Better is always possible. It is not on all of Parliament to be better and to make things different, it is on us. I say that because of the comment that was made that if we don't modernize, we're not going to see more reasonable people such as Ms. Sahota or we're never going to break that glass ceiling.
I always want to look for role models for my three daughters. I know I've mentioned this already, but I have three incredibly strong, very strong-willed daughters, and I always look for positive role models. I want them to be leaders. To me, it doesn't necessarily have to be a female role model; it has to be leadership role models. I don't want to make things easier for them; I want them to earn what they do. What we should be doing is creating the environment in which they can be successful.
I'll bring this back to one of my daughters, since we're going down this path. I have an adult daughter who is challenged. Her name is Kaitlyn. We have never treated her any differently. We have never made excuses for her. She doesn't know she is any different. She still has the same expectations as all our kids. She has to do the chores, grudgingly, as all my kids do. She has to do the things she needs to do to be successful. She goes out to work and she is one of the best employees. Let me tell you, every day I am so proud of her. She will live with us for the rest of her life. She gets up and trudges through the snow or she gets a ride from us or takes the bus, but she is punctual. She has done some incredible things. She could be sitting here today and you would never know that there is a disability there. She is smart as a whip in terms of working on a computer and the things she can do, but the issue is that there are things she will never be able to do. We know this. It took a long time for us, as parents, to come to terms with that.
My oldest daughter, my first born, may not ever get married, may not ever have kids. Our challenge was this—and I get teared up with this. As parents, it's not our job to make lives easier for our kids, but it's our job to teach them the ways to be successful. It's our job to guard them against people who are trying to bring them down and attack them and do those things.
I use that as a preface to this point where we talk about the gender balance and breaking that glass ceiling. I sometimes take offence at that. It's not because I don't believe we need to do everything in our power to make sure we have strong women, more women in politics. I'm going to give you the same answer I gave when I was asked at the time: there are strong women who are out there who would make incredible members of Parliament. I'm surrounded by them. We have women MPs in this House who are incredible people. My colleagues who are right here; I'm continually amazed at our members of Parliament, our female members of Parliament who have broken that glass ceiling, Mr. Chair, without the need of being propped up.
I don't want any of my kids or anybody else's kids to say they were given a pass to get into this. We have some incredible people on all sides who are strong fighters. I apologize, Mr. Speaker, because I've gone down the path here where.... I wanted to make a comment on this because Ms. Sahota said that if we don't change this, if we don't modernize this, we're not going to see more reasonable people come through those doors, and we're never going to break the glass ceiling.
I think there are other things we can do rather than take away debate or ram things down under the guise of modernizing. If that's truly what their idea is, then perhaps they should have said something, because I don't believe that was actually mentioned in the discussion paper, but I'll get back to that in a moment.
The other comment that was made was that the discussion paper was to ensure that every member's role was important. Mr. Chair, I would hazard that every member's role is already important. It's important that we keep the voice of our electors who chose us to come to Parliament and be that voice, not Ottawa's voice in our riding but the other way around.
She mentioned also that we don't want to see things change. I think that's wrong. Again, that's an incorrect statement. It's not that we don't want to see things change. I think, as my colleague mentioned earlier, it's not about not wanting to see things change.
An alternate fact that's thrown out there is that the Conservatives or the NDP members are afraid of change and that we are putting up the guard because we don't want to see anything change. That is not the truth, Mr. Chair. The reality is that there are things that should be done, but negotiations or discussions should be a two-way street.
I always bring this back to dealing with my kids or dealing with hockey players, because I'm a coach as well. I've coached sports for ever and a day. If I told my kids that they couldn't do something, they would skirt the issue and go to their mom to see if they could get something done that way. There is that trust issue there. We always told our kids that no means no. My wife and I have to be a team on this.
The reality of how we got here today is that the government members decided they were going to put forth a discussion paper. They didn't put it forth to the opposition for a true discussion. They tabled it through the media, “Let's have a discussion through the media.” There was no respect in that. Respect is earned; it's not just given. If it were truly a discussion paper, it wouldn't have been done through a presser and then, three hours later, through a motion put forth at a committee to review this.
