Madam Speaker, what is wrong with the House of Commons is very well displayed by what is going on in the debate today.
When we came to this place in 1993 over 200 members of Parliament were new. At that time we did something which all of us remember well. We were all on the list for potential Speakers of the House. In order not to be on the list of eligible Speakers we had to indicate so and our name would be taken off the list. It was open to any member from any party with any tenure.
The reality is for the most part the members with tenure in this place, members who had been here in previous Parliaments, were the most logical candidates to run for the position of Speaker of the House. Therefore it was only logical when the voting took place that we were voting for Liberal members.
It was a rather exciting evening in this place because the ballot went to three votes. There was a tie ballot after the second vote. It was a very exciting time. We made a choice and we have all lived with that choice. The Speaker who was selected that evening is the Speaker we still have today. We have all been very comfortable with the choice we made that evening.
Now we are discussing the appointment of a deputy chair. Why should deputy chairs be arrived at in any different form than the Speaker? That is the core of the question. If deputy chairs are strictly government appointments, then we are demeaning this place.
I would like to endorse the comments of the member for Calgary Centre. An appropriate vehicle in the current circumstances would be to have a nomination from the Bloc and a nomination from Reform. There is one vacancy. We could have an election. That would be consistent with the recommendation that was made. It would enhance the non-partisan nature of the Chair.
The British practice has been mentioned, which alternates the Chair positions between government and opposition. Thus, if the Speaker were from the government party, such as is the case now, then the deputy speaker would be from the opposition, the next officer would be from the government, and so forth.
The government knows that this debate is going on in the House today. I hope there is someone who is empowered to make a decision other than the nominee who was announced. It was assumed, from all signs, that his appointment would be immediately adopted by this House.
Who is making an issue out of this? The Reform members are. Why are we making an issue out of this? I have explained some of the background. Time after time in this House of Commons the Reform caucus has done its job. Reform has done its homework
and is representing the interests of Canadians. We are representing due process, or what we see due process should consist of.
We have heard time after time that we are the third party. Government members take great delight in calling us the third party. As an MP from British Columbia, I know what a struggle it is to represent all interests in this Parliament.
I believe in the last Parliament there were 43 or 44 members of the New Democratic Party in this House of Commons. I have talked to some of those members and I know what a difficult time they felt they had in this environment to get their message out. Under the circumstances Reform has done quite well in that regard. I make that point because an effective opposition in this place is very important.
There was a recommendation by an opposition member at the time in developing party policy which then became a government policy document. It was enlightened and would lead to one subtle movement toward creating a more non-partisan and better Parliament. We are seeing an attempt to cripple Reform and the opposition at every turn because the government feels threatened. This is quite inappropriate. There is a singular focus on Reform in this case because it is recognized as the only party that can replace the government.
Will the government accept the amendment the Reform Party has put forward today? I have a great concern that it will not. Why would I say that? Because the signs and symptoms are all there.
We have all had experiences at the committee level. I have been through elections and consistently I have seen that no Liberals have voted for adoption of a Reform vice-chair to any committee and all Liberals have supported vice-chairs from the Bloc.
In my last experience with an election in committee, at the time of the nomination of a Bloc vice-chair, I asked that the Bloc vice-chair explain his position on the northern Cree in Quebec should the PQ make a unilateral declaration of independence. That was a litmus test as to the suitability and appropriateness of whether or not that Bloc member should qualify as vice-chair. In response the Liberals said that it was irrelevant and voted against making it a debatable motion.
The government has shown on many occasions that it does not want to share and it does not want to consult. I endorse the idea put forward by the member for Calgary Centre that we have elections from the opposition. We will see how that stacks up for this deputy chair position, a non-partisan election, a free vote.
Why is it whenever the Liberals are held to debate on an issue, that if they know they cannot win based on the logic of the debate, they turn it into a procedural debate? That is what they did in committee when I brought forward a motion for debate about the northern Cree in Quebec. There was no attempt or any desire to upset the Bloc or to upset the Quebec agenda but rather than debate the issue, a procedural argument was brought in so that debate could be avoided.
If government members cannot turn it into a procedural debate, they turn it into a personality issue. We have seen that in the debate we are having today. Or they turn it into a partisan issue; we have seen that in the debate today; or fill in the blank. We just saw another fill in the blank which was to turn it into a medicare issue. I am puzzled as to how that relates to the election of a deputy speaker, but that is where we ended up in this debate.
Two-thirds of the members were new to this House in 1993. We have fallen a long way from that heady idealism of 1993. I would like to see us move forward. I would like to see this amended motion or some other compromise adopted, such as the one put forward by our member for Calgary Centre. We should not put ourselves in the position of entrenching that it will be done the way it was done before because that is the way it has always been done. That seems to be where the government is coming from at this moment.
If we look at western democracies, when Canada has a majority government it has every potential of having all the signs and symptoms of an elected dictatorship. We do not have the checks and balances of other western democracies. Looking to the south of us, the U.S. president is given a veto power. That is done for a reason. It is because they have a Congress and a Senate which act quite independently. They do not have the entrenched party discipline system we have seen from the old parties in Canada. It is a two-edged sword. In the United States, this has a tendency at times to handcuff the government but on the other hand, it makes the government more responsive.
What implication does it have for Canada? The major implication it has for Canada is that the party that forms the government has an even larger onus placed upon it to fulfil its election promises because we do not have all those other checks and balances. This was recognized very early by the Reform Party. It is why we set out such a detailed platform document prior to the last federal election.
I believe it was that document which led to the development of the red book by the current government. The Liberals had to have a platform to respond to our platform. We are seeing that all over again in the lead up to the 1997 federal election. Reform now has its fresh start platform. We are setting the agenda and we are going to see the Liberal Party once again do the same thing.
My point is, this is a singular contributing reason why it is so important that government-