NDP Opposition Motion – Proportional Representation

2001-02-20

 

Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg—Transcona, NDP): Mr. Speaker, I am glad that the member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough is encouraged by the level of debate because to some extent, although I was encouraged by the level of debate coming forward from the Progressive Conservatives on the issue, I have not been encouraged by the level of debate coming forward from some quarters of the House. I think the attitude of the Liberal members on this has generally been far too defensive and not open and exploratory enough as to how we might address some agreed upon problems in our electoral system.

For the record, Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member from Winnipeg North Centre.

I am disappointed in the defensiveness of the Liberals on the motion. We made this a non-votable motion for a reason. We thought that we might create an opportunity for non-partisan debate in this place. There are legitimate arguments to be made in favour of incorporating some element of proportional representation and there are legitimate criticisms of proportional representation as it has been implemented in many countries.

It would have been nice to have had that kind of debate. We were trying to transcend the sort of cheap shot culture that sometimes develops in the House. Some members who I sometimes associate with a higher level of debate have disappointed me today by being so ready to partisanize the debate.

In any event, I want to pick up on the point made by the member for Souris—Moose Mountain. He was a member who did try to engage the topic and I thought he asked a good question of the member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough. He said that even if there were more members from the west on the government side, he had no confidence that they would be saying what he wanted them to say.

However, that is to miss the point. It is to miss the point that regions have diverse points of view. What the problem is in our current system the way it has developed is that it creates the impression that regions only have one point of view: that there is only one point of view from Alberta, the Alliance point of view; that there is only one point of view from Ontario, the Liberal point of view; that in the last two parliaments there has been only one point of view from Quebec, the Bloc point of view. The list goes on and on of times in which it seems, if we look at parliament, that there is only one point of view from a particular region.

I say to the hon. member from Moose Mountain that his question is a good example of the problem. He assumes that there is only one point of view from the west. Indeed, I think that is a characteristic of his party, which I sometimes find offensive, that is, the fact that it sometimes pretends to speak for all of the west in the way that western Progressive Conservatives once did. Even when there were three NDP governments and NDP members of parliament galore in western Canada, there was still this pretension, particularly on the part of right wing western Canadians, that somehow they spoke for the west. They speak for one point of view in the west, but they do not speak for all westerners.

What we want to see is a parliament in which that diversity of views that exists within regions, not between regions, is reflected here in the House of Commons, not just for the sake of accuracy, but because we believe that would lead to a parliament and a political culture that would be less divisive, that would tend more toward national unity, that would create fewer opportunities and less temptation for political parties to exploit regional perceptions, regional hostilities and regional grievances, both real and perceived, in order to obtain electoral success, electoral success in a particular region but often at the expense of a more national political success.

At a time when we are talking about national unity in Canada, as we always are, I suppose we could say, at a time when western alienation is in the headlines and of course at a time when Quebec separatism is still in the headlines, it would be very important for us to at least consider—and this is all the motion asks parliament to do—setting up a process by which we could consider ways in which we might, through electoral reform, alleviate the problem that I have just identified. We would then stop having, as I tried to say earlier in a question and comment opportunity, an electoral system which throws up, no pun intended, these homogeneous regional identities that mislead Canadians and lead Canadians into a way of looking at political parties and the political culture in their regions that denies the heterogeneous as opposed to the homogeneous nature of their regions when it comes to politics.

If only, and I say this partly facetiously, all provinces could be like some provinces that tend to have a diverse political culture and elect members from all political parties. I am thinking of my home province of Manitoba as a province that does so more consistently than others. There are other provinces like Nova Scotia which will do that, although sometimes a certain party gets blanked out there as the Liberals did in 1997.

My point is this, without wanting to get into the sort of parliamentary and political trivia of who got elected where and when, we have a serious problem in Canada in terms of the regionalization of our politics and the regionalization of our parliament.

What the motion is asking the House to do could be done if there was consensus, but obviously there is not. We were wise on two counts. We rightly predicted that if we moved a votable motion it would lose because the government has demonstrated no interest in this project. We wanted to make it non-votable at this point because if there was a consensus we could move by consensus or by unanimous consent. We wanted to make the point that we should be having this debate in a non-partisan context with the best interests of the country in mind, rather than the best interests of the Liberal Party in mind.

I do not make any apologies for being partisan. I have seen the smiles on the faces of the Liberal members. They are basically saying what the Prime Minister said to me last year when I asked him a question based on this very same idea. I asked him whether or not he would consider agreeing to an all party committee that would look at proportional representation. He said “the NDP always lose, no wonder they want a different system”.

Yes, we always lose, that is fair enough, and the Liberals always win, or so they think they do, and most often they do. It is a very successful political party. Surely there is a responsibility on the part of a political party with so much responsibility to ask itself just every once in a while, or on a day like today on a non-votable motion, whether or not there is not something that might be in the interests of the country which is not in the short term interest, or for that matter the long term interest, of the Liberal Party.

