fact that the NDP and the Conservatives could come together, that the Bloc and the Greens could come together, and reach an agreement said something. We made the process work.

That member is deflecting from the real issue of this motion. I simply want them to admit that they misled Canadians, with a fundamentally black and white promise, and apologize.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the previous intervention was particularly troublesome. To suggest that the government side gave up the majority on a committee, and then to act with dismay when the committee, on which they lacked a majority, did not give them exactly what they wanted or exactly what they preferred and it was somehow the committee's fault, really takes a special type of arrogance.

I would be interested to hear my friend's comments on what the committee's work was about and the arrogance with which such a suggestion could be made.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's question, because having had the honour of sitting on that committee for the short time I was there, for those four days, I was really amazed by the passion with which we all got involved, even ordinary Canadians. I think this was one of those golden moments in Canada's history. So many people got caught up in the possibility of reform.

Yes, there were a variety of opinions held on what system would be best for Canada. That is what democracy is, but the fact is that we had a committee that was set up roughly in proportion to the number of votes each of those parties received. A majority of the parties on that committee reached a consensus and had a clear recommendation for the government. That is all that needs to be said.

[Scott Duvall, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, when the committee was formed, it went from coast to coast to coast doing unbelievably hard work and taking time away from families to listen to many citizens across Canada on this issue.

They found out that nearly 90% of the experts and 80% of the members of the public who testified called on the government to adopt a proportional electoral system.

The Liberals got 100% of power but only 39% of the vote. Does he feel that there is a clear consensus on what people wanted on electoral reform, and does he feel that there was a clear consensus in what the people were saying?

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

The short answer, Mr. Speaker, is yes, absolutely. I do feel that we reached a consensus.

The committee's report is extremely detailed and elaborates on all of the testimony received by the committee. I feel strongly about the work put in not only by the committee but also members of Parliament throughout the chamber, who took the time to hold town hall meetings and consult with their constituents, like the minister did. So much money and effort was put into this venture and to have it end the way it did has caused a real sense of betrayal. I cannot say it any better than that.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, for the benefit of those who may be listening at home, I will remind the House that the motion we are debating today states:

That, in the opinion of the House, the government misled Canadians on its platform and Throne Speech commitment “that 2015 will be the last federal election conducted under the first-past-the-post voting system”, and that the House call on the government to apologize to Canadians for breaking its promise.

It is a simple motion in response to a simple act. The Liberals announced last Wednesday that they simply would not be following through on their commitment. It was a clear commitment and it clearly demands an apology to the House and Canadians.

I rose in the House last spring on an optimistic note. The Liberals made that commitment in the election campaign, repeated it in the throne speech, and then proceeded to drag their heels in getting the process started. Incidentally, they later argued that they did not have enough time to change the voting system, but they burned up six months sitting around to come up with the lame idea of having an ordinary committee study the issue. How it takes six months to come up with the idea of establishing a regular committee with a government majority, I do not know. Neither did Canadians nor the media, and that is why it was panned broadly.

Last spring, I was pleased to rise when the government saw fit to act on a good idea, which was the NDP idea to have an all-party committee where the government would not have a majority. It seemed that maybe this was a step forward, that maybe the government after all was serious about following through on that election and throne speech commitment. That was an optimistic time, but since then, a lot has happened. It seemed at times that we were moving in the right direction and then there were setbacks.

For instance, last October, it felt like a setback when, all of a sudden, the Prime Minister, who had said many times in the House that 2015 would be the last election under first past the post, said in an interview, “Under Mr. Harper, there were so many people who were unhappy with the government and his approach that people said, ‘We need electoral reform in order to stop having governments we don’t like’.”

Essentially, he was saying that if it works for him, it must be working for Canadians, and when it works for people he does not like, then there is a problem. That felt like a setback. That felt like the Prime Minister was moving away from his commitment.

Later, on December 2, hope sprang again, because the Prime Minister stated, “I make promises because I believe in them. I’ve heard loudly and clearly that Canadians want a better system of governance, a better system of choosing our governments, and I’m working very hard so that 2015 is indeed the last election under first past the post.”

The Liberals have since said that there was no consensus. That sounds to me like the Prime Minister was saying there was a consensus that we need to make a change. When there is that kind of consensus for a change which, granted, is not the same as consensus on a solution, what people expect from their government is leadership to put forward a proposal that might actually move us forward. We are still waiting on the proposal. They have announced they are not keeping the promise and we never even heard what the proposal would be.

It surely was not for lack of consultation, because members on all sides of the House went into their own constituencies and talked to their constituents. The committee travelled across the country and talked to Canadians and experts. Over 80% of Canadians who spoke to the committee said they wanted a proportional system and over 90% of the experts said that a proportional system was the best for Canada.

Then we heard all sorts of possible solutions, possible voting systems, and possible proposals. The government had but to pick one and put it to Canadians, but before it could be bothered to do that, it said it simply was not going to go ahead with its promise. That is pretty sad, particularly coming from a Prime Minister who, in the last election, said he was the one who was going to ride into the House of Commons on his white horse, clean up the cynicism in Canadian politics, that he would be the one to show Canadians there is a better way, that he would inspire young people to get involved in politics and affirm the value of electing different governments, because different governments could behave differently. Believe me, that is not the only example.

