Mr. Speaker, I have listened with strong interest to the debate of the official opposition and the third party. A number of good points were brought forward by them. A lot of them were idealistic in nature.
I will deal first with the last speaker. Certainly the party that wins on a platform and presents to the public a platform which is general in nature sets a direction. Like everything else in the world directions are not always achieved. Some are beyond the capability of government. Some reassess and set other priorities in their place. The world is always changing; that is the only constant we know.
It is disappointing when some things are not done which we want to see done. Governments of all types are not perfect. At the same time there is an intrinsic nature on the part of the government to try to do the best it can for the country. It is difficult. I have wrestled with it myself as a member. When do we represent our constituents and when do we really know that we are representing our constituents?
I held six town hall meetings every six months in my riding. I get turnouts of 70 to 500 people. However I do not get a consistent message at each one of the meetings. I believe the only time we would ever get some reality is if we had a little buzzer in every home to vote for or against. Then we would truly know how the constituents felt.
We can understand at some stage the reality of the situation. We can understand at some stage the reality that there are large lobby groups and there are small lobby groups. This is the reality we face. Those of us who are new come in with a tabula rasa. We feel we can make great changes. It is like trying to turn the Queen Mary with a 10-horsepower motor boat. It is very difficult to change the inertia because the country is so complex and the machinery of government is so massive.
We try to bring back what we hear through our caucuses. The reality is we are not always hearing the same thing in every riding across Canada. It disturbs me to hear the senior member of the Bloc Quebecois lecture the government on appointments. We have just seen perhaps the most wholesale changing, kicking out, firing and replacement of people in the history of government in Quebec when the Parti Quebecois took over.
We can speak with credibility if we have an example, but if we do not have an example we have to apologize in some cases for errors made in government. There will be many errors in years to come, but we cannot stop trying to make it better. We cannot stop trying to pick up on the good ideas presented in the House and putting them into action.
I believe sincerely that we should try our best. Adjustments are always made to a platform. There has never been a government elected that could live by every nail in its platform. Sometimes some of the planks have to be taken out of the platform and be repriorized.