I have the privilege of sharing a seat in the House of Commons with our Bloc colleagues. Dr. Garon is my seatmate. Sometimes we practise French, but I will stick with his advice right now, which is not to do it too much in public.
With regard to MP Blaikie's question, I think it's a great question. Perhaps the discussion of the fixed election dates and the Prime Minister's power...because it was former prime minister Stephen Harper who brought in fixed election dates and removed that power in a majority government for the Prime Minister to pick a time that best suits them. We have that.
Obviously, the fixed election date, as I understand it, still applies in a minority government as well, unless the Prime Minister loses the confidence of the House. We know that the supply agreement between MP Blaikie's party, the NDP, and the government prohibits the fall of this government before the fixed election date. Perhaps he could pursue that with his leader to see if he thinks we should have an earlier date. They can challenge that.
In addition to that, I think you could add a fixed election date. I know this is off-topic, but the chair allowed a question a little off Mr. Blaikie's motion. I think it was the PROC committee—I'm not sure which committee of the House it was—that was supposed to look at, or started to look at the government's promise that the 2015 campaign would be the last election with first past the post.
There are a lot of different views on that. Probably within each of the caucuses, there are different views about the best way to do that. I think that process started.
My own interpretation of it was when the government discovered, when they ran the numbers on the various scenarios and their thoughts for the day, that somehow it would not be advantageous to them. Somehow, they thought they would lose the thought that they were the national governing party and could naturally win every election under the current system. Strangely, and shockingly, they abandoned that promise, too.
I'm sure MP Blaikie was disappointed, as many Canadians were, that we didn't even see through the process to look at the options and have a good public discourse. This discourse would also have been in Parliament about that fundamental issue of how we elect parliamentarians and how we elect our government out of that system.
It is an area still worthy of discussion and review, without a doubt, as we are talking about the issue of ministerial accountability. I think it's fundamental, and I appreciate that MP Blaikie agrees with me, that ministerial accountability is fundamental to the successful functioning in our system.
In this report from the Treasury Board Secretariat entitled “Meeting the Expectation of Canadians: Review of the Responsibilities and Accountabilities of Ministers and Senior Officials”, on page 4 in the fourth paragraph, where I left off, the report reads:
Although Parliament does not exercise executive authority, it is the principal guarantor of the government’s accountability, scrutinizing the government’s policies and actions and holding it to account. Parliament has a spectrum of tools for doing this, ranging from its role in the passage of legislation to the review and approval of public expenditure to the interrogations of Question Period
These are important elements.
But while the specific tool may vary, the environment remains constant—that of partisan politics. Parliament and its processes are inherently political.
I would say as an aside, we sometimes hear people saying, “That's partisan” or “That's political.” Some people think that's a bad thing, but actually, it's a key element of democracy. All of us on this committee and all of us in this House join political parties because we believe there are certain solutions to the challenges the country faces.
We have different viewpoints. There's a reason why MP Blaikie is a member of the New Democratic Party, and there's a reason why Bloc members are part of that party. There's a reason why you choose to join the Liberal Party or our party. We all have different solutions and maybe, sometimes, different ideas about what the challenges are that face the country.
None of them are less legitimate than the others.