Last Wednesday was the most cut and dried example of the Prime Minister walking away from that message of hope. In a week, well over 90,000 Canadians have signed an online petition calling on the government to keep its promise. That is not 90,000 people in the rinky-dink way that they set up the My Democracy survey, where we do not know if they live in Canada, and do not know if they signed up many times, because the e-petition system, unlike the government's lame survey, actually has integrity.

We know that over 90,000 individual Canadians have signed that e-petition and are calling on the government to keep its promise. Instead, today the Liberals are standing up and shamefully saying that not only are they going ahead with breaking that promise, but they do not even have what it takes to apologize for going ahead with that. Then we are told that it is the government that is going to bring an end to cynicism.

Let us look at the Liberals' excuses for breaking that promise. At the time that they decided to break it last week, the initial answer was that there is not consensus. We certainly heard that from Liberals here today, although I say they cannot have consensus on a proposal they never made, so there is something structurally wrong with that argument. If they had actually proposed something and could not reach a consensus on that, then they might have a case, although we do not even know what the threshold for consensus is. Is it a vote in the House of Commons? Is it a referendum? Is it how many retweets they get when they put it out on Twitter? We do not know. The government has not said.

There is an issue with saying that they do not have consensus when they have not tried, but there is also an issue with a government that says it needs to have consensus, whatever that means. I do not know if that means every Canadian in the country has to agree on one thing before we go ahead with it. The Liberals certainly did not think they needed consensus to break promises, so it is an interesting inversion. If they were to go and talk to most Canadians, they would say that a government can go ahead and implement the election promises that it has a mandate to implement, and if it wants to break those promises, then it should be looking for consensus from Canadians, who could say that something has changed since the election, something has changed since they decided to cast their ballot for the Liberals and so they agree that the government needs to break this promise. Instead the Liberals are going around breaking promises all over the place without consensus, and then saying they need consensus just to keep the promises they made during the election. I cannot be the only one who thinks that is completely backwards.

For instance, when the Liberals said they would not approve new pipelines without a new process and then went ahead and approved at least three pipelines under the old Harper process which they ran against, that to me seems like something they might have sought consensus on. I do not think they would have found it if they had sought consensus on that. But the Liberals do not think they need consensus to break their promises, only to keep them. They did not seek consensus when they launched an attack on defined benefit pensions in this country by tabling Bill C-27, and that was not even an election commitment.

The idea that somehow the Liberals are bound by consensus is ridiculous. If they really felt that they needed consensus from Canadians to move forward with important initiatives, they would do that particularly in the context where they are breaking promises. That was laughable. I do not think anyone in Canada is buying the idea that simply because there was not consensus, when the government never even so much as tried to build it around a particular proposal, somehow that is an excuse for breaking a cut and dried promise.

Then there was the leak to the Huffington Post that maybe this was not about the lack of consensus; maybe this was about the growing threat of the alt-right and this was really about Prime Minister Trudeau standing up against the alt-right and making sure it could not sneak in. But the fact of the matter is, and members have said it before—

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

Mr. Speaker, point of order.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I believe a point of order was made by the hon. member for Ajax, and I have to admit that I heard it too. We are not allowed to name the members in the House, and I believe the hon. member, not on purpose, mentioned the Prime Minister's name as opposed to referring to the Prime Minister.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

My apologies, Mr. Speaker. My passion for the issue got the better of me on that. If the government kept its promises, I would be less inclined to name them in the House.

We heard that this was really about defending Canadians, about the alt-right. Except we know that in the south they just got one of the alt-right guys in there under a first past the post system. We also know that the government that the Prime Minister was so keen to say that Canadians did not like and did not want and was the reason for which we needed a changed voting system, got in under the first past the post system.

Mark my words, when this Prime Minister is gone, and it may not take as long as the Liberals think, and the next right-wing prime minister gets in here in Canada with less than 40% of the vote, that will be on this Prime Minister's head.

Shame on the Liberals. Let us hear the apology.

[Frank Baylis, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

As I mentioned earlier, Mr. Speaker, I am struggling to reconcile the difference between what I found when I did my consultations and what the Liberals found. I did not find any consensus, but listening to members across the aisle, it is clear that they found consensus.

What do we know for sure? We know that there have been a number of referendums in different provinces across our country seeking to change the system. In the referendum in Ontario mixed member proportional was proposed and two-thirds of the people voted against it. Fair enough. There was a different referendum for a single transferable vote in British Columbia, where 40% of the people said yes to a single transferable vote and 60% said no thanks. Just last year a plebiscite was done in Prince Edward Island. The province wanted to hear what everybody thought. Twenty-two per cent of the people wanted dual member. Mixed member received 29% and first past the post received 31%.

I was not able to find a consensus in my riding. The NDP seem to find a very strong consensus in all of their ridings. We disagree there. How do we reconcile that with what we know took place with all of these different referendums? What leads you to believe today that you are correct to say you see there is suddenly this great consensus?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I am sure the hon. member is not seeking my opinion. I am sure he means the hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona, so we will let him go ahead.