Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. It seems we have achieved a consensus as to the pronunciation of my name. Hopefully that will be a harbinger of consensus to come.
I apologize for going back a minute. Mr. Graham started off this morning by referencing the attacks on our mother Parliament. At the time, I didn't make a comment on it, because I hadn't had a chance to get familiar with what was happening in the news.
It is quite striking, I think, that we're having this discussion about our parliamentary traditions with reverence and respect for our mother Parliament, recognizing the traditions that come to us from that Parliament, at the same as this terrible event has happened today. I want to express my solidarity, our solidarity, with those who are affected by those events, and certainly extend our best wishes to all those affected and their families.
I haven't had a chance to look at all the coverage, but there have been some remarkable stories of heroism coming out in terms of people, law enforcement, and even elected officials, who were stepping up to help in some way. In the midst of great tragedy, those stories are certainly an inspiration to us.
I wanted to briefly read into the record a Facebook post made by the former member of Parliament for the area I represent. At the time it was Edmonton—Sherwood Park. Before that it was the riding of Elk Island. Some of you, perhaps Mr. Reid and Mr. Simms and Mr. Bagnell, had a chance to serve with Ken Epp, who was, I think, an outstanding member of Parliament. He was someone who was always a great defender of our parliamentary traditions and someone who spoke in the House a lot. This was also the time before social media, so he didn't have the same opportunities I do to share his frequent interventions back home. He's an avid user of social media now, so he posted this, and I think it raises some important points about our discussion today. This is from Ken Epp:
Heads-up! The Liberals are pushing through procedural changes to (in their words) make Parliament more efficient. This is so transparent. You need to understand that the Prime Minister and the Ministers of the Crown (the Cabinet) form “Government.” Parliament is a separate thing—it's the place where the representatives of the people meet to discuss, debate, and vote on matters pertaining to their constituents—the people. In Canada, Government is made up mostly from Members of Parliament. (There is usually at least 1 unelected Senator in Government too.) Parliament is supposed to give direction to the Government, and the Government is there to implement the decisions of Parliament. But when you have a dictatorial government, then Parliament is an annoyance. So the Liberals are using their new plan to limit Parliament further. They want Parliament to meet only Monday to Thursday, 4 days per week instead of the present 5 days. Less debate, less questioning of the government, less accountability. Their words “greater efficiency” are simply a euphemism for “we want more freedom to do what we want and we don't want to go through the hoops of parliament.”
Consider how this impinges on the work of the Parliamentarian. It means more travel time and cost for each hour of debate. MP's from B.C., the North, and remote locations could spend up to 12 or even more hours on their travel to Ottawa, and then another 12 going back to their ridings. When I was an MP, I often thought of this. I was only 1/2 hour away from the airport, so home to hotel in Ottawa on Sunday was usually about 9 hours (via Calgary) and office to home on Friday was usually about 6 hours. There are others who would have to take connector flights or long drives. It is important for MP's to spend time in their ridings, to meet the people, to listen to their concerns, and to reflect those concerns in their speeches and votes. This new plan will mean that many MP's will not even get an opportunity to express their views on many Bills and Motions. There won't be time. Some MP's stay in Ottawa every other weekend, because their travel time is so long.... There already are “weeks out” when MP's can be back home for the full week. This is much more efficient because it reduces travel time and cost. These Liberals manage to get everything wrong.
Those are some words from an individual who isn't just someone speculating about the process. It is from someone who was a member of Parliament. Maybe Mr. Reid can help me with the exact length of time, but for about 18 to 20 years, Mr. Epp served in this place and was indeed a great parliamentarian.
I think he makes the point very well, and he provokes an area of conversation that we need to explore in the context of this whole debate, the question of efficiency.
As we go through the discussion paper that the government House leader has given us, there is a big emphasis on efficiency. It's interesting that in debates about the forms of governance, there has always been this allure of the concept of efficiency from those who see efficiency as the primary goal and that it is reasonable from that perspective to limit scrutiny, debate, discussion, accountability, the representative functions of Parliament, or whatever the case may be, in the name of efficiency.
