Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague, the member for Victoria.
Today's debate reminds me of a quote from a famous television show. It makes me think of George Costanza from Seinfeld, who was known for his loosey-goosey relationship with the truth. He said:
It's not misleading if you believe it.
I will let the House figure out which words I had to change to make sure I was using parliamentary language. This is a bit like what we are seeing with the Liberals today. They seem to believe that they did not break this promise. They would have us believe that they did not fuel cynicism with their actions, when they neutralized every human and financial effort made over the past year. The consultations that were held cost $4 million. All of that has gone out the window.
Last summer, I had the opportunity to fill in for some of my NDP colleagues on the committee and hear the expert testimony. I can say that those experts, even those who did not necessarily agree with the mixed member proportional option, did not hesitate to say that the arguments against the system coming from across the aisle were nonsense. The members opposite argued that this system was not stable and that it favoured extremist parties, including those on the far right and those that promote identity politics. Even though this was not the system that these experts would have chosen, they did not hesitate to say that those arguments were patently false.
What I find troubling is that a situation was created that fuelled hope. We worked for one year consulting people and creating a consensus, as they always say on the other side. After all, everyone in politics knows very well that we will never have 100% support from Canadians for any policy we want to implement. If we waited until we had the support of 100% of the population to implement a policy, we would do nothing. We have to accept that there will always be some who disagree.
In view of the fact that a committee with the proportional representation of the parties in the House of Commons managed to produce a report that represented the will of the majority of the parties sitting on the committee, I think that we can say that we achieved a consensus. Let us be honest, that is a rare occurrence in the House of Commons. In fact, there was a greater consensus about what was in the committee's report than there is for most government policies.
Now the government is justifying its decision to maintain the status quo on the grounds that there is a lack of consensus. That is interesting because the government has no problem going ahead with all of its other policies despite the fact that there is far less consensus about the other components of its election platform.
The motion before us today is very important because when members and candidates go door to door in our ridings to meet voters, we all experience the same thing. Inevitably and unfortunately, every time we knock on a door, the people answering say they appreciate our work, our party, or our leader, then they say that they do not want to waste any more time on broken promises and politicians who say whatever it takes to get themselves elected. They say, “Sorry, I'll pass”, and shut the door. Some of us are more persistent; we try to regain people's trust and talk about why they feel cynical.
Sometimes we manage to restore their trust in politicians, but unfortunately, people all too often want nothing to do with us. They are cynical because of situations like the one we are discussing today.
It was a Prime Minister, leader of his party, who repeated thousands of times that he was going to keep this commitment and that it was so important for him to keep his word. He said it was at the core of his work, not only as an MP, but also as the Prime Minister and as a person, all with his hand over his heart, of course. This is what is feeding people's cynicism, especially the segment of the population that is supposedly so important to the Prime Minister, who is also Minister of Youth: young people.
This week my colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley hit the nail right on the head in question period. He said that what was most disappointing was not hearing people say that they would never vote for the Liberal Party again. It was hearing people say that they would never vote again, period. Earning voters' trust is extremely difficult; not only so that voters will go and vote for a certain candidate, but so that voters will vote at all. We want people to take an interest in politics and to have confidence in all elected officials.
We can agree that 100% or 99.9% of the people who are here in the House are here for the right reasons. It is possible that some are not. In general, however, everyone is here for the right reasons. When the Prime Minister keeps telling Canadians he is committed to keeping his promise, then turns around and breaks his promise, that hurts us all. In fact, I have that wrong: it is not that he told Canadians, it is that he wrote it in a mandate letter and asked his minister to defend this to Canadians.
Every political party feels the heat from a move like that. When we go back to our ridings, regardless which party we represent or which file we are working on in the House of Commons, we are forced to justify something that undermines Canadians' trust in politicians of every stripe. This is tremendously disappointing to me, but above all, it is disappointing to the people I represent.
That is why we are calling on the Prime Minister to take the time to apologize to Canadians. A broken promise is not just an unmade policy. It also represents lost political capital for every elected member, which slows down all of the projects we may have for our society. It represents a drop in the public's confidence in us.
The government is trying to justify its position by debating the different systems proposed, but that is not what it is all about. The Liberals lacked courage. We even made some concessions. We worked with our Liberal colleagues and were prepared to hold a referendum if necessary. However, the government wanted nothing to do with it.
All the work that was done over the beautiful summer by members who remained at their desks working hard to get a consensus was tossed aside without even a word from the Prime Minister. This undermines all Canadians' confidence in politicians. For that reason, the Prime Minister should apologize to everyone we represent.