If the Liberals are interested in the whole question of majority and minority government, which is another thing talked about, I do not take it for granted that whatever system we might come up with will always produce minority governments. Some studies have been done that showed how one could have an element of proportional representation but would also still ensure majorities, except that those majorities would be more representative. Canadians would know that the people who were in that majority caucus were from right across the country and not exclusively from one particular region.

If the majority-minority hang up is the Liberal hang up, take that hang up into the all party committee meeting and look at models that might be designed to address that concern, rather than dismissing out of hand the idea that this would be a good thing to do.

I am very disappointed in the government's response today and in the response of some members. However, all in all it has been partly the kind of debate that we had hoped to achieve.

Mr. Peter Stoffer (Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore, NDP): Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague who is a long time veteran of the House of Commons. He has been pushing reforms like this in a very even handed manner. He is not saying that it will benefit strictly our party or diminish another party. He is basically saying is we need this debate for all Canadians.

My question for him would be how do we translate the debate today into the average Canadians' lives to make it relevant so that they can push their members of parliament to have this debate in the future?

Mr. Bill Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, one thing that would be nice is if this particular debate was being covered more thoroughly by the media. Maybe it is being covered remotely, anonymously.

Sometimes we are criticized in this place because all we do is engage in scandal mongering and partisan activity. When a political party brings forward a motion that tries to elicit an intelligent, constructive debate on a topic which elsewhere in the country is being discussed in an intelligent, non-partisan way and to the extent that we have, but not totally, I would hope this would be the kind of thing that would be covered.

This is a concern that goes right across the political spectrum. I say this particularly to the member for North Vancouver who spoke on behalf of the Alliance Party. I am told he was not at his best in contributing to the debate.

This is the kind of issue that brings together a Judy Rebick on the left and a Walter Robinson on the right, the National Citizens Coalition. I guess where it does not have any resonance, or so it would seem today, is in the so-called centre, the Liberals. I say so-called centre because the Liberals really are as right wing a party as we would ever want to find on most issues. They see themselves as exercising the modern equivalent of the divine right of kings to govern. It is that sense that comes from the Liberals that somehow they have this divine right. It is such an illegitimate divine right. It is a divine right that comes from very seldom obtaining a majority of the votes in any given federal election.

In answer to the question, we need to get out there and talk to individual Canadians about the need for electoral reform and for proportional representation so that they can make their vote count. That might not always be helpful to the NDP. I do not think we should assume that. There are people who would like to vote for the Green Party, for instance. They vote NDP now, where the NDP is competitive or either the incumbent is NDP or is seen to be a possible winner, because they see the NDP as being more of an environmental party than the other parties. However, if they could vote green and make their vote count, in terms of getting Green members into the House of Commons on the basis of proportional representation, that might be harmful to New Democrats.

We will all win and lose in various ways depending on the various permutations and combinations at any given proportional representation system and any given election. However, the real winner, if we do it right, would be Canadian democracy.

Ms. Alexa McDonough (Halifax, NDP): Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the hon. member for Winnipeg—Transcona for what I think is his hallmark to make an appeal to all members to rise above the short term considerations, to rise above the partisan considerations and think about what the objective of this exercise is and what is the objective of the debate is.

I know the member for North Vancouver used up half his time beating up on the NDP because we did not make the motion votable. We brought in motions that have been votable in the past. In fact, we had some success in getting the government to support some of our votable motions. For instance, we had motions on banning bulk water exports and advancing the Tobin tax. These have been helpful as a way of registering support but they do not necessarily get the job done. We get the support on the motion but the object of the exercise is to engage parliamentarians in doing what is right for Canada.

Today is an opportunity for us to advance that and for us to work together, not just opposition parties against government but hopefully all parliamentarians who understand that we have a crisis in terms of the low voter participation and in terms of how regionalized our politics are. One of the things that is very disappointing is that the Alliance Party says it supports the notion of proportional representation but what did the Alliance spokesperson do? He spent half his time beating up on the NDP for things that have nothing to do with this issue.

I would like to ask a brief question of the member for Winnipeg—Transcona. Frankly, it arises from a well known Canadian political scientist by the name of Henry Milner who said “It is one thing to lament polarization; it is another to insist on maintaining the very institutions that exacerbate it”.

Could the hon. member elaborate on how the kind of polarization we have seen in the last few years, that is surely tearing the country apart and taking us away from the focus on moving forward, could be cut down by a system of proportional representation?

Mr. Bill Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, if we incorporated some element of proportional representation into our system and incorporated it in a way that would led to the regions being better represented in all caucuses and led to less temptation on the part of all political parties to play regional cards in their politics, we would have a country much more inclined to national unity in its politics rather than to national or inter-regional hostility in its politics.

I want to second the sentiment expressed by my leader with respect to the member for North Vancouver. I know there is sympathy within the Alliance Party ranks. I have talked to individual members. I thought that this was the kind of debate that they would relish in terms of democratic reform. It would have been an opportunity for them to bring forward some of their proposals. Instead, we get the kind of performance that we got from the member for North Vancouver.