Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening in Adjournment Proceedings to pursue a question that I asked on February 5 of this year. It relates to a very key issue in our democracy, and that is our voting system, the winner-take-all system known as first past the post. We are one of the very few democracies on this planet that uses a system that separates the popular vote from the Parliament that is created from the seat count. It is a perverse system, and, as I put in my question back on February 5, one that many Canadians find unacceptable.
One of the reasons for the Liberals' election victory in 2015, and there is no question about it, was the promise that “2015 will be the last election held under...first-past-the-post”. It was in the election platform. It was then put in the Speech from the Throne. I joined a special standing committee of this place that toured Canada, listened to thousands of Canadians, heard from tens of thousands of Canadians. It was created as a standing committee on electoral reform to recommend a system that would replace first past the post, because we all believed and, I swear on a stack of Bibles, I believed the Liberal promise that 2015 would be the last election under first past the post.
The job of our committee was to come up with an alternative voting system that would be fair and would ensure that the popular vote was reflected in the Parliament that was created. On February 2, 2017, that promise was broken in spectacular fashion as a new minister, recently shuffled, got up in front of the mics out there and said that it is not in their mandate letter anymore, that they were not changing the voting system. There was then the excuse, the fake excuse, that there was no consensus. The Liberals invented a new condition never previously mentioned. They ran an election. They won based on telling people that 2015 would be the last election under first past the post.
The answer I received from the parliamentary secretary was more than inadequate, but so was the result. My question was this. Would this government at least agree to pass Motion No. 86, which was to create a citizens' assembly so Canadians could have a jury of our peers?
They did not listen to the parliamentary committee. They did not listen to the people of Canada in the vote, who said, yes, we will vote for Liberal candidates because 2015 will be the last election under first past the post.
That motion to create a citizens' jury went down to defeat, but I do not think we should give up on it. What happens when one makes a promise to Canadians and then one walks away from it and one breaks it? It is not that one has walked away from the problem. One has turned one's back on Canadians. One has fed into a well of increasing cynicism, disgust and distrust in the people of this country, in the voters of this country. It is not too late to return. This is what I want to pursue tonight.
How do we return to the promise that was broken and actually keep it? How do we let Canadians know that voting in Canada can become fair, that the way we vote will be reflected in the Parliament we elect? It is not too late.
I put it to this government: “Keep your word, bring the promise back and get rid of first past the post.”