Mr. Chair, I'm sure you can understand how that would get things up in arms and make us have a bit of mistrust, but it goes a little further back. Let's talk about how we can diminish trust. I'll go back to the conversation we had that night. Mr. Badawey said, “How come we can't just have this discussion?” It was a great question.
I think I answered with two things. Number one was trust. We can't trust that what is being said is going to actually be followed through and that we will actually have a discussion. Again, you shouldn't have to negotiate or discuss through the media. I think that was one of the things that were brought up. This all started with the presser and with issuing it through the committee. Another comment that was made was that it's all about winning and losing. I would disagree with that wholeheartedly. I think where we're at today is that we are all fighting for the voices of our electors.
It was also mentioned that we have gotten nothing done in the three weeks. Mr. Chair, to our colleagues on the committee and those who are sitting in, I would say that we have done quite a bit. We have defended democracy. We have stood up for changes. We have done exactly what those who elected us have asked us to do—to defend their voices, to make sure their voices aren't silenced. I think it's so important, as we move forward, to remember what got us here today. It was trust.
I went away, Mr. Chair, and I looked at how we got to this point. I was doing some research, if you will. There are so many different ways to diminish trust.
We all know that lying is probably the number one behaviour that diminishes trust. It also tops the list of what people say when they think that trust has been betrayed. There are things we can do, however, that do not involve lying; we don't need to deceive or manipulate to diminish trust, but can do it with simple, ordinary, everyday behaviours. I think it's important that we recognize that every government, every member of Parliament, every person wants to be perceived as trustworthy. I think again, to address Ms. Sahota's comments, that we all want to be able to work back and forth in a trusting environment. We want to operate with trust, such that if the government says they're going to do something, we can trust they're going to do it; yet we've seen that it hasn't happened on other occasions.
Often, we are blind to the impact of our own actions; we operate with an impaired self-awareness, if you will. We can diminish trust without even knowing it, if we blatantly believe that we know best.
I want to go back to the comment that was made earlier on about this discussion paper. Following media reports on the discussion paper that was tabled, the House leader said the more time she spends in this House, the more she feels its need for modernization. Well, I'm going to go back to my earliest comment; that far be it from a newbie who has spent 18 months in the House....
I don't know whether you've seen it or not, but often, even when it's not my House duty, I sit in and listen to the debates. I do truthfully want to hear all sides of the debate. I have suggestions. I think there are things we can do better, but I'm not quite sure that the term for them would be “modernizing”. I would not be so bold as to author a paper. I'm not quite sure that.... While she takes credit for authoring this paper, I would be interested to know that, for somebody...unless she has studied parliamentary procedure in a.... I'm sitting here not knowing what her background is, but I'm not quite sure that she studied parliamentary procedure in her former life. Perhaps this is something she may have had just sitting in the wings, so that at the time she was elected she could come in and—hallelujah—modernize Parliament.
It baffles me. She has a pretty weighty role, being a House leader, to have actually had time to author something like this. I know my schedule, in terms of the committees I sit on and the issues we deal with, and with our constituents. I've done some pretty incredible things, I would think, as a new member of Parliament. I have tabled four private members' bills, one through very collaborative efforts and with all-party support.
I'm very happy to see that my Bill C-211 was voted on at second reading and passed unanimously. I think we sent a strong message to our brave men and women who put uniforms on every day to serve our country and our communities and who are suffering from PTSD or mental heath injuries. I would challenge the government that it's been three weeks now since we all voted unanimously, and we need to get it to committee so that we can move this project forward, because we've done nothing, with the exception of actually creating more hope.
My point is this: that while there might be some good things in this paper—and far be it from me to pick at some of this stuff, and I'm not going to call her a liar, Mr. Chair, and far be it from me to say that—I can't honestly believe that these are actually her words that she has put onto paper here.
On that note, I do appreciate Mr. Simms' comments in the House last week or the week before where he talked about the time lag in seeing this. He admitted that he actually saw it beforehand. We've done a lot of work with Mr. Simms on our fisheries committee. He is chair of our fisheries committee, and I enjoy him and his self-deprecating humour.