Lorne Nystrom

[Supply, February 20th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for the comments she made about the motion before the House today. She pointed out the need for a committee to look at proportional representation, an idea whose time has come. Most countries have an element of PR in their systems.

I should like to hear the member comment on other kinds of electoral and parliamentary reforms that we should perhaps look at. It seems to me that the Senate must be reformed, elected or abolished. Very few Canadians, about 5% according to the polling, actually support the unelected, unaccountable and undemocratic Senate.

The power of the Prime Minister's Office under the constitution is much too great in terms of its ability to appoint so many people without a proper vetting of his appointments by the appropriate parliamentary committee.

We should also have set dates for elections, throne speeches and budgets so that we can properly plan those important events. The power of timing should be taken out of the Prime Minister's hands and indeed out of the hands of the premiers who enjoy similar powers under the constitution.

I believe there should be fewer confidence votes and more free votes in the House so that we can reflect on what is best for the country, for the common good for Canada and for all their constituents. It goes without saying that House of Commons committees should have more power and independence in terms of initiating and timetabling legislation and in the free vote of committee chairs.

Those are just some of the things that are important. Added to that is the motion the other day by the Leader of the Opposition to have an independent ethics counsellor reporting to the House of Commons and not to the Prime Minister.

That is the sort of package my party and I look at in terms of providing a bigger democracy and more democracy in terms of our electoral and parliamentary systems. In addition, we need more economic democracy in terms of the power that transnational corporations take away from ordinary people and from governments in trade deals and the like. However that is another issue for another day.

Could the hon. member sum up her vision or her party's vision of a bigger democracy in terms of our electoral and parliamentary systems?

[Supply, February 20th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member who has just spoken, my colleague from Windsor—St. Clair and another member of the Reform Party represent almost half of the voters in the province of Ontario and 100 Liberals represent the other half, which shows the great distortion in our electoral system.

I will make a couple of other comments and ask for a response from the member from Ontario. In terms of referenda, I think we should use them very sparingly in our political system. My party and I would only use them for great issues of the day such as a constitutional issue and maybe one or two other exceptions. I think we could have too many referenda.

I believe the power of the Prime Minister's Office is much too strong, with the power to appoint by himself or herself all the judges, the head of the military or the RCMP and other major appointments. Many of these should be vetted by a parliamentary committee that is relevant to the issue being discussed. I also believe that we should have fixed election dates constitutionally to take away that power from the premiers and the Prime Minister both at the federal and the provincial level.

I think we should have fewer confidence votes in the House of Commons and stronger parliamentary committees with more independence to set their own legislative timetable.

These are some of the other reforms that should go along with the idea of looking at proportional representation and getting rid of the unelected Senate.

[Supply, February 20th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of comments. The hon. member said that never has a member of the NDP or the Conservative Party voted against the party stand. If we look at history that is not the case.

In 1980 I was the constitutional critic for the party. When Mr. Trudeau tried to unilaterally repatriate the constitution, I resigned as critic. There were four of us who voted against the stand of the caucus at the time. There are many cases throughout history where that has happened, and in the Conservative Party as well.

I wanted to ask the member about majority governments. He said one reason he wants the status quo is that he likes to have majority governments. I could also make the assertion that many of Canada's minority governments have been very productive.

Lester Pearson was never the leader of a majority government. He became prime minister in 1963 with a minority. He won again in 1965 with a minority and he stayed on as a minority prime minister until he retired in 1968. That was probably one of the best periods in Canada's history in terms of good progressive government that reflected the country as a whole.

The Trudeau government between 1972 and 1974 was also a minority government. The most productive of the parliaments that Mr. Trudeau led was probably 1972 to 1974. One reason was that there had to be some give and take and consensus with the opposition parties to reflect the country as a whole better than a majority government often does when it is bulked up in certain regions.

The last thing I wanted to ask the member about was the Senate. It is an institution that is, by definition, not democratic. What will we do about the Senate? Only about 5% of Canadians who have been polled support the existing Senate.

[Supply, February 20th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, this period of time is for either questions or comments. I said I had a comment. This demonstrates the need in our country when there are 100 countries in the world that have an element of PR in their lower houses or in their house if they are a unicameral system. Other countries, like Australia, have it in the other house, the senate, where all the members are chosen by PR.

This is extremely relevant in terms of looking at what we want and perhaps learning a little bit from other countries around the world. We may not have all the solutions in Canada. Perhaps the Germans, the Scandinavians or others have some answers to the questions we are looking at.

Would the member for Saint John like to comment on the fact that so many other countries have at least an element of PR?

[Supply, February 20th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a comment in terms of our electoral system compared to the rest of the world. I have a list of 98 countries that have a proportional representation system or a semi-proportional representation system in their legislatures dependent on whether they are a unicameral state or, in the lower house, of a bicameral state like we have in our country.

There are also countries that have proportional representation in the second House. Australia, for example, has first past the post in the lower house and they have proportional representation in the senate. Most countries in the world do have a system that has PR.

I would like to take a minute to place on the record some of the countries that do have a PR system. They are: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, and Venezuela, just to mention a few. Since PR—

[Supply, February 20th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to ask a question of the hon. member of the Bloc Quebecois.

