Mr. Speaker, I accept your ruling on the point of order. However inadvertently I do believe that the member who just spoke has provided some incorrect information to the House and I do want to put on record a correction in the context of speaking on the motion of the member for Beaver River.
The member has suggested that Liberal members of Parliament are somehow avoiding this debate. To this point an equal number of Liberal and Reform Party members have spoken in this debate. It is an ongoing debate. It is not just this particular hour. Four Liberal members of Parliament spoke on the issue and four Reform members of Parliament spoke on the issue.
I think that indicates clearly our interest in this debate. Nonetheless, this issue of a recall is a matter of Reform Party policy and so today we did feel that we wanted to leave the floor to the members of the Reform Party to explain their policy to Canadians.
However, having been challenged to enter the debate I am not going to by any means give up that opportunity.
I have spoken on this issue before in this House but I am pleased to do so again if the Reform Party members do not wish to use the full-time we wanted to accord them the courtesy of.
I have compared this legislation to a kind of instantaneous divorce and suggested that when I chose a spouse and I think when most people choose a spouse they do so very carefully and with great forethought, and they make a long term commitment to that relationship. Because it is a long term commitment, they tend to choose very carefully and take their choice very seriously and recognize that there will be in any relationship, a marriage or an elected representative, some good times and some bad times.
As I said at that time, I am sure that in 33 years there have been many times when had instant divorce been available either my husband or I would have taken advantage of it. Looking back on 33 years we will conclude that all in all the good times outweighed the bad and we are glad we stuck with it.
Participatory democracy is more than paying a buck to pick up the phone and register your opinion without the responsibility to engage in dialogue with others who perhaps have different opinions, or to consider other interests involved in the opinion you are expressing.
It is very easy to selfishly say "this is my opinion". It is not so easy to say "I have an opinion but I also want to know what the impact of that opinion is on other people. I want the opportunity to engage in dialogue with them about the pros and cons and the effects this will have on our society as a whole and, the bottom line, what is good for the country".
Members express a lot of concern about special interest groups. Frankly, one of my concerns about this legislation is that it does very much put members of Parliament at the mercy of very special interest groups that have both the social standing and the economic means to organize to unseat a member of Parliament because they do not like a decision that member of Parliament made. This has happened in many jurisdictions around the world. Sometimes that special interest group is the military which manages to unseat a whole government with disastrous results for its society.
Recall in fact has the potential to produce a very selfish citizenry who look at every vote from the point of view of what is in their interest and whether the member is serving their interest. It is not: Is this member serving the interests of the community or the country at large? Is this member sensitive to interests that are not his or her own? Are they concerned not only about today but about tomorrow and the next generation? That is what we are here for. It is not to please people in the very short term. We are here to try and listen to our constituents and do what is best for them, for our country and for all citizens.
This government has taken significant measures to ensure that in fact democracy is not simply a question of what happens at the ballot box and then go away and forget your constituents and they forget you. We have done our best to introduce ongoing participation in the democratic process.
I want to say one final word about caucus. I do not know how the Reform Party caucus operates. I do know that every Wednesday morning we in the government caucus have the opportunity to freely and openly express our point of view to our Prime Minister and to one another. Together we resolve those differences of opinion we have. When we come in here we do what we believe is in the interests of the country.
Finally, we made a commitment as a government. We made numerous commitments to the country during an election campaign. We want to be able to keep those commitments. We are working at that day in and day out. We need to have some solidarity of caucus to do that because that is what Canadians expect of us.
Let me just return to my main point in rising today. In the first hour of debate on this bill on April 29, 1994 there were four Liberal speakers and one Reform speaker. There have only been three Reform speakers today.