There are those who look at dictatorial systems and think they are very efficient and perhaps envy that efficiency. I think this is a dangerous tendency. It's a dangerous tendency to look at dictatorial regimes or perhaps possible changes to our democratic system and say, “Yes, but they're so efficient.” When the Prime Minister made his now-infamous comment about China's basic dictatorship, I don't think it was just a joke. On the other hand, I don't think he was really saying he wanted to make Canada into a dictatorship, but he was expressing what seemed to be a genuine sentiment, which has been a genuine sentiment of various people who desire to claim or to draw from the supposed efficiency of more authoritarian systems. When you come to the conclusion that these kinds of systems are more efficient, you are vulnerable to move in a direction that involves the adoption of attributes of those systems.
The motion that we have in front of us without the amendment emphasizes an approach that I think conforms to that particular view of efficiency, in that it invites the committee to undertake, in response to a very stressed timeline, a study in which at the end of the day it would be up to one party to decide the way forward and it would then be up to the government in the House, which holds the majority, to further ram through those rules without requiring the consent of other parties.
To proceed in that way, without the amendment, conforms to a certain view of efficiency that says we have to put all these considerations aside with respect to accountability and with respect to the patterns and the way things have been done in the past. It speaks to that revolutionary tendency that I spoke of last night, when you have leadership that says, “Let's tear up what we've done in the past and come up with something new that we think fits.” In particular, it is a revolutionary tendency that's rooted in an attraction to the idea of efficiency as being an ultimate goal.
I was reading different things and watching some videos in between times, when I probably should have been napping, to stimulate my thoughts about this whole question of reform, specifically on efficiency. There was a good quote from a talk that our colleague from Wellington—Halton Hills, Michael Chong, gave at the Manning Centre a number of years ago about the issue of centralization and particularly the question of efficiency in government. He said centralized systems are efficient, but they lead to bad outcomes.
I think an enlightened notion of efficiency shouldn't just be about moving as quickly as possible, but it should take on board this sense of advancing as quickly as possible toward a desirable goal, because if we are moving quickly, advancing quickly, but we are not actually moving in the direction of a desirable goal, then we're not any further ahead. To put it that way, I think, should make the point rather obvious: we should not speak of efficiency as if it were a good, independent of a clear identification of the goals we are trying to achieve. Centralized systems allow governments to move faster, but by limiting the number of voices that are included in the conversation, they actually lead to bad outcomes, and the process of identifying the failure of those outcomes and undoing those mistakes makes the overall system much, much less efficient, so in the end we should not at all be critical of the fundamental ground on which our institutions stand.
Democratic systems, systems that enhance the power of the people and the decision-making process, may not facially have the same degree of efficiency as alternative kinds of systems, but they do achieve better outcomes, and certainly they reflect the values and the priorities of the people who sent us here. This question of efficiency is another strand that informs the broader debate between, on the one hand, the unamended motion and, on the other hand, the amendment we're proposing. Getting unanimity, getting the buy-in of all parties, is going to take perhaps a little more time. Perhaps the June 2 deadline, which seems to be fairly arbitrary, is not really going to gel very well with the need for unanimity, but I don't see the logic of imposing that timeline anyway. I think we need to first make sure we're moving in the right direction, and then move efficiently there and do so with the co-operation of all parties.
Since we're talking about British politicians and traditions, here is a quote from Winston Churchill. He has a number of insightful quotes about democracy. One of them was to say that democracy is the worst form of government except for all the other ones that have been tried. He also said it is not enough to say you have done your best; you must first know what to do, and then do your best. This is why we say it is important to have a large number of voices to have a meaningful process of accountability.
Members may be familiar with a Canadian history publication called The Dorchester Review. I'm going to read a fairly short article from it called “A 'Basic Dictatorship' Problem”, which discusses this very question in a way that very directly informs on a discussion of the amendment. How efficient are more authoritarian systems versus more genuinely democratic systems?
The Prime Minister of Canada has a “Basic Dictatorship” Problem. To borrow his infamous phrasing from 2013, Mr. Trudeau has expressed a disturbing and obsequious admiration for both China’s “basic dictatorship” and now for Cuba and its “longest-serving president,” Fidel Castro, who died on November 26.
In November 2013, Trudeau attended a fundraiser that the Liberal Party described as a “ladies’ night” involving “cocktails, candid conversation, and curiosity-inducing ideas.”