- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- NDP
- Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie
- Quebec
- Voting Attendance: 61%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $114,314.06
- Government Page
- Jun/18/24 1:13:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his remarks. I know how interested and passionate he is about democratic and electoral issues. We both sat on the Special Committee on Electoral Reform back when the Liberals were still claiming they wanted a different voting system, one that would be fairer, more democratic and more egalitarian. They have since changed their tune.
We have all reached the same conclusion regarding this bill. By changing the date of the elections, this bill will allow a number of House members to qualify for a pension. The thinking is that perhaps the Liberals have bad intentions. The Conservatives are criticizing the Liberals today, but most of the members who would benefit from the date change are Conservatives. The hypocrisy on both sides of the House is indeed something to behold.
The bill is not perfect, but does my colleague agree that adding advance polling days, improving voting by mail and special ballots, and allowing students to vote on campus are nonetheless steps in the right direction?
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- Jun/18/24 12:47:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Nanaimo—Ladysmith for her work and congratulate her on her speech.
What we are seeing today with this bill is the NDP once again forcing the Liberals to make our voting system more accessible. As my colleague mentioned, that is the least of it for the New Democrats, who have far more ambitious goals. She spoke of her Motion No. 86, which, unfortunately, was rejected by both Liberal and Conservative members.
My colleague also spoke about the Liberal Party's betrayal regarding electoral reform. The Liberals told us that the first-past-the-post system would never be used again. The New Democrats continue to promote a proportional representation system because it is fair, it fosters better democracy and it respects the will of the people and what Canadians want.
Why is having proportional representation so important for the people my colleague represents and for our democracy?
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Madam Speaker, my colleague is absolutely right.
If we look at the number of members that the parties get elected and the number of votes they get nationally, it creates distortions, as I was saying earlier. There was one election where it took an average of 35,000 votes to elect a Liberal member, 40,000 votes to elect a Conservative member, 80,000 votes to elect an NDP member and practically 300,000 votes to elect a Green Party member. It is completely unfair to the voters.
I think that we do indeed need to work together, collaborate on finding a better system that will be fairer for everyone and will likely produce governments that will have to work together. A proportional voting system is not just more respectful of the voters; it also changes the political culture.
I know that my colleague is keen on that notion and that idea. It creates parliaments that are less aggressive and confrontational with a lot more dialogue and consensus building. I think that is best for our democracy and it is also what people want from us.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for that excellent question. Earlier I said that I was part of the Special Committee on Electoral Reform, which travelled across the country to hear what people had to say. This is an issue that came up many times. I know that in my colleague's riding, people like to know who their MP is, sometimes so that they can congratulate him, sometimes so that they can criticize him, sometimes so that they can hold him to account and sometimes so that they can ask for federal government services. That is entirely appropriate. We could have a big discussion about that, but there is a way to maintain that contact.
Let us look at Germany, which has a mixed member proportional system. Half of the members are elected in local ridings, like in our current system. The other half are elected by a proportional voting system. Proportional representation corrects the major distortions created by a purely local electoral model.
Why is it that Conservative voters have basically no representation in Toronto? Why do Liberal voters have no representation in the Prairies? I think we also need to keep that in mind. There are models that can help us maintain that connection with voters while correcting problems with the system.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question.
It is true, there is still much work to do on this bill. There are still many things that need to be improved in order to make it easier to vote. We could, for example, make it easier to vote by mail and count the votes more rapidly.
Unfortunately, in the last general election, there were no polling stations on university campuses. We know that young people are the least likely to vote during elections, and students are part of that population. Depriving them of access to polling stations on campus had a serious adverse impact. We will have to talk about this. If someone does not know exactly where to go to vote on election day, the ability to go to one of several different polling stations in the same riding without being turned away would facilitate voting.
I think that all of the political parties want to improve our democratic vitality.
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