Mr. Speaker, I begin my speech as my hon. colleague from the Bloc has by once again chastising the minister and the department for the problem of timing.
We understood that the government had an agenda of more openness in government, more accountability. I remember hearing during the campaign: "We want to make Parliament work better" and yet at every turn we have what could almost be called obstructionism from the government. We are receiving inadequate notice of these statements and therefore cannot respond in substance. We cannot possibly hold a reasoned debate on the issue.
I believe that the work in committees is important. I was in a committee meeting where we were talking about the Lobbyists Registration Act and how to improve accessibility and accountability in government.
Ten minutes to the hour I received notice that the minister was going to make a statement. As the critic in that area I had to leave what at that time was very important work. I had no time to arrange for a substitute so no representative of our party is in the committee meeting which is going on as we speak.
Here I am talking about a statement which, admittedly, has very little substance so I do not need five days to look at it, but I really would have appreciated enough notice so that I could have organized my time today. I could have had substitutes in my committee so the real work of Parliament could proceed in a rational, orderly fashion.
I cannot help but applaud the initial statement because we want to keep these buildings up, we want to keep them in a safe condition, we want to be environmentally responsible. Those are all very good goals. However we need time to go through the cost estimates to see whether the taxpayers' money is being spent wisely. I do not know at this stage whether it is but we need some time to do that.
The minister has given some specifics. He indicated for example that we should repair some washrooms and remove the
asbestos in the ceilings. That is pretty good and I do not think we need to spend a lot of time debating that in the House of Commons.
I find it interesting that he made no mention of repairing the tunnel to the East Block. Perhaps he too is writing off the usefulness of the other place. I do not know.
When we talk of repairing and keeping the buildings up, an even more important point is that we ought to be looking at what is inside. The buildings are not nearly as important as the people and the individuals who work here, including the members of Parliament.
What we ought to be doing, because this type of thing should be passed very quickly, is getting on with the job. We need to look at the effectiveness of members of Parliament and whether we will ever in this place have free votes so that members can represent their constituents. That is one of the flaws that needs to be fixed in this place, that needs no public works but is very important and needs to be done.
I really believe that the minister needs to sharpen up a bit. How can I say that politely? This is the second time we have had 10 minutes or half an hour to react. Let us assure the people of Canada that we can run this place correctly and properly.
I would like to say one more thing about the process. This is the only thing to which I have had a chance to respond. I read this thing while walking over from my office, walking and reading, and the only thing I can say at this stage because of lack of time to analyse it in greater depth is with respect to the time.
I can hardly believe we need to shut down a building for three years while it is being repaired. That certainly is not the way things are done in private industry. If this were an office building and no rent was being collected we can be assured that whoever owned that building would arrange for contractors to do it. I do not think they would do it on the weekends but I assure the House they would do it much more rapidly.
The West Block has four floors. Surely crews could be assembled so that four crews per floor could work over the summer and the repairs would be finished when we came back in the fall. There is no reason that could not be done.
I cannot believe this is going to take three years. Maybe it is going to be a case of one dumb digger dug into the ditch, the other dumb digger dug out. Maybe that is what is going to happen. I really do not know.
There is an obvious lack of planning when it has been determined it will take that long. There is a considerable disruption to the operation of Parliament by having the displacement away from that building. We should be able to do much better than that.
I suppose that is all we can expect from the present government. We very much look forward to putting the Liberals into their correct place at the next election. Perhaps we will have the opportunity to do better.