Mr. Speaker, the intervention by the government House leader reminds us again of Jeremy Bentham's point that constitutional laws are not made by any one actor alone. It is made by the constitutional company. In the case of the reforms proposed for this institution, Parliament, the reforms or the changes will be made by government initiatives and by the contributions from the opposition and the other parties in the House.
The debates have been constructive on issues where we have had open debates as in peacekeeping and the cruise missile testing. I think it signals good opportunities for the House to get the constitutional structures of Parliament moving again.
We do so in the light of two great principles of constitutionalism of our time, the alternance which is very apparent from government by executive to government by assembly. My colleagues in the Official Opposition will know that this has been true of French constitutional history since the French revolution. The alternance between the strong executive power and strong assembly power is I think one of the phenomena of our times, a check against an executive deemed to be too strong, a reinventing, a recreation or a creation anew as in the present Russia of power by assembly.
The other is the principle of participatory democracy. One of the implications for that is a requestioning of old truths such as those uttered by Edmund Burke and often quoted in the House. It is perhaps important to remember that Edmund Burke was not the product of a democratic system of election. His career in Parliament was facilitated, made possible, by being named to pocket boroughs or rotten boroughs and so the comments on responsibilities to his electors was meant for a handful of people and not the great mass of people that we are facing today.
The constitutional company here very clearly includes the Speaker. This unprecedented process of election saw some of the candidates for the Speakership by invitation address the Official Opposition, the Reform Party and then the Liberal Party in which advances were made in the comprehension of the Speaker's role, that the Speaker has the opportunity not merely
by conduct but by judicious coaxing to speed Parliament on its way to renewal.
I looked at the role of the committee on management which is now the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. I looked at the description of its agenda, its mandate, and I see not a committee. I see a supercommittee, a committee on committees. I would have to say I congratulate the Official Opposition and the Reform Party for sending along very strong and thoughtful representatives to that committee, but I can see a capacity to change the whole system if they fulfil their mandate: initiative, right of recall, binding referenda, free votes, fixed election dates. That is a challenge and as a member of that committee I find it very exciting.
I know the Official Opposition will pardon me if I quote from Danton's address to the French revolutionary convention avoir de l'audacité, toujours l'audacité, encore une fois l'audacité. Constitutional boldness. Let us get the message and get working upon it.
Finally the House leader, because the initiatives are the government's and this was a very thoughtful address, if I may say so, steeped in parliamentary traditions, had never regarded himself as a prisoner of old rules, the dead hand control of old history. We use precedents to shape the future. We use them creatively.
I was reminded of this when there was discussion of the prerogative powers, the issue of the dissolution power, the issue of what happens if Parliament is defeated in the House. I was consulted in 1968 when in a surprise vote, a snap vote in the House, launched by an ingenious New Democratic Party leader, the government was defeated and the issue was must they resign. Much the same issue came up when Mr. Clark was defeated in the House in 1979 and seemingly assumed that he must resign immediately.
In fact, there was some suggestion the Governor General of the day might have tried to persuade Mr. Clark to take a bit more time before he rushed to what turned out to be his self-destruction.
It is a fact that the British House of Commons, from the 1920s onward, never regarded a House defeat as automatically compelling the resignation of a government or a dissolution. The precedents have to be examined creatively and in some senses we should perhaps recognize in Canada that we apply British precedents much less imaginatively and creatively than the British. Beware in imitating that we become more conservative than the people from whom we are borrowing.
Let me in that spirit come back to the issue of constitutional change, Parliament as a dynamic institution. We saw this in the debate over peacekeeping and cruise missiles. I would suggest that one of the issues that it brings up, particularly in relation to cruise missiles, is that prime ministers should be protected when somebody phones them up at five o'clock in the morning and says: "The fate of civilization hangs on your decision, you must join me in my adventure".
It is quite possible the fate of civilization does not hang on that decision. The man calling may have indigestion. In a situation like that it may be helpful to say that on issues involving foreign affairs one would like to consult Parliament. One could simply say: "George, go back to sleep again and call me at some other time".
I would like see a repetition of these debates on foreign policy, perhaps also a tabling of agreements, treaties and even executive agreements, as we saw on the cruise missile which now seem to be entered into without parliamentary consultation, unless as with FTA and NAFTA we follow the American procedure of submitting them as Congress did with special reasons to both Houses of Parliament, the fast track procedure.
One of the ideas might be to have all foreign policy acts tabled in the House before the formal act of ratification by Order in Council. I offer this simply as a suggestion that the range of possibilities is very great.
I listened with great interest to the comments of the Official Opposition on the tabling of Order in Council appointments. I would suggest, though, the issue is not tabula rasa. In an earlier capacity I gave frequent testimony, simply because the parliamentary committees were frequent, on issues of changes to Parliament. One of the things suggested was that a reformed elected Senate might be given a power of review and if necessary a power of rejection of these appointments.
There is a lot of good learning there. I am sure the suggestion made by the opposition that these matters be submitted to Parliament will come up for consideration. Let us have the consideration on a basis of the very valuable work that has been done and it may have a better chance of being adopted in Parliament.
The thing that is most impressive is the expansion of the role of committees, the giving to third parties, which means in this case the Reform Party, the possibility of initiating amendments in committees, the giving of the possibility to private members.
The work of this Parliament is so much done in the committees. Never forget that under the parliamentary system the committees have the power to compel testimony. They have the power to punish recalcitrant witnesses. The only thing really immune is the confidential advice within cabinet and possibly advice by officials to cabinet ministers. Everything else is within the parliamentary domain.
I hope there will be an end to these travelling circuses that we saw on the constitution. It is not participatory democracy when we get selected invited witnesses to appear. Parliament should be doing that. The real strength of this Parliament is in its committees. They are all party committees. I draw great hope from the comments by the House leader on this particular issue.
He believes in reviving the committee structure. It will mean more participation, a recognition that legislation is a dialectical process. Government and opposition contribute to it. It is better done in the informal give and take and compromise in committees than in the House in which our formalized debate tends to ratify decisions already arrived at.