—or Mississauga, yes, so be it. We're not trying to rig, not that we have the power to do it.... We're not trying to get any kind of unfair advantage. We're not trying to trap the government. We're not trying to make some political point that's separate and apart from this. All we want is a fair, honest opportunity to look at this bill and for us to make determinations on what's in the best interests of Canadians and their democracy.
It is possible for us to put a deal together. If we were serious about this, we could do it in less than half an hour. Within half an hour of starting negotiations, if both sides were serious, we could come to a compromise. I don't see how the official opposition and the other opposition parties can conduct themselves in any other way and be more fair and more responsible than that.
If it were pure politics, we would have jumped up that motion even more. We would not have put the May 1 date in there. We would have been doing political gymnastics to make that happen. Instead, at every moment that I have an opportunity, I'm asking the government to talk with us, to negotiate with us to find an agreement, to get past this process issue, and to get on with the substance of the bill.
Chair, we do have a responsibility here as the opposition to ensure that all the components are as fair as possible. That's what Canadians expect. They like to think their majority government, in whom they've placed all their trust, would take care of their interests.
The beauty and the genius of parliamentary democracy is that the system provides an opportunity for Canadians to feel like they actually have a say in their law-making. That is one of the hallmarks of a mature modern democracy. Yet that simple little ingredient of democracy the government refuses to give; so as much as this is not where we want to be, this is where we're bloody well going to stay until the government changes its mind and gives Canadians what they deserve.
While I have this opportunity—it's not often we get to talk directly to Canadians—I will say that in a majority government, at the end of the day, the government will get their way. They have a majority. Sometimes it can take a little longer. We can slow things down. We stopped those trips from happening because we said that if it's good enough to go out on those matters with those committees and spend that time and money, then we think it's equally important for this committee to get out there. We don't have too many tools to make our case to the government to get their attention, but that's one of them, so we removed that.
Chair, you know as well as anyone that at the end of the day, the government still has the means by which they can move motions and use their majority government to get what they want. It's just going to take longer. What we refused was the sort of motherhood housekeeping issue of allowing unanimous consent once it had gone through the proper committees.
Our power—no, I won't use the word “power”—our ability to effect change when the government has set a course is somewhat limited at the end of the day. However, the nuclear weapon in a democracy is still the people. I've been around long enough to know that if enough of those government backbenchers get enough contact from enough Canadians that they're upset and that they want this to change and that they want a fair process, the backbenchers will report to that minister, who will then report to the Prime Minister, and suddenly we're going to get hearings. As much as they might want this bill, there's not one of those government members who's willing to put their seat on the line for it, especially if their constituents agree that they are not being fair.
Fair is not a powerful word, usually, but to Canadians it means a lot. We accept that there are powerful forces in society. People get to make decisions that affect us. The government has all kinds of power to take money out of your pocket and spend it any way they want. They can pass laws about what you can do and can't do, but at the end of the day, Canadians will only believe that those laws are theirs if they feel some ownership, if they feel there has been fairness.
The government even calls the bill the fair elections act, because they know the importance of the word “fair” to Canadians. They're trying to co-opt that, and I get it; we did the same thing when we were in government, and fair enough. What's not fair is to send committees all over North America, all over the world, even to study democracy....
I've used the example of the foreign affairs committee. Our vice-chair was part of the delegation that went to Ukraine. Ukraine is an important country. I've been on four international election observation missions there for presidential elections and legislative elections. I have as much vested interest in and compassion, care and support for Ukraine as anybody else in this country.
I know that Mr. Opitz is a leader in our Parliament on that, and I give him kudos for that. He does a very good job. He probably would have been one of the forces behind that initiative to have us go there, study that democracy, and issue our report.
Why did we do that? Did we do it just so a bunch of parliamentarians would have a nice little perk of a trip? No. We did it because parliamentarians were going there to study the democracy, issue a report, and then lend Canada's voice to the international discussion around democracy in Ukraine. That's why we did it, as a positive contribution to democracy on the international stage. That's something else Canadians are proud of. We don't show up with our army, and we can't always show up with our chequebook, but we always show up wanting to help.
If we're willing to do all that for Ukraine, as we should as a G-7 country rich enough to do it, why aren't we willing to do that for Canadians? Why isn't the government willing to show Canadian democracy and Canadian citizens the same respect that we collectively showed to Ukrainian democracy and Ukrainian citizens?
That's why I can only conclude that the government members have calculated that politically it is better to take the political hit and to live through these moments in which the opposition parties actually get the chance to have their say than it is to deal with what they think might happen if they leave the safety and security of the Ottawa bubble. That's why I say I think they're afraid.
This is a G-7 country whose government is afraid of its own citizens. Are the government members afraid they can't defend the changes? So, if we're in the north and we're seeing the processes that will actually be in place and we have a stark, clear vision that democracy is not being served and that this is hurting those folks who are afraid that's what's going to happen when we get out there, then what's the answer? Don't go out there. Stay here. Make it all just an esoteric argument so we're all nice and safe in here. We have security guards and we have spent millions on new security. It's all nice and safe here. We can make these kinds of oblique arguments about this, that, and the other thing.
It's very, very, very different if you're sitting up north in a community centre with the leaders of the community coming in and telling you hands-on how it is going to disenfranchise their community members. It's a lot harder for the government to say that's not true when it's right in front of them. I think they are afraid.
If they're not afraid of that, then they're afraid there might be some demonstrations. What did the government call it? A circus: that is what they thought of public hearings which Canadians come out to and especially if anybody would dare say something negative about our special little privileged government. God forbid that should happen. What do you do about that? Well, you deal with it in the same way you dealt with the other problem: you don't go there. You don't go there, because they can't get the picket signs as close here, because there are lots of rules and they're all nice and secluded and everything is all fine. They can manage that, but the idea that they might have to walk through a crowd that is not very happy outside of a committee room, oh, boo hoo. Boo hoo.
Try being Mike Harris's government when they had public hearings around their labour laws. I was there. There was the biggest circus in the world. I've seen lots of demonstrations. What I have not seen in my years is a government that runs and hides from its own people. That's the difference.
This government seems to think that if there are any demonstrations at any hearings, somehow democracy is being harmed. They have two arguments. One was, they said, that it was going to be a circus. By the way, outside the elected members, I'm not sure who they thought the clowns would be, but they called it a circus.