Mr. Speaker, I hope that the government will engage in debate on this issue as time goes on.
In the birthplace of democracy in Athens, the accountability of elected officials was through a process of recall which was by way of ostracizing wayward politicians. Wayward politicians were ostracized and not allowed to participate in public life and they were also sometimes exiled from the country.
I think a lot of Canadians would feel that we should go right back to original democratic principles sometimes.
Also recall has been a facet of the Swiss system since before its formal adoption in the 19th century. In the 19th century recall was by another name.
It was known as the imperative mandate. It is a device whereby elected officials can be subjected at any time to the review of the people who put them in office and I would suggest that this makes eminent sense in light of what democracy really is.
I remind Canadians again that democracy is rule by the people. We are simply the representatives of the people here in this Chamber. We are here because they have chosen us, given us the honour and the responsibility to represent their concerns, their wishes and their interests and carry them out on their behalf.
A lot of times Canadians feel that once elected, representatives simply disconnect from the people who put them in place, pay the bills and whose future is affected by their decisions.
I would also point out that recall is truly democratic because citizens can only recall their own representative, not someone else's. It is the people who put a representative in place, who have the wisdom to elect that representative in the first place, who should be able to have the say as to whether that representative continues in the position where the electors have put them.
I want to point out to members of this House that every other Canadian is subject to recall. If you are in a job or a position and you do not do it properly you will be booted out. You will be replaced. You will be given a pink slip. Yet somehow 295 Canadians who have a very important job, a very critical job, a job on which hangs the future and the well-being of thousands and thousands of Canadians, feel that somehow they should not be subject to the same type of representation and accountability and recall as every other Canadian. This simply does not make sense and it should be rectified.
People are cynical and disrespectful of politicians because they do not open themselves up to this evaluation. It is an axiom that if you want trust from others you must trust them in response. We hear this all the time when we are counselled about dealing with our children, dealing with staff in management situations and in all facets of human relationships. Mutual trust is so important.
Yet it appears that members of this House are not prepared to entrust their future and evaluation of their performance and of the adequacy of what they are doing to the Canadian public. This does not make sense and we need to re-examine our belief in the common sense of the people who elected us in the first place.
When we asked the Prime Minister of this present government about his support for the concept of recall his response was that Canadians have the ability to recall their representative in an election.
Canadians know well that a general election is not the most effective time for a performance review because that is the time when so many issues are at stake with not only individual representatives but really the party and the leadership. Other kinds of programs and policies are on the table. A performance review is such a very small part of all of the factors that electors have to weigh at the time of an election that it is not fair to say that is the definitive moment when electors should be deciding whether a particular candidate is satisfactory.
MP recall, I believe, would dramatically change the sensitivity of MPs to issues by shifting the balance from parties to people and that is where it really belongs. If a backbench MP could say to the government whip and to the front benches "I am sorry, I would like to support this measure. I know you are telling me to but if I do I am going to get turfed out back home because this is simply not supported by the people I represent", think of how much healthier it would be and how much more meaningful real legislation would be if it had to have the real support of the people we speak for and vote for.
That would be one of the healthiest changes we could bring to do something to really address the issues of the country in a meaningful way, in a way that meets with the approval of the people we represent.
There are so many reasons why we need to have the courage and the faith in the Canadian public to bring forward these direct democracy measures that I urge this House to reconsider, especially members on the other side, their resistance to moving in this direction and to support my colleague's bill on recall of representatives.
