SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 248

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 7, 2023 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 248 - Nov/7/23
Mr. Chandra Arya (Nepean, Lib.)
  • Nov/7/23 6:11:25 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, with respect to certain remarks that the member made, both in her motion text and in her speech, she said that the low voter turnout is due to the current first-past-the-post system. In my riding of Nepean and in many other ridings in Ottawa, the turnout has been consistently about 70% in the last three elections. The member also said that this is not a proper system for our country, but our country has been one of the best countries in the world in every single measurable index. A citizens' assembly would be an attempt at an entry through the back door into a proportional system. We have seen many countries with proportional systems, like Israel. Because of the proportional system, Israel cannot come to an agreement with Palestine. The biggest and oldest democracies in the world, like Canada, are doing well.
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Context: House Hansard - 248 - Nov/7/23
Ms. Lisa Marie Barron
  • Nov/7/23 6:12:29 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I did not quite hear the question there, but I would be more than happy to comment on what I just heard. First and foremost, something that I did not mention in my speech is that there was a Liberal convention recently. As members know, political parties have conventions. The Liberal members at the Liberal convention actually voted in favour of a national citizens' assembly on electoral reform. Therefore, I would ask the member to lean on his membership and perhaps move forward with what it is that his members are asking him to do. The other thing is that, absolutely, we have a strong democracy here in Canada, but there is so much room for improvement. If we look around Parliament in the chamber today, we will see just that. We know also that out of the world's 35 most robust democracies, 25 use a proportional representation, and another six have adopted an intermediate solution. There are proportional representation systems used throughout—
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