If I recall correctly, some time ago, when he was the Premier of Quebec and leader of the Parti Quebecois, René Lévesque was in favour of proportional representation. I am certain that all members of the Bloc Quebecois share Mr. Lévesque's point of view.

Is the Bloc Quebecois whip in favour of a particular model of proportional representation? This is my first question.

My second relates to Australia, which has the same system for the House of Commons and also a Senate that is elected by a system of proportional representation. That would be another way to go.

Today, we are having a discussion just on the principle of proportional representation. There are, however, a number of models of this, including the Italian, German, Australian, and English models. There are a variety of models, therefore.

If we had an agreement in principle to use certain elements of this system here, we could have an important discussion on the which model we could have in Canada. This is why I have these questions for my friend and colleague from the Bloc Quebecois.

Is he in favour now of a model for the system of proportional representation and what does he want to see done with the Senate, which is not elected? Do we need to have elections for the Senate? What could we do about that other institution?

[Supply, February 20th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the member who just spoke has been fighting the B.C. election that is going to come in a few weeks' time, and I find it very strange that he would also talk about why we are once again putting the motion forward.

The Library of Parliament tells us that the last time there was a vote on PR in this parliament was in 1923. The last time it was debated as a private member's initiative prior to last fall, when I had a motion that was votable before the House, was in 1979 when Jean-Luc Pepin, who was a Liberal member at the time, had a non-votable motion on looking at the wisdom of the PR system being part of our electoral system in Canada.

Last fall my Motion No. 155, which was votable and was similar to the motion today, asked to strike an all party committee to look at the wisdom of looking at elements of PR for our system. This initiative has hardly ever been discussed in the Parliament of Canada, so I am very surprised the member would be criticizing us for putting forth an idea that has hardly ever been talked about before. Just last week the member's own party had a motion in the House dealing with the ethics counsellor. That was a repetitive thing too because that was a promise of the Liberal Party in the 1993 red book. The argument he is making is a rather strange one indeed.

I want to ask the hon. member specifically about proportional representation. He has studied the New Zealand system and I would like to have him tell the House what kind of model of PR he would think is relevant for our country. We are a unique federation. We have the uniqueness and distinctiveness of Quebec. Geographically we are the second largest country in the world outside of Russia. We have very diverse histories and so on. What kind of a model would he suggest we look at if indeed we did have an all-party committee to take a look at this?

I also remind the House that I think the chief electoral officer has a mandate in which he could look at PR. Therefore all we need to do is strike a committee to look at various electoral systems. I wonder what contribution he would make in regard to the kind of model if we indeed had such a committee.

[Supply, February 20th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There is such a thing as a rule of relevancy. No wonder people do not think much of the institution. We have a debate on a specific topic, PR, and we have a member who is hardly talking about it at all. Mr. Speaker, I would like you to call him to order and get him to address the motion before the House.

[Supply, February 20th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I hate to interrupt the hon. member but there is such a thing as a rule of relevancy. We have a motion before the House on parliamentary reform for proportional representation. I wonder, Mr. Speaker, whether you would ask the member speaking to be more relevant to the point.

[Supply, February 20th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the government House leader for his comments and want to refer to a couple of things he said.

He said that people want someone from home to represent them. I do not disagree with that. There are PR systems in the world, like Germany's for example, where there are single member constituencies with half of the members elected riding by riding and half elected according to the party's PR vote. In Germany, for example, when they vote they get two ballots. They vote for their local MP and their party of preference. They have what is called a mixed member proportional system, which compensates for these vagaries and distortions in the electoral system. In many ways they get the best of both worlds.

Even now I would argue that electors do not always get a member from home. The member's own leader, the Prime Minister, occasionally names candidates to run in various ridings, so we already have a system in which the party leader can refuse to sign the nomination papers of someone who is nominated in a particular riding and can parachute in a certain person. That has happened. I remember sitting on that side of the House when it happened. It has also happened on this side of the House and it happens today, so I do not think that is an argument pro or con a PR system.

The other point is the whole question of regional parties. I agree with the minister across the way. I like to have broad national parties with a national vision. I think it is good for the country in terms of knitting the country together, but a PR system could easily be designed, particularly in a federation where we can have regional parties.

We could have PR done on a region by region or province by province basis. I would not want to have a PR system where we took the vote of the country as a whole and apportioned parties in accordance with the national vote. My own preference would be the German type of system, which is a mixed member proportional system, doing it region by region or province by province. We could still have the United Farmers of Ontario or the Bloc Quebecois. We could still have a party in western Canada. What is wrong with that? We could design a PR system that fits that criteria as well.

I ask the government House leader across the way why he would not be in favour of striking an all party committee to at least look at the merits of PR and the kinds of PR models that might be relevant to our country. Almost every democracy in the world has PR of one sort or another.

We have a crisis in the country in terms of falling voter turnout, alienation toward the political system and a parliament that is very distorted in terms of its composition compared to how people vote, so why not take a look at this? Let us have a true political democracy wherein members of parliament can debate the real issues of the day. Is there any greater issue than the fundamental issue of democracy and voting? I do not think there is.

This also leads to all kinds of other issues, so why not have a parliamentary committee look at this issue, look at the various models and then make a recommendation? We have not done that in this country. If we do it, I would argue that we would be doing the Canadian people a great service.