Mr. Speaker, it is my great pleasure to speak today on this very important issue.
I will get into the details in a moment. Essentially, what is being asked for today is an acknowledgement that the Prime Minister has once again broken one of his campaign promises, concerning the voting system. There are many promises that the government has not kept. Let us remember that the Liberals got elected by promising to have a small deficit of $10 billion. Today, we are hearing about a $30-billion deficit. When will we get back to having a balanced budget? In 2055, even though the Liberal Party committed itself to doing it in 2019. He has not kept his promise about the deficit or about the debt.
As the Department of Finance states, Canada will have a $1.5-trillion debt in 2050. The Liberals have not kept their promise when it comes to managing public funds; they were unable to keep their campaign promise concerning the income tax cuts promised to businesses; and they were unable to reduce Canadians’ tax burden on a supposedly cost-neutral basis, since that has been done with an additional tax bill of $3 billion. The Liberals had also promised to restore home mail delivery for all Canadians, but they were unable to keep that promise. What we have before us is a Prime Minister who is literally the champion of broken promises.
I have been a member in the House of Commons for about a year. However, I have been a parliamentarian for eight years, since I sat in the Quebec National Assembly. In the last few days, I have witnessed an unprecedented event that I thought I would never see. Last week, the opposition leader asked the Prime Minister whether he would commit to not taxing private health insurance and private dental insurance. From his seat, on Wednesday of last week, the Prime Minister said he was not going to tax those two items. Bravo! Excellent. Congratulations. We were pleased to know this. It was a win for the Conservative Party, but, most importantly, it was a win for Canadians. On Tuesday, we held a vote. What did the Prime Minister and his Liberal members do? They voted against the Prime Minister’s own words. That is unprecedented. More and more, the government is making its mark as the government of broken promises, and Canadians are increasingly aware of it.
Let us now come back to the question raised by my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie concerning the Liberal Party’s promise to reform the voting system. First, let us be clear: this is indeed an important issue. However, the Liberal Party’s campaign platform was 97 pages long. How many times did it mention changes to the voting system? There were three sentences on that subject. It cannot be said that this was a strong commitment.
During the 2015 election campaign, there were five leaders’ debates on television, for a total of 10 hours of debate. Did the Liberal Party and the current Prime Minister ever raise this issue in those debates? No. The Green Party leader was the only one who raised the issue. We will see later why this is so important to her. It was not really the Liberal Party’s bread and butter.
However, when it came time for the Speech from the Throne, the opening speech of a new Parliament, the Prime Minister, through the Governor General, said that 2015 was the last election under the existing electoral system. No one was laughing then. It became a solemn commitment by the government. Every effort would be made to implement this promise under the aegis of the Liberal Party, of course. We understand that. How has it all worked out?
I want to congratulate my colleague, the member for Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, for the excellent work he has done. I have a lot of trouble with the names of ridings. Since the current Minister of Democratic Institutions will have a somewhat easier job to do than her predecessor, I urge her to recommend that the names of the federal ridings be reviewed. It makes no sense for them to be so long.
My eminent colleague, who has been a member of this House for years, has demonstrated remarkable leadership. Remarkable for our party, but, most importantly, remarkable for all Canadians. From day one, our party has said that, if perchance the government wanted to change the system, it would have to be done by referendum. We have not budged an inch on that point.
We said that because, fundamentally, we as politicians are in a perpetual conflict of interest when it comes to electoral reform. That is clear. We cannot be objective, since the future of our parties and our ridings is at stake. We are very close to it. That is why we want Canadians to have the final word on this.
We all know that the Prime Minister, the leader of the Liberal Party, wanted it to be a preferential ballot, because that worked for him. We all know, too, that our friends in the NDP and the Green Party member agreed that it should be a proportional system, because that worked for them. They are right to think like that. It is only natural and only human. That is why, ultimately, it has to be Canadians who decide.
Consultations then followed. I want to say that I was very proud to participate in that exercise with my colleague from Kingston and the Islands and other members. I want to recognize the hon. Jason Kenney, who took part in the consultations, along with all of my other colleagues who participated. I would particularly like to recognize the members in the government party, because the job was a very difficult one for them, and they handled it with honour and dignity.
We criss-crossed Canada. However, let us be honest: thousands of Canadians participated in the hearings, but there are 35 million Canadians. We cannot say that we were tripping all over each other all the time, except in Vancouver and Victoria, in the neighbourhood of the Green Party leader. I have to point out that she and her party were extremely effective. At every stop, Green Party members were waiting for us, even in my home, Quebec City. There was a Green Party supporter at a session in Quebec City. However, I have to say that we were not really tripping over each other since there were only 10 people present.
Therefore, when we hear that Canadians were consulted and all that, we have to recognize that there was not a great appetite for this debate. However, some members from all political parties organized kitchen meetings. We, the Conservatives, decided to appeal directly to Canadians with a fairly large document. I know that I cannot show it to members, but I will nevertheless try to describe it.
In this document, we dealt with the facts. On one full page, we had the arguments for and against holding a referendum. We consulted Canadians and this is what we found: of the 90,000 Canadians who responded to our surveys conducted all across Canada, 90% said that a referendum must be held. I would like to acknowledge the people of my riding of Louis-Saint-Laurent, where 1,116 people responded to our survey and 1,004, or 90%, asked for a referendum.
We were very proud to see that Canadians supported our original position. However, we still needed to convince our colleagues. Well, we managed to do that. We were quite pleased, not to mention surprised, honestly, when our NDP colleagues and the leader of the Green Party said they agreed on having a referendum in order to allow Canadians to choose between the current system and a proportional system.
We know that the vast majority of people who wanted change wanted a proportional system. The idea was to allow Canadians to make the final decision because that is the right thing to do. The Bloc Québécois agreed from the outset, but we were quite pleased when the NDP and the Green Party joined our movement.
There was a consensus among the political class, but there was one piece missing: the Liberal Party. That is when the wheels came off. It was in an interview with Le Devoir on October 19, 2016, that the Prime Minister of Canada finally told it like it is:
...there were so many people unhappy with the [former] government and its approach that people were saying, “It takes electoral reform to avoid having a government we don't like.”
Here is what the current Prime Minister said next:
However, under the current system, [Canadians] now have a government they are more satisfied with. And the motivation to want to change the electoral system is less compelling.
When it suits him, the system is left as is, but when it does not, it has to be changed. The Prime Minister's behaviour is very subjective. He changes his mind as often as he changes his shirt, whenever it suits him.
As a result, the Prime Minister is building a reputation as a breaker of election promises, as if that had not already been firmly established. However, it is not too late for the government.
If the Liberal government really wants to change the system, then it should hold a referendum. That is what we, the Conservatives, have been saying from the beginning, and all of the opposition parties agree that that is what should be done. The only way to change the electoral system is to let all Canadians have a say.